Background Photo's

No more progress in identifying the names so far. It is possible that I could be wrong in expecting the names to be either Naval or Officers. It appears at some point over a 1000 men were held and even if they were officers the camp also held servants who most likely came from the lower ranks(This is a different time after all).

But as part of my research I did come across an interesting book called German Prisoners of Great Britain which showed the prisoner conditions in Donington Hall (among others). It would be nice to think that some of the names memorialised in Castle Donington appear in these photo's, but that is probably too much to ask. The book itself is almost certainly a propaganda item, but like all such material probably contains some truths.

Anyway I display them here for information

Gunther Plüschow, SMS Bluscher, and Donington Hall

Started my information search by posting on Twitter and http://www.u-boot-net.de/  (A german Kaiserliche Marine forum)

One Interesting source that sets a background to the prisoners in Donington Park is from the only prisoner to escape from Donington Hall, a Gunther Plüschow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunther_Pl%C3%BCschow). 

His autobiography is available online (https://ia600301.us.archive.org/27/items/myescapefromdoni00plrich/myescapefromdoni00plrich.pdf) and there are some interesting points.

1. when he arrived the camp was for officers. This may of changed in later years, but one assumption for now that  is that the dead men are officers. It seems unlikely that enlisted and officers would be mixed at this stage

2 . He lists some of the fellow prisoners as follows "Some of the survivors of the Blücher, some from torpedo-boat destroyer:and small cruisers, and several fiying-men from the Army and Navy" 

The SMS Bluscher was a armoured cruser that sank off Dogger Bank in 1915 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Bl%C3%BCcher). There were only  6 officers of a total of 29 and 275 enlisted men of a complement of 999 who survived. Also Among those who were rescued was the Captain at Sea (Kapitan zur See) Erdmann, the commanding officer of Blücher. He later died of pneumonia while in British captivity.^[31] A further twenty men would also die as prisoners of war.^[32]

Erdmann is not one of names listed, but it may be useful to see if we can find a list of the other survivors.