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Germans on the Run: From Tsingtao to Skipton

Published on 14 August 2026
Submitted by Prof Anne Buckley

This presentation tells the little-known story of two German naval officers, Fritz Sachsse and Herbert Straehler, who escaped from the POW camp at Fukuoka, Japan in November 1915 and spent a year on the run.

They planned to travel west through China, Afghanistan, Persia and Turkey in order to get back to Germany. Covering an astonishing five thousand miles and almost circumnavigating the globe, they eventually arrived at a POW camp in Skipton, North Yorkshire where they spent the final part of the war.

Germans on the Run: From Tsingtao to Skipton
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