THE MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT | INDEX
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THE MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT | INDEX |
| A E EHRBACH |
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| E. Ehrbach was one of thousands of Germans who had travelled to Britain to settle before the First World War. London had a large and thriving Anglo-German community in the early decades of the 20th century, but a rising tide of anti-German racism from 1914 onwards threatened the livelihoods and sometimes the lives of these immigrants. A. E. Ehrbach, like many Germans in London, felt that he would not be forced to fight against members of his own family, who had become soldiers in the German Army. His Tribunal hearing in Wandsworth was probably very hostile as Tribunals rarely treated German-origin COs with anything but contempt, even beyond the shocking behaviour they exhibited towards British-born COs. As a master baker, however, it is likely that A. E Ehrbach's skills were recognised and he was passed to take up Work of National Importance as a Conscientious Objector. Though bakeries were in high demand during the war, he ended up doing market gardening in Letchworth, in effect removing him from a task where he could contribute to the economy and health of the country and putting him in a menial farming role of dubious worth. There were many puzzling and sometimes arbitrary decisions made in this manner regarding Work of National Importance for COs during the war.
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