Wellington - Letters a German naval cadet wrote to his sweetheart as a World War I prisoner in New Zealand are being offered for sale this week, a newspaper reported on Monday. Albert Paulsen, believed to have been captured at age 24 when New Zealand took control of the former German Samoa in 1914, was a POW on Motuihe Island off Auckland and later on Somes Island in Wellington Harbour.
His letters to sweetheart Emma Meyer talk about his desire to be reunited with her and his fellow prisoners' attempts to keep the boredom of captivity at bay, the New Zealand Herald reported.
Auckland philatelist dealer Warwick Paterson told the paper that Paulsen escaped from Motuihe Island with German naval officer Count Felix von Luckner, who was tricked into surrendering in Fiji after commanding the Seeadler (Sea Eagle) in 1916 and 1917. The ship sank 14 allied ships in the Atlantic and Pacific.
Von Luckner and a group of prisoners, including Paulsen, stole the camp commander's motor boat to escape in December 1917 and sailed nearly 1,000 kilometres to the Kermadec Islands before being recaptured.
Paterson said he acquired the letters as part of a bigger collection of postal memorabilia from the estate of a US collector, who is believed to have obtained them in Europe.
Five letters and five multiple-choice prisoner of war postcards from Paulsen are on sale for about 3,000 New Zealand dollars (2,100 US dollars) each.
Paterson said one of the rarest pieces is an envelope sent from Motuihe Island by German prisoner of war K Rudolph to fellow German Klaus Klink, another prisoner of war in New South Wales, Australia.
The letter it once held was lost, but Paterson said the envelope was one of the few examples of communication between prisoners of war held in different countries.
