English: Turkish Iron Crescent - Memories by Hinrich Detjen, Prisoner of War in Egypt Turkish Iron Crescent - Memories by Hinrich Detjen, Prisoner of War in Egypt Hinrich Detjen, born in Tarmstedt, came from a farming family. His brothers and sisters included three brothers and two sisters. Actually, the eldest brother should go to the military, because six children were not to feed. Because of an eye defect, however, was not fit, so that Hinrich entered the army. In 1909 he began his training at the infantry regiment "Bremen" 75th After the war he took over in Tarmstedt a restaurant along with ticket office. Incidentally, he was also active as a dealer. In 1933 he moved to Bremen and opened a second-hand trade. After the Second World War, he worked in the car trade. With his wife he had two children, a son and a daughter. He is described in the memories of his son Heinz as an honest merchant. In the war he took u.a. participated in the Battle of Tannenberg in August 1914. Far more formative for him, however, was his stay in Palestine in 1918. There he served in a special drilling command, whose mission was to go in search of water, which had become scarce at the front. He was awarded a Turkish Iron Crescent for his services as head of the Bohr Special Command. His experiences in the Middle East he recorded in his unpublished manuscript under the title "Prisoner of War No. 63583 or German soldiers under the Turkish moon". At the same time, he gives the impression of a human being always considered for his fellow human beings. So he writes how the English prisoners everywhere would pity her. "In no country have prisoners of war suffered as much as in Turkey," he says. This behavior was against him. "From the beginning of the war, my ultimate goal was to protect the needy and defenseless prisoners of war." He describes his sense of justice in yet another example. When he and a comrade at a train stop saw a Turkish major who was just about to punish his fellow with a stick, they stole the stick from him and gave him an abortion himself. They were satisfied that the major "could scream as well". The German soldier Detjen became a prisoner of the British in Egypt in September 1918. Among others, he was interned in Maadi, south of Cairo, where there were also soldiers from Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's African group. In his memoirs he describes diseases such as dysentery or the so-called black water fever, which became the greatest danger to the prisoners. When he returned home after his imprisonment shortly before Christmas 1919 through the transit camp Lokstedt, he drew by no means a bitter conclusion of his wartime. "I got to know the war not only from the bad and unpleasant side, but also from the good and pleasant side. I have seen foreign peoples, countries and continents, all through the war. "