板東俘虜収容所のドイツ兵が大麻比古神社境内に造った橋と公園

German prisoners in the Bandō prisoner-of-war (POW) camp made bridges and a park in the forest of the Ooasahiko-Jinja Shrine during 1917-1919. Details of the constructions were a 15 m-long wood bridge and five small wood bridges, four stone bridges, road with a total length of 1,130 m, stone embankments, slopes, two flights of stone steps with a length of 8 m and 3 m according to the record written by Adolf Deutschmann who planned and directed the work. Two stone bridges called Doitsu-bashi (German bridge) and Megane-bashi (glasses bridge) remain and the Doitsu-bashi has been designated as a cultural asset of Tokushima prefecture.
However, other constructions have been disappeared or became unclear now. In this study, we tried to clarify their precise place and history using an old map of the Ooasahiko-Jinja Shrine, photos and pictures of German prisoners, and interview to an old resident who participated in improvement of the forest around 1970. Results
indicated that the road and the stone bridge still remain in some part.
In addition to Adolf Deutschmann we found that Max Bunge was an important member of the work. He has not been noticed in previous studies of the Bandō POW camp, although he was a famous person in the German community in Qingdao by some heroic behaviors, and that he became a mayor of his hometown Heiligenhafen after he was released from the camp. He wrote about beautiful nature of the shrine’s forest and about his sympathy to faith of Japanese pilgrims who he saw during construction work.