by Ernest Zimmermann

It may seem a stretch to believe that an intriguing statement was all it took to launch the late Ernest Zimmermann, then a history professor at Lakehead University, into countless hours of research and investigation that eventually led to the publishing of The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior, but that’s the story, as he told it. As it turns out, his students’ assertion that there was a prisoner of war camp in Red Rock during the Second World War wasn’t horribly far off the mark. The internment camp at Red Rock, Camp R, did, in fact, exist, but it never housed any captured soldiers.

With The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior, Zimmermann gives an account of the political, societal, and military landscape at the start of WWII, that eventually led up to mass hysteria in the U.K., and the subsequent internment of any and all civilians of German ancestry, including vocal anti-Nazis and Jewish refugees. Not wanting to deal with these “undesirables,” they were eventually shipped to Canada, where they were treated with caution and hostility, due to England’s deception that they were sending “dangerous enemy aliens,” rather than civilian refugees. In framing the book in such a fashion, Zimmermann not only presents an extremely detailed history of Camp R, but gives readers a great frame of reference as to how people who, looking back, appeared to pose no danger to England––or, in some cases, were actively trying to aid in the fight against Nazi Germany––could be sent away to the “Siberian wastelands” of Canada, to live in constant fear amongst the Nazi majority in Camp R.

After Zimmermann’s untimely death in 2008, it was unknown if The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior would ever come to fruition, but, with the hard work of quite a few people––including the editors, Michel Beaulieu and David Ratz, whom Zimmermann requested finish the work if he was unable to––it’s here for all to see. If you have any interest in the history of the Thunder Bay region, the book is hugely interesting, readable, and comes highly recommended from yours truly.