Greeting Card – New Year, Tatura Internment Camp
| Place |
Tatura |
| Subject | |
| Category | |
| Author |
Muffler, Karl Friedrich |
| Keywords |
Tatura camp |
| Current holder | |
| Item number |
HT 18092 |
| Access rights |
Digitised |
| Country of origin | |
| Language | |
| Period of reference |
1939 to 1944 |
| Description from source |
159 mm (Width), 102 mm (Height), Card with cut-out of Australia, bush background and Australian animals. No personalised details except for the handwritten name ‘Karl’). This is a New Year’s Greeting card dispensed by a ‘POW’ organisation in Australia for interns to send to family and friends. Karl Muffler probably sent this card to his wife Hilde during his internment at Tatura Internment Camp. Karl was interned as a German enemy alien at Tatura, from 1939 to 1944. This item relates to Karl Friedrich Muffler, qualified pastry chef and confectioner, born in 1900, who migrated to Melbourne from Germany in 1930, aboard the passenger liner ‘Balranald’. Muffler quickly established himself in Melbourne, commencing employment with Bill Ikinger (who had recruited and sponsored him) at his cake shop in Brunswick, as well as joining the long-running German establishment ‘Club Tivoli’. Muffler went on to establish his own business, ‘The Embassy’ in Malvern, and in 1939 married fellow German migrant Mathilde ‘Hilde’ Mayer. At this time they were members of the ‘German Labour Front’ of which Adolf Mayer (Hilde’s father) was president. On 4th September, 1939 Karl Muffler, along with dozens of other German residents (including his father-in-law), was placed into police custody as an enemy alien. He was transferred to Tatura internment camp and while there undertook woodcarving and drafting classes and worked as a cake decorator. He was transferred to a Forestry Commission camp in Broadford, and finally released in 1945. With no family left in Germany he decided to stay in Australia and became naturalised in 1947. After the war, Muffler accepted a position at William Angliss Food Trades School in Melbourne teaching ex-servicemen new skills in cake decoration. He maintained a connection to the German community though Club Tivoli and died in 1996. |
| Physical format |
Correspondence |
| Bibliographic citation |
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