Bandō prisoner-of-war camp
The was a prisoner-of-war camp during World War I in what is now Naruto, Tokushima Prefecture, Shikoku Island, Japan. From April 1917 until January 1920, just under a thousand of the 3,900 soldiers of the Imperial German Army, Navy, and Marine Corps who had been captured at the Siege of Tsingtao in November 1914 were imprisoned at the camp. When the camp closed in 1920, sixty-three of the prisoners chose to remain in Japan. Orchestra. A head of the camp Lieutenant Colonel Toyohisa Matsue created opportunities for the prisoners to interact with  residents on Shikoku. During their internment he allowed the prisoners to form an orchestra which performed over a hundred concerts between 1917 and 1920, including at nearby Ryōzen-ji. On 1 June 1918 the prisoners mounted the first performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in the country. This event is the origin of the popularity of the symphony in Japan, performed numerous times at the end of each year, and is celebrated annually with a concert at the Naruto Bunka Kaikan on the first Sunday in June, indirectly leading to the length of audio compact discs being over 74 minutes . German House. The or German House museum opened in 1972 to exhibit related items. In 1974 Naruto became a sister city with Lüneburg in Germany and the subsequent accession of further materials necessitated the move to new premises. A new building near the former camp opened in 1993.