Nazi Prisoners in America (2002)
Nazi Prisoners in America (2002) This History Channel documentary, written and produced by Sharon Young, focuses on the basic wartime decency and adherence to the 1929 Geneva Convention shown by the United States toward Nazi POWs. This behavior was first evidenced in the treatment of the Afrika Korps sent to America, because there was no more room for enemy POWs in the United Kingdom nor Canada. Beginning in 1943, more than 300,000 German soldiers were transshipped across the Atlantic Ocean by convoy. A year later, there were more than 400,000 in the United State distributed throughout the country in about 500 POW camps and facilities, with a majority of German POWs in Texas. A majority of German soldiers ate extremely well, were housed adequately, and were often put to work in agriculture and forestry. The officers were not required to work. Senior officers were housed so lavishly that their camp was known, according to distinguished POW historian Arnold Krammer, as the “Fritz Ritz.”
Discipline was indeed remarkable. The American Army decided to allow the German POWs to police themselves, as long as the camps remained quiet. Krammer points out that the tough sergeants required absolute obedience from the lower ranked men. If they stepped out of line or showed any signs of defeatism, a “Holy Ghost” squad would beat and sometimes murder their own. Six German sergeants were executed for such murders in 1946. POW treatment deteriorated after May 8, 1945, because the Germans were not longer POWs with Geneva Convention protection. Germans were kept in the United States for nearly a year after hostilities ended. Some later returned to America as immigrants. In all, wartime decency translated to several years of an enforced good life for these prisoners of war.
Robert C. Doyle Franciscan University of Steubenville rcdoyle@sbsglobal.net
