An American soldier dispatched to a detention center located in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies learns he is to head up a group of translators for German POWs, some of them dedicated Nazis. The soldier was Kurt Landsberger, a Jewish refugee, who three years prior had barely escaped the clutches of the very men with whom he now had to deal. Arriving at a virtually empty camp, still under construction, along with four other translators, Kurt soon realized that the Army had neglected to prepare the camp staff for the tasks they had to undertake. Faced with daring escape attempts and brutal prison beatings, the inadequately trained guards struggled to maintain order. As tensions rose, the unthinkable happened: two German POWs were shot dead and the unlucky American guard was put on trial. Landsberger has amassed an impressive collection of court records, letters, declassified documents and photographs to tell this virtually unknown story.--From publisher description.

In 1943, the first great wave of Hitler’s soldier’s came to America, not as goose-stepping conquering heroes, but as prisoners of war. By the time World War II ended in 1945, more than six hundred German POW camps had sprung up across America holding a total of 371,683 POWs. One of these camps was established at the U.S. Army’s training installation Camp Cooke on June 16, 1944. The POW base camp at Cooke operated sixteen branch camps in six of California’s fifty-eight counties and is today the site of Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County. Compared to other prisoner of war camps in California, Camp Cooke generally held the largest number of German POWs and operated the most branch camps in the state. A large number of the prisoners were from Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps, as well as from other military formations. Under the terms of the Geneva Convention, the prisoners received comfortable quarters and excellent care. They filled critical wartime labor shortages inside the main Army post at Cooke and in the outlying civilian communities, performing agricultural work for which they were paid. On weekends and evenings, they enjoyed many recreational entertainment and educational opportunities available to them in the camp. For many POWs, the American experience helped reshape their worldview and gave them a profound appreciation of American democracy. This book follows the military experiences of fourteen German soldiers who were captured during the campaigns in North Africa and Europe and then sat out the remainder of the war as POWs in California. It is a firsthand account of life as a POW at Camp Cooke and the lasting impression it had on the prisoners.

The POW Camp at Fort McClellan, Alabama, was one of hundreds of American containment centers built to hold the hundreds of thousands of German prisoners captured during World War II. The camp's well-maintained and humane facilities gained it a reputation as a "model camp." Military officials praised its elimination of major operational problems. International inspectors commended it, calling it one of the best camps in the country. Prisoners accepted and even enjoyed their time there. Drawing on official documents and recollections of prisoners, soldiers and civilians, this book provides a personal and detailed history of a widely praised and admired place of internment.

Camp Huntsville was one of the first and largest POW camps constructed in America during World War II. Located roughly eight miles east of Huntsville, Texas, in Walker County, the camp was built in 1942 and opened for prisoners the following year. The camp served as a model site for POW installations across the country and set a high standard for the treatment of prisoners. Between 1943 and 1945, the camp housed roughly 4,700 German POWs and experienced tense relations between incarcerated Nazi and anti-Nazi factions. Then, during the last months of the war, the American military selected Camp Huntsville as the home of its top-secret re-education program for Japanese POWs. The irony of teaching Japanese prisoners about democracy and voting rights was not lost on African Americans in East Texas who faced disenfranchisement and racial segregation. Nevertheless, the camp did inspire some Japanese prisoners to support democratization of their home country when they returned to Japan after the war. Meanwhile, in this country, the US government sold Camp Huntsville to Sam Houston State Teachers College in 1946, and the site served as the school’s Country Campus through the mid-1950s. “This long-overdue project is one I started working on decades ago but didn’t finish. It is gratifying to see the book come to fruition through the efforts of these two history professors. And what a job they’ve done!”—Paul Ruffin, Director, TRP

Many rural communities in South Carolina share a place in World War II history that has largely been forgotten. From 1943 to 1946, towns such as Aiken, Florence, Camden, Spartanburg, and York were enthusiastic hosts for a special group of laborers: German prisoners of war. These prisoners from the North African, Sicilian, and European campaigns filled needed jobs, mostly in agriculture, all across the nation. In South Carolina, prison camps were established in rural areas where labor was needed in agriculture, the lumber industry, and a few manufacturing jobs. Prisoner labor was also used on military bases to free civilian and army personnel for front-line duty. By the end of W.W.II, over 425,000 German, Italian, and Japanese prisoners were interned in prisoner of war camps in the United States. In South Carolina, the War Department established more than twenty camps in seventeen counties housing 8,000 to 11,000 German prisoners. These prisoners provided much needed labor in agricultural communities and were often the only direct connection with the enemy experienced on the home front. prisoners of war and to analyze their implementation in South Carolina from the perspectives of the American officials, the German prisoners, and the communities that housed the camps. This book examines the history of prisoners of war in South Carolina, focusing on life behind the wire, the labor performed by POWs, and the impact of this labor in South Carolina, the adherence to the Geneva Convention, attitudes that influenced policies for the treatment of prisoners, local reaction to the POWs and their labor, as well as the prisoners' impressions of the conditions in which they were held.

The German POW camp at Concordia operated from 1943-1945.

During World War II, Kentuckians rushed from farms to factories and battlefields, leaving agriculture throughout the state--particularly the lucrative tobacco industry--without sufficient labor. An influx of Axis prisoners of war made up the shortfall. Nearly 10,000 German and Italian POWs were housed in camps at Campbell, Breckinridge, Knox and other locations across the state. Under the Geneva Convention, they worked for their captors and helped save Kentucky's crops, while enjoying relative comfort as prisoners--playing sports, performing musicals and taking college classes. Yet, friction between Nazi and anti-Nazi inmates threatened the success of the program. This book chronicles the POW program in Kentucky and the vital contributions the Bluegrass State made to Allied victory.