During one kangaroo court in Georgia, two pro-Nazi POWs charged an anti-Nazi POW with being an informant and liking American jazz. The U.S. government initially did not separate what Fiedler referred to as dyed-in-the-wool Nazis, who were committed to the National Socialist movement under Adolf Hitler. [7]:272. Photo by Buel White of the Post-Dispatch, The main avenue at Camp Weingarten lined by small barracks buildings in June 1943. Now called Dennis Whiles, Gaertner told Jean he had been raised in an orphanage, thus eliminating any questions about his family. New Hampshire's only POW camp. "It was a beautiful day, all looked so peaceful. "Established at Weingarten, a sleepy little town on State Highway 32 between Ste. Camps in the St. Louis area included Gumbo Flats in the Chesterfield Valley, Jefferson Barracks, riverboats, and an Ordinance Depot in Baden. The majority of the camps were located in the Midwest, South, and Southwest, and the biggest contingency of POWs 372,000 were German. This was not seen as a standing thing., The government realized early on that these men were not a threat of escape or destruction or other nefarious deeds, Fiedler said. ", When the first wave of POWs from Germany's elite Afrika Korps arrived in Mexia, Texas, the townspeople were dumbstruck, according toHumanities Texas. The level of instruction was so high that some German universities offered full credit to returning POWs. Other citizens wrote angry letters to the editor and staged protests. As noted in New Georgia Encyclopedia, the hard-liners doled out harsh discipline and attacked fellow prisoners for their lack of patriotism, among other offenses. The far-reaching 1929 Convention covered such things as camp location, punishments for escapes, and restrictions regarding POW labor. In 1942, the camp was reopened as a prisoner-of-war camp to house Italian and German prisoners. Consequently, fanatical Nazis were thrown in with anti-Nazis. Housed German POWs from the Afrika Corps after defeat in North Africa. There are military artifacts from the Civil War onward, including uniforms, armament, letters, medals, and memorabilia of all types. jmNR0|mD4wB6.B5 _7w!! Pfc. During World War II, more than fifteen thousand German and Italian soldiers came to Missouri. In "Icons of Insult: German and Italian Prisoners of War in African American Letters During World War II," author Matthias Reiss recounts numerous instances of racist encounters involving white Americans and POWs. As author David Fiedler explained in his book The Enemy Among Us: POWs in Missouri During World War II, the state was once home to more than 15,000 German and Italian prisoners of war (POW). About 2,600 German POWs were held there during World War II. endobj The Enemy Among Us: POW's in Missouri during World War II Hardcover - Illustrated, December 15, 2010 by David W. Fiedler (Author) 48 ratings See all formats and editions Hardcover $29.95 12 Used from $13.29 2 New from $25.00 During World War II, more than fifteen thousand German and Italian soldiers came to Missouri. Similar scenes played out across rural America, but over time, as noted in The Washington Post, many of these small communities adjusted to the POW presence. Prisoners of war did basic farm work such as harvesting corn or potatoes. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identifies sites such as Chesterfield Ex Satellite Pow Camp because they pose or had once posed a potential risk to human health and/or the environment due to contamination by one or more hazardous wastes. The camp, located south of Neosho, Missouri, was established in 1941. Despite the challenges of overseeing the internment of former enemy soldiers, the camp experienced few security incidents and conditions remained rather cordial, in part due to the sustenance given the prisoners. In 1985, Gaertner surrendered to the INS and, as a publicity stunt, to Bryant Gumbel on "Today." Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. Most Americans regarded them as curiosities, but there was conflict. In 1893, inventor Nikola Tesla first publicly demonstrated radio during a meeting of the National Electric Light Association in St. Louis by t. U.S. Army to establish a temporary side camp, under the ad-ministration of a larger main camp in Missouri, to house POWs at the old Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp near Shen-andoah. by <> Also the site of training for "The Ritchie Boys", European refugees trained there to go back into Germany and sabotage the war effort. Chesterfield Ex Satellite Pow Camp is a superfund site located at T 45 N, R 4 E, Sect. As chronicled by AP, on a September night in 1945, POW Georg Gaertner escaped from New Mexico's Camp Deming by slipping under a fence and hopping a train bound for San Pedro. Cook, Williamsburg R.; Daniel J. Schultz (2004). endobj List of World War II prisoner-of-war camps in the United States. Although her uncle died in 1970, records accessed through the National Archives and Records Administration indicate he was drafted into the U.S. Army and entered service Nov. 10, 1942, at Jefferson Barracks. Click here to learn more or join our conversation. Post-Dispatch file photo. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. As noted by Time, until 1948, the U.S. military was, like much of America, a segregated institution. The camp was enlarged to the point that some 5,800 POW's . You may come to the Missouri Valley Room to view it or request a photocopy from the Library's Document Delivery service. MVSC 940.5472 F45e. Pages . POW Death Index in US. ",#(7),01444'9=82. The case not only had a specially crafted latching mechanism, but was also etched with an emblem of an eagle on the cover with barracks buildings and a guard tower from the camp inscribed upon the inside. Camp was located in North Thibodaux along Coulon Road. Southeast Missouri State University Cape Girardeau, MO 63701 Phone: (573) 651-2245; Fax: (573) 651-2666; Email: semoarchives@semo.edu Guide to the Weingarten P.O.W Camp Collection . Photo by Jack Gould of the Post-Dispatch, A German POW on a boat camp in St. Louis relaxes and reads on his bunk. POW Camp, Co.1, Tooele (original postage). From 1942 to 1945, more than 400,000 Axis prisoners were shipped to the United States and detained in camps across the nation. 2 0 obj As that took place, about 2,000 acres (8.1km2) of the post was turned over to the U.S. Air Force as a buffer zone around Air Force Plant 65, a government owned-contractor operated liquid propelled rocket engine manufacturing facility operated by the Rocketdyne division of North American Aviation. The post is also notable as the birthplace of landmark LabVIEW programmer Michael Porter. Photo by Buel White of the Post-Dispatch, The chow line on a boat camp at St. Louis in 1945. From the start of the Civil War through to 1863 a parole exchange system saw most prisoners of war swapped relatively quickly. You can also listen to this Radiolab piece called Nazi Summer Camp, about prisoners of war in Idaho, or read this Smithsonian article about the nationwide POW movement. They decorated their barracks with their work. xwcy[9R^Z hF/!\Zf7!%% They were even compensated at the same rate of a private, at 10 cents per hour, which could be saved for their release or spent at camp stores. Glidden (left), commander of Camp Weingarten, looks across part of the 960-acre prisoner-of-war compound in Ste. In the mid-1980s, the remaining parcels of the former post were transferred to the Missouri Department of Conservation for wildlife management and outdoor recreation, the Neosho R-5 public school district for agriculture instructional farm, and the Missouri National Guard to operate a military training facility under license from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on 4,358.09 acres (18km2). ", As a result of Truman's order, many POWs ended up in the "unfriendly hands" of France and England. The Italian and one German POW who committed suicide rather than be repatriated are buried just outside the post cemetery boundaries. Post-Dispatch file photo, Some of the German POWs who were housed in a prison compound at Fort Leonard Wood in central Missouri watch an Army Signal Corps film of scenes from a Nazi concentration camp in Europe. Photo by Jack Gould of the Post-Dispatch, Two Italian POWs hang out their laundry at Camp Weingarten in June 1943. See. To disguise its purpose, The Factory POW staff interspersed pro-democracy tracts with fiction and other entertaining fare. Close to Fort Lincoln and held over 5,000 soldiers. McDowell notes the cigarette case is not only a beautiful piece that serves as a link to the past, but represents a story to be shared of the states rich military legacy. 7 0 obj Camp Albuquerque was an American World War II POW camp in Albuquerque, New Mexico that housed Italian and German prisoners of war. Camp Crowder, outside of Neosho, Missouri, Click here for a state map showing camp locations, Columbia fraternity houses on the MU campus, Hannibal housed in tents in Clemens Field, Riverside housed in the former Jockey Club racetrack facility. Although her uncle passed away in 1970, records accessed through the National Archives and Records Administration indicate he was drafted into the U.S. Army and entered service at Jefferson Barracks on November 10, 1942. Click here for a state map showing branch camp locations. Wxi7Enw{)}$yIOJ }E>kZkz6v;_c-dPc=lJeVP 2d}$uDOZeWEB{WHV>'HXDkX9F$j#h"6&U&Y{@G;hdGtDIWbRTo(BaA`cEln!PjYYN0S UJW)G)E*}!2HfK?8`P Post-Dispatch file photo, Two German POWs watch the film of Nazi atrocities during a mandatory assembly at their camp at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. As noted by Humanities Texas,methods of escape were as varied as reasons for trying and were occasionally quite inventive. Although the Georgia camp killers were convicted in 1945, Nazi perpetrators, protected by the Convention, usually received minimal or no punishment. According to American Reeducation of German POWs, 1943-1946, in 1944, as Allied victory appeared imminent, U.S. officials began to plan for a post-war Germany. He then took it back to camp with him and thats when he gave it to one of the Italian POWs.. The military exhibit wouldnt be complete without a salute to Nevadas Camp Clark. Camp Weingarten quickly grew into a sprawling facility to house Italian POWs brought to the United States and, explained Jefferson City resident Carolyn McDowell, was the site where one of her uncles spent his entire period of service with the U.S. Army in World War II. They ruled with an iron fist, ordering work stoppages and holding kangaroo courts. In March 1945, national radio commentator Walter Winchell claimed that Germans on Hellwig farm could sneak across the Missouri River into the explosives plant at Weldon Spring and blow the place up. As a result, their supervision relaxed, sometimes to the point of being unguarded and unwatched. This included 371,683 Germans, 50,273 Italians, and 3,915 Japanese. Last chance! The majority of escapees were captured quickly and without incident. Union leaders protested the use of POWs at a quarry near Pevely. Post-Dispatch photo, German POWs on a "boat camp" in the St. Louis area play chess and relax on the deck in 1945. endobj 3 POW compounds, 2 Enlisted, 1 Officer, Hospital Compound, American Compound. The front gate of the POW camp at Hellwig Brothers Farm on Gumbo Flats, part of the Missouri River bottomland in St. Louis County. In his written account (via The Fallen Foe), POW Fritz Ensslin, for example, claimed that many transferred POWs died in France performing "forced labor. In the United States at the end of World War II, there were prisoner-of-war camps, including 175 Branch Camps serving 511 Area Camps containing over 425,000 prisoners of war (mostly German). About 500 American soldiers were assigned to guard 3,600 Italians at the camp. At the same time, stories about Nazi violence and influence in the POW camps were beginning to circulate. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. To ensure its success in the camps, the project was kept top secret. The camp buildings are preserved in. In Kansas, according to Smithsonian Magazine, they stacked hay and did masonry. Beginning as a reception center for newly inducted draftees and enlistments who were issued the initial uniform clothing allowance and transferred to other army posts for initial testing and subsequent assignment to a basic training command. Germany's "Great Escape" was from a 200 feet (61m) tunnel by 25 prisoners on 24 December 1944. WWII. Some escaped out of homesickness, some out of patriotism, some out of fear of being returned to their altered homeland. Others were confined in small outposts such as Hellwig Brothers Farm, near U.S. Highway 40 on the Missouri River bottomland then known as Gumbo Flats. The camp, located south of Neosho, Missouri, was established in 1941. Copyright 2017 Vernon County Historical Society - All Rights Reserved. During the 1970sthe Rev. POWs mounted theatrical productions and played concerts. Now Tampa International Airport and Drew Park. There were comparatively few Japanese prisoners of war brought to the United States during those years and none were held in Missouri. In the early 1950s, local congressman Dewey Jackson Short, (R-7th District of Missouri) senior member of the House Armed Services Committee secured authorization and initial funding to build two permanent barracks and a disciplinary barracks and reactivate the post as a permanent installation, Fort Crowder. According toSociety for Military History, because of its scant experience dealing with POWs, the U.S. chose to follow the edicts of the untried 1929 Geneva Convention. <>/F 4/A<>>> This document is not available online. The POW was then moved to a camp in the United Kingdom before being placed on a troopship bound for Canada in October the same year. Her family eventually found a prisoner of war using it in the middle of the night to go meet a beau in the moonlight. Some 500 POW facilities were built, mainly in. Having experienced the "American way of life," some POWs sought U.S. sponsors or worked for U.S. occupational forces in Germany in order to return to the U.S. POW John Schroer recalls that he made his decision to immigrate upon seeing the Statue of Library as he departed New York. My uncle then gave the cigarette case as a gift to my father, who was living in Jefferson City at the time and working as superintendent of the tobacco factory inside the Missouri State Penitentiary, stated McDowell. According to Smithsonian Magazine, in 1942, as Great Britain was running out of places to hold Axis prisoners, the U.S. began work on creating its own network of POW camps. Readmore storiesfrom Tim O'Neil's Look Back series. Sub camps:Camp Pine, Camp Thornton and Camp Skokie Valley, each with 200 POWs. Camp Clark was established in 1908 and was used as an assembly point for troops serving in Central America, in the Mexican border war, and in World War I. Waste material generated from the former Fort include aviation and vehicular fuels, oils, greases, metals, paints and solvents. Each man had food and a change of clothing. With Short's defeat in the 1956 election, the fort lost its legislative patron and was deactivated again in 1958. Her research led her to Arnold Krammer, who ended up writing a tell-all book with Gaertner. Photo by Buel White of the Post-Dispatch. No Japanese prisoners were interned in Missouri. Cartoonist Mort Walker was also stationed there and drew inspiration for Camp Swampy of his Beetle Bailey comic strip. Levin, 31, and Straussberg, 23, resolved to skedaddle. According to theSociety for Military History, the last batch of them 1,500 German prisoners sailed from New Jersey on July 26, 1946.