Camp Blanding as German Latin American Enemy Alien Internment Camp in 1942: Microcosm of Larger Diplomatic and Moral Conundrums

Abstract

Abstract: Camp Blanding's Enemy Alien internment camp was only in existence between February and June of 1942. However, it presented its "German" Latin American civilian captives from Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Panama and their U.S. military captors with the larger diplomatic and moral problems that would confront the entire Enemy Alien internment program. Particularly troubling were the presence of "enemy aliens" who were deemed "enemies" of their Latin American homes and of the Colossus of the North, but who were really enemies of Hitler's Germany. Among the 200 internees at Camp Blanding were eighteen Jewish Germans, a Jewish Austrian, and a German priest. Deprived of their families and properties in the Latin American countries to which they fled from Europe, they faced the dangers of forced "repatriation" to a Nazi-ruled Germany in which Jews, self-described "Austrians," and outspoken Christians were declared "enemies of the Fatherland."