"Professors into Propagandists": German POWs and the Failure of Reeducation

Abstract

During World War II, 380,000 captured German soldiers were shipped to the United States and incarcerated in prisoner-of-war camps. The U.S. Army ultimately established 511 such camps in rural areas and near small towns such as Crossville, Tennessee, Algona, Iowa, and Robinson, Arkansas. Most of the camps were located in states in the South and Southwest and on the Great Plains, although there were also camps in California, Michigan, and New York. People in these areas remember the POW camps. The Germans helped to harvest crops, clear forests, and build roads. In Louisiana in 1944, they harvested nearly 250,000 acres of sugar cane, and in Maine the next year, they picked five million bushels of potatoes. The POWs also worked in rock quarries and as plumbers, carpenters, and painters. Local citizens appreciated their contributions. A Texas farmer commended German POWs as just the best bunch of boys you ever saw in your life. Employers described them as cooperative, well-mannered, and good natured.' And in Peabody, Kansas, an Army officer cautioned farm wives against further incidents of baking cookies for the POWs and mending their clothes. Not all Americans, however, had such pleasant memories of the POWs. African Americans ruefully recall that the Germans, being white, were accorded privileges denied them.