In World War 2 battles were raging in just about every part of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Men died, were wounded, or captured. Many of these men that were captured were Germans. Of these prisoners of war, a few hundred thousand would eventually make their way to the United States and be imprisoned there. These soldiers would then become a part of different penal systems that were set up by the United States Army.
From 1943 to around mid-1946, German Prisoners would call these prisons home. In these prisons many prisoners were delighted to find that they would be well taken care of in comparison to their comrades captured by the Russians, or of any other Allied soldiers captured by the Axis powers. This was due to the great effort made by the American government to sort of hold our enemies accountable for taking better care of our soldiers that were captured overseas.1 However, not all was sunshine and gravy. There were problems with these camp systems, and each camp system was run differently. There were many different camp systems out there, but a comparison of two different camps will sum up many of the unique challenges each of these systems’ Commanders had to undertake to make it through the war.
In the western part of the United States two extremely diverse camp systems come to mind. The first of the systems was the Camp Algona system. This system was based throughout Iowa, both of the Dakotas, Minnesota, and it had 24 camps attached to it. Ft. Bliss is based in Texas and had 5 camps attached to it in other parts of Texas, and in New Mexico. Both of these camp systems had roughly ten thousand POWs pass through their camps throughout the war. Both of these camps had the same mission until the end of the war.
Their mission was to take care of these prisoners as was dictated in the Geneva Convention, and to do it by the letter.
Administration
The administration for each camp was similar in design, but different in execution. For instance the Camp Algona System was like the Ft. Bliss system in that both systems were setup with one main camp, and several or more smaller camps that were more often than not setup in other states.1 From these other camps the prisoners would be more effectively sent out to their daily tasks and their jobs for public works. They were different in that both camp systems had to be set up to deal with different challenges. Such as how in Ft. Bliss security became an issue, and the Colonel in charge had to tighten the noose around his prisoners to keep order. Meanwhile the Camp Algona system had to be set-up to handle supply shortages and had to basically send officers off to nearby organizations like the YMCA and the Red Cross to beg for supplies.
The camp systems were usually headed up by the Camp commander who was at least a Colonel level officer.2 The camp commander for the Algona system was Colonel A. T. Lobdell, the commander for the Ft. Bliss System was Colonel John K. Brown.3 Attached branch camps would usually have a 1st Lieutenant, on up to a Captain in command of the branch camp. The rest of the enlisted personnel would then vary from camp system to camp system. In the Ft. Bliss system, there were often more soldiers per prisoners due to more intricate and extreme difficulties from prisoners.
Each Camp system would also have a number of men assigned to observe the well-being of the prisoners. These men were government officials from organizations like the YMCA, and others that were brought in to the camps to check, and report on the progress, health, and well-being of POWs in American camps. Although many of the officials in the POW camps were from Switzerland, many of the officials were also residents of the United States. Officials from both camp systems seemed to want to do their jobs to the best of their abilities.
Unlike with the German or Russian prisoner of war camps, Axis soldiers could find themselves pleasantly surprised when they came to prisoner of war camps in the US. Every prisoner was guaranteed two blankets, sets of fresh clothes, three square meals a day, and the Geneva Convention guidelines to be followed almost by the letter in most camps.
WORK
No matter what the camp or what the time of year was there were always jobs to be done for the POWs. In the days following capture, enlisted soldiers were required to take part in work that was non-war related.4 Although not required to, many German officers and non-commissioned officers went to work as well. As is described in the Geneva Convention, all POWs are entitled to paid work that does not include the production of war-time materials.
One German prisoner actually wrote a complete account of his work. This man’s name was Walter Schmid. Before his capture he performed his duties in Field Marshall Rommel’s vaunted Afrika corps. Although he never even fired a shot in anger, he did get captured and sent to the Ft. Bliss system near the end of his imprisonment. Walter had apparently taken pride in his forced service and kept a diary filled with, among other things, a complete list of the amount of cotton he had picked during the harvesting seasons.5
In different places this would mean different types of work. The work that would be done was mostly for civilian companies and individual citizens who required cheap labor to get the myriad of tasks completed, when they needed to be completed. This would often include repairs to different equipment, agricultural work, factory work, and other odd-jobs that might need to be completed. The odd-jobs however, did change from place to place.
In the more northern regions where Camp Algona was located work could not be done completely all year ‘round. There were times in the winter when almost nothing could be done at all except to waste time with hobbies and reading. Usually, however, prisoners in these facilities could be kept busy doing many different tasks for most of the year. In the summer the prisoners spent their time (depending on the camp) logging, doing agricultural work, canning meats, and doing odd-jobs (like prisoners from Ft.Bliss) for local citizens.
Despite the facts that work in both camp systems was hard, and even agonizing at times, it was mostly sanctioned in the same way. Civilian contractors would petition the government for prisoners to work in their farms, factories, and others jobs involving manual labor. If the civilian companies/individuals are approved for the use of prisoners these civilian contractors pay the government for the work of each prisoner each hour. The number of prisoners sent to take care of each job is set by government officials and the OICs (officers in charge) of each camp.
From here the prisoners were dispersed and segregated into work parties whose numbers depended upon the number necessary to complete the job. In both camp systems the prisoners would not make money from the work itself. For every hour the prisoners were working they would get canteen6 coupons instead of spending money. These coupons could then be traded in for different things from the canteens such as beer and snacks.
It is not clear as to why the government would only give prisoners coupons instead of money.7 Records from this era, and orders that were recorded were grossly incomplete.8 If one was to venture a guess however, the assumption would be that if a prisoner was to escape, these coupons would be completely useless in aiding the prisoners’ escape as they would only be useable at the prisoners’ camp canteen.
Although this was not in line with the orders9 behind the Geneva officials, not a word was spoken in reports about any sort rule-breaking done by the government. Apparently, as long as the prisoners were being paid something resembling cash, the officials were completely satisfied.
CLIMATE
Of the many factors that determine how a camp is to be run, the most important rule is the same as that rule in real estate. The climate and location bring in line just how different each camp and each camp system was.
For instance, there were five different camps in the Ft. Bliss system. The camp at Las Cruces, New Mexico (where our friend Walter was stationed) had the primary job of harvesting cotton for the local planters. Just a few hundred miles east of this camp, the primary job of the prisoners at the camp at Ysleta, Texas was to do nearby farm work. This usually ranged from fixing farm equipment, to pulling weeds, to even bringing in the harvest.
Walter had this to say about some of his experiences doing farm work.
“The cotton picking hadn’t begun yet, so the farmers came and picked us up to help with plowing and other jobs. The cotton is sown anew every year in rows, which are then piled up, and the field has to be watered every five to six days.”10
Of the hazards included in climate, one the major ones was the extreme climate changes. Germany is a more northern country and so the climate change between Germany and the more northern Algona system was probably a welcome change to the heat of Africa. However, the German POWs down in the Ft.Bliss system had to deal with health issues like malaria and heat stroke. Couple that with the fact that harvesting and agriculture work is done all year ‘round in that part of the south and one can see why those prisoners had it rough.
THE PRISONERS
German prisoners in both of these camp systems had mostly come from Rommel’s’ Afrika Corps. Many of these Prisoners of War were grizzled veterans of battles of North Africa, and were no strangers to suffering. However, eventually Germans captured from the Sicilian and Italian campaigns would join their brothers already in American custody in late 1944.
Both the Ft. Bliss and Camp Algona systems had the same problem when it came to dealing with prisoners. The problem was what to do with them. Although most of the German prisoners just wanted to be left alone until the end of the war, there were always trouble makers. Most of these trouble makers were SS members.
The SS were the elite of the German army, and hard core Nazis. They had been indoctrinated into the Nazi ideal and were treated with a mixture of fear and respect by their fellow soldiers. Each SS member was given a tattoo under their right armpit to show that in battle they were to be treated for wounds first, and given authority over their fellow prisoners if captured. These SS members were necessary to the overall Nazi plans and were, of course, treated as superiors in camps, even if they were not superior in rank.
These SS members also had another objective while in the POW camps of the enemy. Their mission was to sow dissension among the other German POWs and lead them in fighting against the enemy cause. They staged work and hunger strikes, and organized escapes in every POW camp that they were present in. A perfect example of this sort of dissent is evident both our old friend Walter’s and Colonel Lobdell’s memories.
Walter’s experience went a little something like this.
“”11
Colonel Lobdell remembers his experience with dissent from different point of view.
“In a shipment of P.W.’S to our camp in January, 1944 there were 91 5.S. Troops. Most of these had been tattooed under their right arm pit. This tattoo was their mark of authority over our German prisoners. The tattoo gave their individual blood type and assured them the first treatment if wounded. The S.S. was an organization of about 2,000,000 men and women, its word was law during Hitler’s activity. These men stated that they had been mated with S.S. women for the production of S.S. children for the permanent governing body of the Nazi plan. These S.S. were insolent, insubordinate, and it was evident that the P.W.’s in our camp feared the new arrivals. If they refused to work I gave administrative pressure under the rule “no work, no eat.” The 91 under this treatment came out and started work as follows:
10 came out on the second day. 35 came out on the tenth day.
12 came out on the seventh day. 6 came out on the 26th day.
23 came out on the ninth day. 4 came out on the 28th day.
These were the last ones. They worked 8 hours putting asphalt on roofs before their diet was changed. These S.S. men told me they had gone longer periods in the open on the Russian front living on leaves, roots and what vegetables they could find. On bread and water the first three days are the worst, the eleventh and thirteenth days are bad, then there is no great change as the stomach has shrunk.”11
As one can see from the quotes, each camp commander had his own way of dealing with wayward Nazis that caused dissent, but this was not the end of their troubles. As the war progressed there were soldiers in the camps that expressed themselves as “Anti-Nazis”. These anti-Nazis often found themselves opposite the SS members and at times would come to blows. Eventually it got so bad that the prisoners who expressed themselves as either had to be separated for their own safety.
Now the problem of separating these soldiers from the other POWs became an extreme problem as more and more SS soldiers came in, and more POWs began expressing themselves as anti-Nazis. To keep the peace, both of these commanders came up with their own unique solutions.
In the Ft. Bliss system, Colonel Brown decided that the best way to keep the Nazi prisoners from causing trouble was to keep them from getting settled in one place for too long. The Ft. Bliss System had about half as many prisoners at any one time as the Camp Algona System, yet they moved to same amount as Algona through either their system, or transferred them to others.12 The solution that Colonel Lobdell came to was to push all of these trouble making Nazis into one camp13 and then keep them locked up together so that they could all be treated the same.
As it turned out, this was a brilliant stroke on Lobdell’s part. In comparison there were far fewer incidents reported in the Camp Algona system then there were in Ft. Bliss. However, this stroke of genius was not possible for Colonel Brown. Unlike Lobdell’s position in the Camp Algona System, Brown’s Ft. Bliss System left him with far fewer choices as to where he could keep his Nazi prisoners. In many cases, Brown seemed to be quite unlucky with the system he received, as even after it became obvious what the solution was to taking care of the Nazi presence in the camps, Colonel Brown was unable to do anything about it. Compared to Lobdell’s twenty-four camps, there was simply not enough room in Brown’s five camps to separate the Nazis from everyone else.
THE LOCALS
The views of those that surrounded the prison camps were especially important. There cannot be a greater difference of peoples as when comparing the northwestern position of Algona, and the southwestern position of Ft. Bliss. The difference of attitudes towards the prisoners is almost like contrasting day and night.
Up in the area surrounding the Camp Algona System, there is a town called Algona from which the camp gets its name. This town was built in 1854 and at the time was home to mostly middle-class farmers whose sons and fathers were overseas.
Down south things were a little different. As most Americans can tell a foreigner, southerners don’t really like Yankees, much less foreigners. Well, the white southerners any way. However, it seems as if many of the other peoples that the POWs worked for seemed to treat them with respect. In fact, there are reports of migrant Mexican workers actually becoming lifelong friends with some of the migrant Mexican workers that came to fill in for the workforce.
Although many of the southern white farmers did have family fighting in the war, they treated their cheap labor force with just a little bit less respect than their neighbors to the north. An interesting observation was made by our good friend Walter, and many of his German friends seemed to concur.
“Mexicans and blacks in New Mexico were second-class citizens, regarded only as cheap labor.”14
CONCLUSION
From one camp system to the other, German prisoners of war found themselves in places better than they expected, but still in imprisonment by a foreign power. While in not all circumstances were the camps that these soldiers were put into ideal, the camp commanders at least did their best to keep to the Geneva Convention without violating it. While not always successful, they did keep down the horrors that these camps could be and when compared to Prisoner of War camps of earlier time periods in US history, these camps were heaven in that comparison.15
Although not perfect, these camps put together recorded a total of around fifty deaths16, four of which occurred in the Algona system. Almost all of these deaths usually occurred from accidents, and disease with only one in sight that happened through foul play by fellow inmates.17 All together, it seems as if for once in this vast and complicated history of ours, we did okay. America did what she said she would do, and she didn’t do too shabby of a job.
Footnotes
1.) Ft. Bliss had five camps in both New Mexico and Texas. Camp Algona had twenty-four in Iowa, North and South Dakota, and Minnesota.
2.) At Ft. Bliss, the Camp Commander for the POW camps was under direct supervision by the commander of Ft. Bliss, while the Camp Algona System only had Colonel Lobdell in charge.
7.) The coupons would be worth the money that they made working at the camp canteen. The coupons were worthless otherwise.
8.) In the 1950s at one time or another, the US Army decided to go ahead and get rid of most of the reports from World War 2 and decided to burn them. Unfortunately I was unable to locate the order and only heard of this mysterious order by way of the Historians at the National Archives at College Park. Because of this much of the information from this period was lost.
9.) Department bureau of Public Relations on: EMPLOYMENT OF PRISONERS OF WAR TO BE BASED ON GENEVA CONVENTION. May 20, 1943.
10.) Walter Schmid, translated by Richard Rundell, Edited by Wolfgang T. Schlauch; Title “A German POW in New Mexico”; University of New Mexico Press, 2005, pg 46
11.) Colonel Lobdell, Camp Algona Society, “Algona P.W. Camp”, http://www.pwcamp.algona.org/,2001
12.) The numbers at any given time for both camp systems varied. Usually, however, at any given time Ft. Bliss often had around 2,500 prisoners, and Camp Algona kept around 4,000. These numbers are solely based on German POWs and do not take into account prisoners from different countries.
13.) He sent them to Camp Campbell, in Minnesota. The very most northern camp on the map provided.
14.) Walter Schmid, translated by Richard Rundell, Edited by Wolfgang T. Schlauch; Title “A German POW in New Mexico”; University of New Mexico Press, 2005 pg. 51
15.) I am speaking of course about the prison at Andersonville during the Civil War.
16.) The deaths that occurred included among them Italians, Germans, 2 Japanese civilians, and American personnel that died mostly from car accidents.
17.) An incident that actually occurred at the camp in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Four SS members accused a known Anti-Nazi of handing over German military secrets to American interrogators. These men killed the Anti-Nazi, and were eventually convicted of murder and hanged.
Bibliography
Walter Schmid, translated by Richard Rundell, Edited by Wolfgang T. Schlauch; Title “A German POW in New Mexico”; University of New Mexico Press, 2005
Steve Feller, Michael Luick-Thrams ; “Traces, We Bring Hsitory to Life” http://www.traces.org/germanpows.html , 2002
Wikipedia ;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ft._Bliss, 2001
Smith, Leigh; German Prisoners of War Interned at Fort Bliss During World War 2 ;https://www.epcc.edu/nwlibrary/borderlands/12_german_prisoners.htm, 2001-2007
Camp Algona Society, “Algona P.W. Camp”, http://www.pwcamp.algona.org/,2001
Werner Tobler, Legation of Switzerland, Department of German Interests; “Report on Prisoner of War Camp, Fort Bliss, Texas”; January 15 and 16, 1945
Harold M. Walker representing the Legation of Switzerland, W.H. McCahon representing the Dept. of State.; Dept of State U.S., Legation of Switzerland;”Follow-up report on Prisoner of War Camp Algona, Iowa”; March 4, 1945
Corporal Jakob Eckert Prisoner Spokesman; Dept. of State; “Report on well-being of POWs in Fort Bliss, Texas.”; April 12, 1945
Army service Forces; “Inspection of Prisoner of War Sub-Camps Recently placed under the jurisdiction of Fort Bliss report to Commanding Officer, Fort Bliss.”; 31 March, 1944
State Department, Bureau of Public Relations, Press Branch ; “Memorandum on the Employment of Prisoners of War to be based on Geneva Convention.”; May 20, 1943
Major Paul A. Neuland US ARMY; Headquarters Army Service Forces; “Field Service Report on Visit to Prisoner of War Camp, Fort Bliss, Texas, 12-14 April 1945, by Captain Alexander Lakes to Director, Prisoner of War Special Projects Division; 12-14 April 1945
Location of Ft. Bliss System Camps
A canteen
Locations of Algona System Camps
