A Home Away from Home: German Prisoners of War in Fond du Lac County during World War II
by Jesse Ruth

Americans often think of POW camps as places within which Americans have been imprisoned. For example, one can often spot a POW-MIA flag flying in remembrance of those captured or lost in the Vietnam conflict. Hollywood films like “The Great Escape” and television program like “Hogan’s Heroes” reinforce this point of view. In more recent times, when prisoners are mentioned, the focus has often been on foreign POWs imprisoned by Americans. The camp at Guantanamo used to contain al Qaida prisoners and other enemy combattants, and the notorious abuses at Abu Ghraib Prison in Baghdad readily come to mind. ¹ Many, however, are probably not aware of the numerous POW camps that were established across the United States during World War II to house Axis prisoners. Several of these camps were in Wisconsin, and Fond du Lac saw its share of German prisoners of war. At first the exotic nature of the POWs captured the attention of Fond du Lac residents, but the economic advantages derived from their much-needed labor sustained local interest. Because Wisconsin’s agricultural economy needed labor, the state utilized German POWs extensively. Ultimately, Wisconsin farmers and agricultural businesses and, arguably, the prisoners themselves benefited from their experiences.

The United States played by the rules of war in treatment of its World War II POWs. There were, of course, very real rules to be followed that had emerged out of previous conflicts. The Geneva Conventions established guidelines that stressed fair treatment of POWs.

During the spring and summer of 1929, representatives of the many nations of the world met in Geneva, Switzerland, to revise the codification of international laws concerning prisoners of war. These negotiations reached a conclusion with the signing on July 27, 1929 of the Geneva Prisoner of War Convention and the Geneva Red Cross Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick Armies of the Field. The 97 articles and one annex of the Prisoner of War Convention sought to lessen the rigors of war and to ease the circumstances of the prisoners. But some obligations were also imposed on the prisoners. Among other things, the Convention required POW’s, other than officers, to work for the benefit of the captors; however, the work could not be directly related to war operations, and it could not jeopardize the health and safety of the prisoners. The 1929 Red Cross Convention replaced the Red Cross Conventions of 1864 and 1926 and defined the status of captured enemy sick and wounded. These international agreements became the basis for treatment of prisoners of war for those nations that had signed the conventions, including the United States and Germany. ²

The United States Government followed these rules with respect to prisoners captured during World War II, and so it was that German POWs captured during the period 1942-1945 were placed into an environment that was infused with a sense of civility. Because the State of Wisconsin had been extensively shaped by the German culture of many immigrants, and because many of its residents retained a sense of German heritage, some POWs who were located in that state found their stay in Wisconsin almost pleasant. The camps located in and around Fond du Lac County were no exception in this regard.

Of course when one speaks of German prisoners or war, it might be better to refer to prisoners taken while they were in service in the German army. This is because it was not the case that Hitler’s Wehrmacht, or armed forces, was composed exclusively of German citizens or even of ethnic Germans. In 1944 the first wave of prisoners to arrive in Wisconsin probably was composed largely of ethnic Germans who had been taken prisoner during the North African campaign that concluded in May 1943. According to Allied records, it has been estimated that about 102,000 Germans were taken prisoner during the early stages of the war. ³ But as the Nazis’ empire expanded, their armies ballooned in size, and their military might incorporated thousands of inhabitants from the areas that had been conquered by the Axis forces, many of whom were not German at all.

The prisoners were Romanians, Swiss, Russian, Luxemburgers, Poles, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Arabs, Dutch, French, Austrians and included three Jews. Some were from Finland, Estonia, Belgium, Siberia, Lithuania and Ukraine. Most of these men were from countries overrun by the Germans, had been forced to fight by the Germans, and most of these men threw their guns down when they saw the American soldiers. They were in German uniforms so they were treated as German prisoners. ⁴

Overall, some 19,000 prisoners brought into Wisconsin had been soldiers in the German Army. ⁵ There were also more than 3500 Japanese prisoners brought into the state, most of them late in 1945, but local Fond du Lac newspapers made little mention of Japanese prisoners, apart from reporting the escape and recapture of six of them in three different incidents during 1945. The Japanese were held at Camp McCoy, near Sparta, and enjoyed few of the privileges of work outside the camps afforded to German prisoners. ⁶

Enemy POWs were held in almost every American state. There were 150 central base camps and 511 branch camps spread throughout 46 states. ⁷ Most POWs were held in Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia and Arkansas, but Wisconsin housed a significant number. ⁸ The Wisconsin camps were administered from Fort Sheridan, Illinois, which oversaw a district that included northern Illinois, Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. There were 39 camps within the state of Wisconsin, and each camp held from 150 to 600 prisoners. ⁹ As of April 1, 1945, there were 311,630 German prisoners in the United
States, and perhaps as many as 100,000 scheduled to arrive after that date, due to the need for their labor. ¹⁰ By June 23, the number of German prisoners in the United States had risen to 370,000, and there were also 50,000 Italians and 4,000 Japanese. Of these, 150,000 were used “in connection with military work,” including work in POW camps, 30,000 were assigned to labor for the air force or navy, and 140,000 were employed in agriculture, food processing, cutting pulpwood, and other labor. ¹¹

Typically, POWs were sent to a state, assigned to a camp, and worked as unskilled labor in whatever industries existed there. Wisconsin, as one might expect, put its prisoners to work in agriculture and related industries. The majority of prisoners worked in one of Wisconsin’s many canning factories, but some helped harvest crops or tended cranberry marshes. Since many Wisconsin men had gone off to war, POWs helped to replace their labor in order to keep the agricultural economy functioning. ¹²

Not only POWs were used to keep Wisconsin agriculture functioning. Laborers from Barbadoes (more than 100 in Fond du Lac), Jamaica, and Mexico all worked in the vicinity of Fond du Lac, Ripon, Brandon, Rosendale, and Brownsville during the war, harvesting sugar beets and cucumbers. Their rate of pay was 30 cents per hour, plus piece-work incentives, little more than half of the prevailing wages for American agricultural workers at the time, although they received free medical and dental care as part of their six-month contracts. ¹³ Their presence is a clear indication of the labor shortage in Wisconsin agriculture that made it attractive and profitable to employ the POWs in the state.

Besides aiding local industries, POW camps provided other advantages to their host communities. The camps provided jobs for local inhabitants and brought additional business to local stores, restaurants and landlords. Wisconsin communities all profited from the money generated by camp personnel and their families. In effect, the POW camps strengthened local economies and provided a sort of life support for many labor-starved and struggling Wisconsin towns and farms.

One of the many fascinating aspects of the American World War II POW camp story is that the camps actually paid for themselves. Few local or state funds were used to sustain the camps, and the only federal assistance was actually generated by the labor of the POWs themselves. Businesses that contracted to use POW labor paid the prevailing rate for agricultural labor, 50-60 cents per hour, and the Treasury kept all but about 10 cents per hour that was paid to the prisoners in the form of coupons that could be used or, theoretically, kept and redeemed for cash at the time of repatriation. It was estimated that it cost about 35 cents per day to feed each of the prisoners, compared to 85 cents a day to feed one of their guards. ¹⁴

POWs were paid 80 cents a day in chit (paper) money that could be used at the canteens. In some canteens they could even buy beer. The people who hired POWs had to pay the government for the labor performed. In 1944, the federal government made a profit of 100 million dollars from POW labor. Much of the money was used for feeding and housing the prisoners and for re-education programs, so the POWs were basically self supporting. ¹⁵

Working prisoners actually received 90 cents per day, because all prisoners received ten cents per day, regardless of whether they worked. The money the prisoners earned was often used for their education. Many times this education produced a sort of assimilation or at least attraction to American culture, which may explain why some POWs returned to the site of their incarceration after the war. American History was the primary focus of the educational curriculum, intended to provide the prisoners with new perspectives. In a sense, this program was analogous to rehabilitation programs offered in civilian prisons. It is also interesting to note that the “POWs were shown movies about German concentration camps,” presumably documentaries made after the camps were liberated in 1945. ¹⁶ It seems that the government not only wanted to give the POWs insight into the values of the United States, but wanted to give them a view into German misdeeds that would not have been available in Germany.

Starting in the summer of 1944, German POWs began to arrive in Fond du Lac. The prisoners were taken to a branch camp constructed especially for their arrival that was located at the Fond du Lac County fairgrounds. According to commanding officer Colonel William H. McCarty, the Fond du Lac camp was designated as “one of the 14 branch camps in Wisconsin for German prisoners of war to assist with pea canning and corn packs of Wisconsin.” First Lieutenant Harold V. Smith and Second Lieutenant Walter F. Dempsey were put in command of the new camp. Other branch camps in Green Lake and Plymouth were established at the same time. ¹⁷

At first, the newspapers were silent regarding the POWs, because a War Department regulation “prohibited the publication” of any news concerning a POW group arrival. Possibly this regulation was put into place in order to protect the POWs from possible violence, although it may also have been generated out of fear that enemy agents could possibly assist a mass escape of POWs. Efforts were made to abvoid contact between local citizens and the prisoners. The public was banned from the camp area, and special officers were assigned to direct traffic near the fairgrounds. However, despite efforts to maintain secrecy, some 200 Fond du Lac residents witnessed a procession of prisoners march down Macy Street, Court Street, Main Street, Fourth Street, Fond du Lac Avenue and onward to the Fond du Lac County fairgrounds. This march must have been an eerie sight. It was reported that the POWs marched in song as armed military police walked alongside them. Each of the prisoners had a prisoner of war stamp, simply a “PW” painted on their jacket, and they carried personal items; one man carried a mandolin. ¹⁸

The paucity of news about the camp generated some strange stories. Exploration of refuse from the camp by Charles Scheibach, caretaker at the city dump on North Hickory Street, led to a complaint being registered that the prisoners were wasting fuel by discarding partially burned coal together with the ash. Scheibach, who occasionally had an opportunity to converse with some of the prisoners, pronounced them to be very satisfied with their circumstances. ¹⁹

It appears as though POW groups were periodically rotated in and out of the Fond du Lac camp. This may have had to do with the fact that the fairground camp was a branch camp, as opposed to a central base camp, although the prisoners in Fond du Lac were there to help with seasonal agricultural labor, so it was likely that they would be moved when the immediate need for their work had be satisfied. About two months after the first group arrived in Fond du Lac, the camp was abandoned, and the POWs were relocated. Again, per War Department regulations, the destination wasn’t disclosed to the public or the press. At the time of the first POW departure, the citizens of Fond du Lac weren’t sure if there would be another group brought to the city. Adding to the uncertainty were reports that other area camps had also lost POWs.

Several hundred prisoners, who had been at a similar camp at Green Lake, left about a week ago for Michigan but the Sixth Service Command of the army at Chicago since has announced that the camp would be operated for the rest of the summer, presumably with other prisoners to replace the first contingent. No announcement has been made by the army as to whether there will be any further activity at the fairgrounds camp here (Fond du Lac). Prisoners who had been stationed at a similar camp at Beaver Dam also broke camp on Friday and left for an unannounced destination.²⁰

Fond du Lac’s uncertainty about its status as a host for a POW camp, did not last long. The fairgrounds camp operated through the years 1944 and 1945, at least until the end of the corn pack season in the autumn of 1945. Local newspapers kept track of most major developments at the county fairgrounds as groups of prisoners shuttled through the camp. Efforts were made to limit interaction between prisoners and local residents, but the 39 guards at the Fond du Lac camp were another matter. A July 3, 1944 Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter article described efforts to provide recreation for the men, sponsored by the Y.M.C.A., designated as the local U.S.O. center for the city, and local Girl Scout leader Mrs. F.C. Forbush. Assistance with transportation for the men was requested as well as donations of fishing and golfing equipment for the guards’ recreational use.

Despite the official ban, anecdotes and stories about interactions between the POWs and local residents continued to circulate for years after the end of the war. In the Green Lake area, POWs were once kept at what is now the American Baptist Assembly and Lawsonia. The stories most often repeated recount how local farmers with German ties brought food to the prisoners. Actually, the most vivid story describes how farmers’ wives baked bread and tossed the loaves over the perimeter fencing of the camp. While these stories are not documented in the local newspapers, they seem plausible, and they are certainly in keeping with similar tales told in other parts of the state.

The Green Lake camp was one of the housing facilities for POWs who worked in and around Ripon, Wisconsin, on the western edge of Fond du Lac County. By mid-summer, 1944, 250 POWs were kept on the Lawsonia grounds in Green Lake and assisted “in the operations in the Ripon and neighboring canning and vining areas.” ²¹ The camp was a great source of curiosity for the people of Green Lake, Ripon and the surrounding towns. There were also concerns. A month into its operation, in July 1944, the Green Lake Kiwanis Club arranged for an informational meeting to counteract any worries citizens in the surrounding communities might have had about the camp. Lieutenant John W. Scott was the guest speaker at this function. Scott explained that the War Department had assigned POWs to the area camp in order to “assist in the harvesting of crops, as well as being employed at certain lines of labor in the canneries.” ²² He went on to explain that Ripon canning companies were concerned about how they would be able to handle 150,000 acres of “highly perishable food” and it was determined that a shipment of POWs could help to alleviate their labor worries. ²³

A second informational meeting, primarily for the local Rotary Club but open to other local groups, was given at the Tuscumbia Country Club in Green Lake. This time, the camp second-in-command, Lieutenant Francis Walsh, was the guest speaker. As helpful as the two meetings were, the informationals failed to end all of the rumors regarding the new camp. Townspeople were still leery of having the group of enemy soldiers in their midst. It was reported that the guards at Lawsonia were lax and “there had been a certain amount of fraternizing between civilians and the prisoners.” ²⁴ A committee was organized by the local American Legion post and sent to the camp in order assess the situation. The Legion’s stance was that the POWs were not guests of Green Lake, and they discouraged any association between the prisoners and the civilian population. This was also the War Department’s policy, which was intended to protect both parties.

Ultimately, the Legion found that there had been no cause for alarm. The camp was in transition, as it had only been in existence for a few months, and any questionable contacts that might have occurred soon ceased, or at least were no longer reported. After the American Legion inspection, the rumors of ineffective guards and prisoner-to-citizen contacts could finally be put to rest.

However, not long after the Legion checkup, two “escapes” of local POWs occurred. In the first instance, two POWs scaled a camp fence. It turned out that they were not really trying to escape. Instead, they were in search of what was later found to be a place to go swimming. After they scaled the fence, the two Germans had conversed with sixteen-year-old Rex Ritchie and asked him if he knew where a beach might be found. The boy quickly related the story to his employer, Henry Eaton, who promptly notified the sheriff’s department. With that tip to assist him, Sheriff Al Christiansen of Green Lake soon recaptured the two men. The story made it into the local newspapers, but it was soon forgotten, once it became clear that the two POWs weren’t bent on an escape but merely wanted to take a quick swim. ²⁵ The other “escapee” apparently walked away from a crew working on pea vines and went to the Solamita tavern in Marblehead, located in rural Fond du Lac County. When this was discovered, guard units were recalled to their base, including through messages flashed in local movie theatres, and police were notified. The public messages triggered some local alarm, leading to what the newspaper described as “greatly exaggerated” reports that spread through the city. The prisoner was arrested by an F.B.I. agent and a sheriff’s deputy about two hours after he had left the crew. ²⁶

Despite early concerns and problems, the POWs rapidly became an essential part of the local landscape. Not only did local residents become comfortable with the fact that POWs were incarcerated nearby, but they even began to accept them into the community. Whatever stigma had been attached at the time of their arrival seemed to melt away with time. It is hard to determine whether or not this can be attributed to the friendly nature of Fond du Lac, Ripon and Green Lake residents, the family ties of many area residents to Germany, the contributions that the prisoners were making to the local economy, the lack of “trouble” caused by the prisoners, or just an acceptance born of familiarity. Several or all of these factors were probably at work, but a good deal of anecdotal evidence testifies to the friendliness of both local people and the prisoners.

Sally Albertz, who lived on 14th Street near the camp during the war, remembers visiting the Fond du Lac Fairgrounds camp as a child. The prisoners were friendly; many spoke good English, and they tossed candy to the children through the barbed wire. Mrs. Albertz recalls that she got a spanking from her parents every time she went to the camp, but she kept going back, as did many other local children. She also recalls her mother-in-law, who was originally resentful of the German POWs working at canneries in Oakfield and Rosendale. Her three sons were fighting in North Africa, Italy, and later Germany. But as a German speaker, soon she was friendly with the prisoners and later made German food for them. ²⁷

Dr. Mary Gross recalls stories from her grandparents, who hired three or four German POWs from the fairgrounds camp in Plymouth, Sheboygan County to “labor” on their farm. But the POWs were given no work to do; they were simply fed and sat in the family kitchen, talking with family members about Germany. Eventually the fact that the men were doing no work came to the attention of camp authorities, and the privilege of hiring POW labor was withdrawn. According to Dr. Gross, this behavior was frequent enough that eventually POWs were no longer permitted to work on farms, and their labor was restricted to area canneries where tighter control on their activities could be maintained. ²⁸

Donald E. Bonk, a Chilton farmer whose father ran the Chilton cannery, recollected as a teenager seeing girls flirting through the barbed wire fence with the prisoners and other residents passing by asking for information about relatives in Germany. According to Bonk, “Half of the people in Chilton and New Holstein could speak German.” ²⁹

Probably the most dramatic instance of fraternization that became public involved Mrs. Marie Wildeman of Waupun, wife of a sailor on active duty in the Pacific, who was placed on a year’s probation after pleading guilty “to a stuatutory offense involving a German prisoner of war.” According to the newspaper, “neighbors complained to police after they saw the man enter the house in the evening on several occasions. He was said to have worn a raincoat which he had reversed so the ‘PW’ letters did not show.” The prisoner in question, Horst Wirst, worked as an interpreter in the camp near Waupun. Wirst was transferred to Fort Sheridan and received two weeks on bread and water and sixteen days’ hard labor, the maximum allowed. ³⁰

Life in the camps was designed to be as “normal” as possible for the inmates, for they were expected to be productive workers, and boredom was likely to produce mischief from the prisoners that would make the job of guarding them much more difficult. POWs had access to “sports equipment, musical instruments and books . . . soccer, chess, cards, skat and checkers . . . glee clubs, bands and orchestras.” ³¹ The Fond du Lac camp even received deliveries of beer every other day for its POWs, at least during 1944! ³² It is remarkable that the prisoners were able to enjoy such luxuries, and, not surprisingly, there was a noticeable lack of resistance or complaints from the inmates of the camps. However, the absence of resistance or disruption was only part of the picture. Camp commanders, guards and even local citizens, despite the official regulations, often came to befriend the POWs. In a Milwaukee Journal article regarding German POWs in Wisconsin during World War II, Maureen Blaney Flietner wrote:

Another part that struck me was that it seemed as if the German POWs were respected and welcomed in the community and, in the eyes of local people, maintained their dignity. But this is such a heavily German American community, these people could have been their cousins or second cousins. ³³

One might surmise that some local residents had close family members, perhaps cousins, uncles, or aunts, in Germany. To be sure, they felt connected to the POWs, for both parties were, essentially, from the same ancestral stock.

It is both ironic and disturbing, but not surprising, that the German prisoners were treated better than some American-born minorities who were engaged in similar kinds of labor. In other words, there existed none of the tensions and divisions that characterized the relations between American born blacks and whites at that time. “Jim Crow” laws were still in effect, and Afro-American soldiers were struggling against discrimination in a still-segregated military. This idea is touched upon briefly in The Barbed-Wire College: Ron Robin explains that “the POWs are invoked as an illustration of the irrationality of segregation, when a group of African-American soldiers are denied access to a Kansas diner, while German POWs enter the establishment freely.” ³⁴

By 1945, the War Department had become less concerned with secrecy and more interested in making sure that publicity about the camps did not reflect badly on its administration of them. Fond du Lac residents learned that German prisoners would be used extensively in the area during that summer due to a shortage of civilian labor for local canneries and farms. It was reported that the Silver Creek Canning Company, Central Wisconsin Canneries, Inc. of Ripon, the Fuhrman Canning Company of Berlin, Wisconsin State Canneries of Pickett, and the Central Wisconsin Canneries at Rosendale all would make use of German prisoners housed at a stockade camp in Ripon. The camp was to be located south of the Central Wisconsin Canneries plant on Douglas Street. Fencing, some small buildings for camp operation, and a flood lighting system were installed by June 16, and a representative of the cannery reported that a crew of 40 German prisoners and 20 guards would arrive within a week to commence final construction work on an administration building, bath houses, and “other necessary buildings.” The prisoners were to be quartered in tents, with a large tent used as a dining hall. Approximately 616 POWs were expected to arrive before the beginning of the canning season, together with camp staff consisting of four commissioned officers and 90 enlisted men. Similar camps were planned for Waupun, Fair Water, and Oakfield. ³⁵ Camp construction was under way by June 22. ³⁶ Prisoners at the Ripon came from many different formations of the German army, including the elite Afrika Korps and humble Volksturm conscript units composed of old men and young boys. ³⁷

Due to the concentration of pea raising and canning in the Fond du Lac area, this part of the state received more prisoners than any other, about 2,200 during 1945. Ripon received the largest portion of these, about 600, of whom 200 worked in Ripon canneries, 215 in Rosendale, 60 in Berlin, and 120 in Pickett. Two plants in Waupun received 230, 100 were assigned to Brandon, 15 to Oakfield, 110 to Eden, 50 to Brownsville, 40 to Lomira, 115 to Fox Lake, 175 to Beaver Dam, 340 to Markesan, 40 to Fair Water, and about 300 to Chilton District, which encompassed several smaller communities. It was announced that army control would be much more rigid than had been the case the previous year, with all contracts for prisoner labor made through Arlie Mucks, state supervisor of the emergency farm labor program, and with the stipulation that prisoners would be removed whenever the ordinary civilian supply of labor was adequate “to meet the demand.” Brigadier General John T. Pierce, the commander of the district at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, indicated that the army would make this determination, not the canneries. ³⁸

The army was at pains to show that the prisoners were not being “coddled” and that the prisoners were not eating as well as American civilians, who were subject to wartime rationing, or as America’s own soldiers and sailors. Unlike the situation that had existed in Fond du Lac in 1944, no beer was to be provided, nor were candy or ready-made cigarets to be available. The camp canteens where prisoners could use their “chits” were stocked only with loose tobacco, cigaret papers, razor blades, toilet articles, and American magazines. This limitation was largely intended to meet complaints from resentful citizens who were feeling the pinch of wartime rationing. It was noted that the food served to the prisoners amounted to about half what would be available to a civilian through rationing, and that no beef would be served to them. The diet was to include principally carp, pickled herring, potatoes and green vegetables, and no butter, only margarine was to be used. ³⁹ Other meats included in the prisoners’ diets were “usually the parts of the animal that are not consumed in any quantity by Americans, such as tripe, pig knuckles, fat back, and so forth.” Meat from beef (apparently not served in Fond du Lac according to the official statement) was limited to “shanks, flanks, skirts, livers, hearts, kidneys, oxtails, tripe, brains, and green bones.” Caloric intake was set at 3,400 for those doing heavy labor, 3,000 for moderate work, and 2,500 for non-working prisoners. ⁴⁰

The prisoners remained in the Fond du Lac County locations for about four to five weeks during the “pea pack.” They then were shifted to Door County to pick cherries or to Illinois or Michigan to harvest other perishable crops, and some later returned to Fond du Lac to harvest sugar beets and corn for packing.⁴¹ Apparently the labor shortage was severe enough and the harvest large enough during the 1945 pea packing season that some American soldiers from Fort Sheridan were even bused in to help can peas on the night shift at the Baker Canning company in Theresa, supplementing the German prisoners, Jamaican contract laborers and civilian volunteers from the community. ⁴² Other means to meet the demands of a 1945 bumper crop were utilized. For example, work norms for the German prisoners were adjusted to make certain that the harvest goals were met, with prisoners being informed that they would remain in the fields until they had picked the established number of pails of cherries. ⁴³

Once the main packing season had concluded, the camp in Chilton was closed, and others had their contingents of prisoners greatly reduced, as the labor force was shifted to neighboring states. About 1,000 of the German soldiers in the Fond du Lac area were transferred, though some returned to help with later-ripening crops. The Ripon camp population declined from 597 prisoners to 143, while that at Oakfield was reduced from 355 to 150, and Markesan sent 275 of its 390 prisoners to Michigan. ⁴⁴ Mammoth Springs Canning Company of Oakfield finished its pea pack late in the summer, and the 337 prisoners still in the camp in mid-August were set to work helping to harvest corn and other late crops. ⁴⁵ By the end of August, large numbers of prisoners were returning to the Ripon area camps. Perhaps as many as 800 were sought for employment in Ripon, Rosendale, and Pickett, but Lieutenant Kerol Lula, officer in charge of the Ripon camp, indicated to the canneries that only 650 POWs were available. ⁴⁶

A total of 4,927 foreign workers and German prisoners of war, including 2,840 POWs, worked on state farms and canneries during August 1945 to bring in a bumper crop that would otherwise have overwhelmed available labor. Their numbers were augmented by an additional 1,842 prisoners brought in for the corn harvest. ⁴⁷

As layoffs from wartime industry released more workers into the civilian economy, the use of German prisoners in agricultural industry declined. ⁴⁸ Plans were soon under way to begin repatriating German war prisoners located in the Midwest as soon as the harvest was completed. Contracting for prisoner labor ended on October 31, with the exception of a small number of men harvesting pulpwood or sugar beets, mainly in the Upper Peninsula. It was expected that the prisoners would all be returned to Europe by spring 1946. ⁴⁹ On October 11, 1945, the Ripon camp on Douglas Street, the largest in the area, closed.⁵⁰

The German POW program was economically successful, but it had other goals, as well. As the course of the war began to move steadily in the Allies’ favor, the War Department began to plan for an end to the conflict and for the reintegration of the POWs into a post-war German society. An integral part of this process was the development of an education program for the POWs that could help to shape that society. Toward this end, a Special Projects Division was created.

The program began as a covert effort. A cadre of university professors joined forces with a group of “safe” prisoners in preparing material for this secret operation. A monitored diet of reading material provided the main tool for this phase of reeducation. For the most part, the reeducation program, known officially as the Special Projects Division (SPD), relied on a newspaper edited by prisoner-collaborators as well as on a series of great literary works that had been banned by the Nazis. ⁵¹

In addition to literary works, prisoners were introduced to a “crash course phase” of the program. These crash courses included: German history and American civilization, language and literature. ⁵²

While most German POWs remained in the United States for months after Germany surrendered, due to the need for their labor and the logistical difficulties of repatriation to a war-ravaged Europe, the United States began to send some prisoners back to Europe even before the end of the war. Some of the prisoners were trained to be able to help administer and police the American occupation zone of Germany. ⁵³ The War Department had more extensive education programs in store for these early releases. Education was seen to be a vaccine of sorts. The U.S. wanted to send these men back inoculated against the kind of political and social problems and attitudes that it was believed had caused the war.

Near the end of the war, the United States took about 25,000 selected POWs and put them through an advanced education program on how to rebuild their countries. They were sent home before the end of the war because the U.S. had made a pact with France to send the POWs to help build France and other countries. ⁵⁴

Eventually, all POWs were sent back to Europe and relocated in new camps. The goal was to aid in rebuilding the ravaged continent. Life in a European work camp, however, was not the pleasant experience that the American camps had been. In France, POWs were forced to work up to 80 hours a week, lived in filth and had little to eat. ⁵⁵ One wonders how much of the educational work done to prepare the prisoners for a role in rebuilding a democratized Germany was undone by the harsh treatment they received at the hands of the French.

There are many stories regarding prisoners expressing their wish to remain in the United States. In Stalag Wisconsin, Betty Cowley wrote, “partly a result of their exposure to American media, its people and technology, and the humane treatment received throughout their stay, many German prisoners inquired about staying in America, rather than returning to their homeland.” ⁵⁶ In response to a question regarding escape, a German POW in Fond du Lac was heard to reply, “what, run away from this? Why, this is heaven. The War is over for us and we are getting much better treatment than we ever would get over there.”⁵⁷ Another story relates to a POW’s love for his new home. Simply stated, the POW said, “America ist shine!’ (America is beautiful!) and ‘Deutschland is kaput!’ (Germany is finished!).” ⁵⁸ One might imagine that many POWs wished to immigrate to this area. In fact, some tried to do so.

In order to immigrate, each POW had to have a sponsor, and many of them were offered jobs by the American farmers and businessmen who had employed them while they were prisoners, thus enabling them to obtain visas to return. Whether or not they had job offers, those POWs who did immigrate apparently had such fond memories of the camp life that they settled within a few miles of the camps in which they had been held, although the necessity of working for a sponsor who was most likely to have been located in the area of the former prison camp may have played a major role in the choice of a home. ⁵⁹

All told, some 30,000 Germans immigrated to the United States following the war. ⁶⁰ The number of these immigrants who were former POWs is unclear. Of course many of these people had not been soldiers at all, much less POWs, for they were “war brides” brought back by returning GIs. ⁶¹

The ideas codified as rules for treatment of prisoners by the Geneva Conventions had an impact upon POW life within the U.S. and in Fond du Lac. Many POWs were eager to return to a land and people that had given them an education, employment and acceptance, while return to the privations and unemployment of a war-torn Germany could not have been very attractive for those without families. For some Germans, “home” no longer existed in any meaningful sense, for their communities had been assigned to Poland or the Soviet Union, and the returning soldiers would not have been welcome and might have faced further incarceration to assist in post-war reconstruction. In other parts of East Central Europe like Czechoslovakia, ethnic German minorities were being expelled. On the other hand, the experience that those incarcerated in the POW camps had undergone, including those in Fond du Lac County, had been humane, and POWs and Americans associated with them all prospered because of it.

Remarkably, opposing sides in a massive, destructive war had been able to work together peacefully. As one man who had contact with the prisoners said, “even though our countries were at war, we could put that aside and think of each other as fellow human beings.” ⁶² To be sure, Fond du Lac farmers and canneries benefited from POW labor, but the POWs surely also benefited from the fair treatment, education and exposure to ideas of American democracy that they had received.

1 - BBC World News, January 16, 2002; Seymore M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” New Yorker, May 10, 2004. return

2 - George G. Lewis and John Mewha, History of Prisoner of War Utilization by the United Staters Army, 1776-1945, (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1955), 66. return

3 - Rick Atkinson, An Army At Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002), 537. return

4 - Marlys Manley Steckler, “POWs in Wisconsin during WWII,” (Unpublished Pamphlet, Wisconsin State Historical Society: Madison, Wisconsin). return

5 - Maureen Blaney Flietner, “Tales of state’s POW camps come to light,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 14, 2000, sec. B. return

6 - Flietner. For Japanese escapees, see articles in The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, May 24, 28, and 29, July 5, 9, and 18, and August 11, 1945. return

7 - Steckler. return

8 - Steckler. return

9 - Flietner. return

10 - “German Prisoners of War in this Country to Remain Captive for Some Time to Come,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, May 23, 1945. return

11 - “Prisoners of War Get Meat But It Consists Chiefly of Cuts Americans Often Reject,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, June 23, 1945. return

12 - This decision met with some objection. Wisconsin State Federation of Labor President George Habermas objected to plans to use prisoners of war to cut pulp wood in Wisconsin and Michigan, arguing that sufficient manpower was available if agricultural workers could be assured that cutting pulp wood did not jeopardize their draft status. “State Unions Oppose Prisoner Labor Plan,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, January 3, 1944. return

13 - “Volunteers from Far-Away Island of Barbadoes Working on County Sugar Beet Crop,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, July 22, 1944. return

14 - “War Captives Assigned for Cannery Jobs,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, June 19, 1945. return

15 - Steckler. return

16 - Steckler. return

17 - The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, June 20, 1944. return

18 - Ibid. return

19 - “Prisoners Must be Well Fed, Says Custodian at City Dump; Refuse Gives Him Good Clue,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, July 11, 1944. return

20 - The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, August 5, 1944. return

21 - The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, July 21, 1944 (news from Ripon section). return

22 - The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, July 12, 1944 (news from Ripon section). return

23 - The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, July 12, 1944 (news from Ripon section). return

24 - The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, July 15, 1944. return

25 - “War Prisoners Stage Runaway,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, July 21, 1944. return

26 - “War Prisoner Discovered in Rural Tavern,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, July 22, 1944. return

27 - Sally Albertz interview, December 17, 2004. return

28 - Dr. Mary Gross interview, December 17, 2004. return

29 - “POWs harvested the region’s crops in ’45,” Appleton-Neenah-Menasha Post Cresecent, May 29, 1994. return

30 - “Woman Tells Offense with War Prisoner,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, September 21, 1945. return

31 - Steckler. return

32 - “German Prisoners Stationed at Fairgrounds Camp Leave for Unannounced Destination,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, August 5, 1944. return

33 - Flietner. return

34 - Ron Robin, The Barbed-Wire College: Reeducating German POWs in the United States during World War II, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), 3. See also “Carefully Chosen German Prisoners of War Trained in Principles of Democracy,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, September 22, 1945. return

35 - “Ripon Stockade Will House Nazi War Captives Working in Canneries During Summer,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, June 16, 1945. return

36 - “War Prisoners Erecting Camp,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, June 22, 1945. return

37 - “War Prisoners Are Working Efficientnly, Managers of Canning Factories Declare; 600 Germans Help Save County Harvest,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, August 3, 1945. return

38 - “War Captives Assigned for Cannery Jobs,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, June 19, 1945. return

39 - “War Captives Assigned for Cannery Jobs,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, June 19, 1945. return

40 - “Prisoners of War Get Meat But It Consists Chiefly of Cuts Americans Often Reject,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, June 23, 1945. Caloric intake for those doing heavy work was later raised to 3,700. “War Prisoners Are Working Efficiently, Managers of Canning Factories Declare; 600 Germans Help Save County Harvest,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, August 3, 1945. return

41 - “War Captives Assigned for Cannery Jobs,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, June 19, 1945; “41 POW Camps Set Up in Labor Shortage Areas,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, July 13, 1945; “Enemy War Prisoners to Harvest Cherries,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, July 18, 1945. return

42 - “Soldiers Help Pack Pea Crop,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, July 20, 1945. return

43 - “Prisoners Heed Work Mandates,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, August 3, 1945. return

44 - “German Prisoners to Leave for Work in Nearby States as Pea Canning Season Ends,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, August 6, 1945. return

45 - “Canning Plant Finishes Pack,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, August 14, 1945. return

46 - “More Assigned to Prison Camp,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, August 27, 1945; “War Prisoners to Aid Canners,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, September 1, 1945. return

47 - “Foreigners, Captives Work on Badger Farms,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, September 1, 1945. return

48 - “Restrictions Put on War Prisoner Labor,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, August 18, 1945. return

49 - “War Prisoners to be Returned,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, September 21, 1945 return

50 - “War Captives Removed from Camp at Ripon,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, October 13, 1945. return

51- Robin, 8. return

52 - Robin, 10. return

53 - “Carefully Chosen German Prisoners of War Trained in Principles of Democracy,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, September 22, 1945. return

54 - Steckler. return

55 - Steckler. return

56 - Betty Cowley, Stalag Wisconsin: Insider WW II Prisoner-of-War Camps, (Oregon, Wisconsin: Badger Books, 2002), 44. return

57 - “Prisoners Must be Well Fed, Says Custodian at City Dump; Refuse Gives Him Good Clue,” The Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, July 11, 1944, also quoted in Cowley, 114. return

58 - Cowley, 226 return

59 - Steckler. return

60 - Steckler. return

61 - The story of one such prisoner, Kurt Pechmann, was related fifty years later in by Tim Norris, “Prisoner in a Free Land,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 1, 1995. The story emphasized the value of fair and decent treatment of prisoners in helping to rebuild Germany. Pechmann returned to Germany February 4, 1946, married a German woman, and immigrated to Wisconsin in 1952. return

62 - Cowley, 145. return

Copyright Clarence B. Davis 2005. Marian College Press, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin 2005.
Electronic publication by Fond du Lac Public Library has been approved by Clarence B. Davis.

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