Nazis at Fort Sam Houston
There’s an article at My San Antonio which tells part of the story of POWs buried at the national cemetery at Fort Sam Houston. I just thought it was interesting;
POWs were buried at their prisons, among them Camp Polk, La., and reinterred at Fort Sam after the prison camps were closed. Many of their fallen comrades went home, as did survivors like Karl-Heinz Blumenthal, a paratrooper who was captured in 1943 in Africa. Those buried in the United States went unclaimed.
Blumenthal, 88, who returned to the U.S. decades ago and lives in Asheville, N.C., recalled one soldier’s funeral.
“We were standing at attention, and we had a band that played some music and I remember one song, ‘Hatt Einen Kameraden.’ I had a good fellow pass away. We all sing that song,” he said. “I felt, I hope I don’t have to die here.”
The prisoners were enlistees like Karl Waldera, an obergefreiter or German lance corporal, and Guiseppe Slaviero, an Italian sergeant major. Most of the POW headstones are similar to those of the Americans here, listing their names, ranks and dates of death.
Defiance, pride and sadness, though, echo from the graves of Alfred Kafka and Georg Forst.
“He died far from his home for the Führer, people and fatherland,” headstones for both say, swastikas etched in an Iron Cross.
I remember in the small agricultural community where I grew up, the old timers (who were about my current age at the time) would tell stories about the POW camp that was where our community center is now and how the prisoners would work on the surrounding farms during the day and then be returned at night to their camp. Many of them enjoyed their time in Upstate New York so much that they’ve returned after the war to visit the farmers for whom they worked during their incarceration.
It’s odd considering that we’ll probably never fight a civilized enemy again which recognizes that a war is over.
Category: Historical
There was a small cemetery right outside of Gate 2, Ft. Gordon, GA when I was stationed there. German POW’s were buried there.
When I was at Leavenworth we would walk the prisoner’s cemetery and saw the German headstones there. The Germans were executed at Leavenworth for murdering German collaborators. An interesting historical side note from the USDB.
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/may/25/german_pows_buried_prison/
There were records of some POW escaping from camps who stayed in the U.S. making a living and raising families.
Here is a great article about a large escape attempt from one of the camps:
http://www.historynet.com/the-not-so-great-escape-german-pows-in-the-us-during-wwii.htm
The really hard core were the Submariners. They killed other German POW’s who the thought were turncoats.
There is a book, “Summer of My German Soldier” by Bette Greene, that touches on this subject. It is an anti-war novel, but written along the same lines as “All Quiet on the Western Front” and worth reading if you haven’t read it.
I don’t really have a problem with these headstones. They might have been on the other side, but in the end Soldiers (the professionals) all deserved to be treated with Respect and honor.
Agreed
Does anyone know why Germany hasn’t reclaimed her war dead? She can, can’t she?
The German’s were pennyless after the war. It would have been nearly impossible for a family to navigate the request and logistics of repatriating a body during the months and few years after the war. The U.S. buried the German warriors in accordnace with strict military protocols. The U.S. forces seldom ever recieved such respectful treatment from our captors.
There is also a small POW cemetary outside Ft. McClellan, Alabama. I believe there are about 20 to 25 German soldiers, and 5 or 6 Italians soldiers interred there.
There’s also a good chance that none of the POW’s relatives survived the war too. If they were located anywhere near the large cities, or in the path of the Soviet armies, then their chances were probably pretty slim of coming out unscathed.
Add to that the destruction of much of the Reich’s war records, and any survivors in Germany probably figured their relatives were dead anyway.
I live in a subdivision, 1 of about 3, in what was a ww2 Army training camp called Camp Croft in upstate SC. During the war the prisoners kept here were used to load ice in boxcars full of peaches. Honestly, they were pretty nice guys. We kids would watch them play baseball on their breaks. All they wanted was a bat and a ball. They either caught the ball with their hands or cradle it in the ankle area of a foot.
One day while I was there by myself it started raining and alot of them got in guards’ cars. I started to get in one car and a couple of them told me not to get in it because of one older prisoner. They said he didn’t like Americans and for me to stay away from him. Didn’t have to tell me but once!
When they passed by on a bus bringing them back to the camp and they saw us they would holler at us like old friends.
Henry Kissinger got his citizenship in the camp.
There were German prisoners kept close to my home town in NE Kansas. A few years back I was visiting a friend of mine on a ranch there and I looked above the doors in the barn and in red paint it still said “Rauchen Verboten” (No Smoking) The ranch hands all said it was from during the war and nobody wanted to paint over it.
If you ask any of the little old ladies from town about the German POWs they get very upset because at least one rancher used to bring the POWs to town to feed them in a little cafe there and these ladies just did not think that was right. “Not when our boys were over there suffering and being treated like animals”.
Good old Asheville, home of the hariest female arm pits…