John Delach

The Untold Story of Axis POW’s held in camps in the USA

Can you imagine being a captured German or Italian soldier being sent across the Atlantic on an American ship with good food and a pillow for your cot? After arrival at the port of New York or Norfolk, Virginia, you were sent to a Prisoner of War camp by train most likely in the south, the Midwest or the southwest?

Take the case of Fritz Ensslin, a German tank gunner captured in Italy who arrived at a POW camp in Missouri in 1943, “We arrived at Fort Leonard Wood after a two-day trip in well-secured rail cars.” He was pleasantly surprised to find barracks that contained a bed, mattress, blankets and a pillow for each prisoner. “We had the feeling of being in a Hilton Hotel. For years, we had been sleeping either inside or on top of our tanks.”

The men were served food described as a “dream meal” and joked with one another that had they known they would have been treated this way, “we would have sneaked across earlier instead of fighting until we ran out of ammunition.”

A total of 425,000 Prisoners of War (POWs) were housed in more than 500 POW camps in 46 states. At least 80% were Germans that included a group of dedicated Nazis. The idea of escape was limited to this group. Their goal was to reach Argentina. Argentina, good luck with that, especially with calling an Uber was out of the question. A total of 2,222 escaped from their camps. Most were recaptured within a day.

Most of the POWs were content to work in canneries, mills, farms and other places deemed minimal security risk and in need of workers to replace the Americans who had gone off to war. These POWs were paid in script that they could use at the camp canteens to buy extra food, but more importantly, cigarettes and beer.

The top captured Nazi brass lived the life. The three admirals and forty generals in custody were sent to Camp Clinton and Camp Shelby in Mississippi, where each had his own bungalow with a garden, an aid, a cook, an upscale menu and a daily ration of wine and booze. “Rank has it’s privileges, even if you are a POW.”

After our American and British forces defeated the German “desert rats” army in North Africa, the Brits cried uncle to housing these prisoners of war. As you can imagine, we were totally unprepared for managing these POWs. We were still mobilizing our recruits so the army had to keep guards to a minimum and depend on the hierarchy of the German POWs to maintain order. Their sergeants acted like sergeants and broadcast Revelli to wake their men, marched them to and from meals, and prepared them for work.

Any POWs who refused to work were restricted to their barracks and were forced to accept a diet of bread and water.

When the war ended in Western Europe, life was a mess. France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg and the fallen members of the Third Reich’s empire, Germany, Austria, etc. were awash in refugees, lack of food, coal and everything else we can imagine.

Our army decided to retain the majority of our POWs to continue working until 1946 when most of our citizen soldiers had been discharged from their service.

Despite the delay in repatriation, most Germans left the USA with positive feelings about our country. Many returned home with several hundred dollars in earnings. The dollar was the king of currency in post-war Europe and their dollars not only benefitted these former POWs, they helped the German economy once they returned home.

After the POW’s had returned home and all the accounting had been completed, the army could not account for seven prisoners. One of these men was George Gaertner, who escaped from a POW camp in Denning, New Mexico on September 21, 1945. Gaertner didn’t want to return to his home in Silesia as it had been occupied by the Soviet army.

He assumed a new identity, Dennis Whiles, and lived quietly in California and Colorado. After his escape, the army launched a manhunt which lasted until 1963. He married a woman who he first met at a YMCA dance, named Jean Clarke in 1964 and adopted her two children. Over the years, Jean became increasingly disturbed by his many excuses and refusal to discuss his past . Finally, in 1984, she was about to leave him when he confessed his past to her.

Our government accepted him as a naturized citizen and so he co-wrote a biography, “Hitler’s Last Solider in America”, in 1985. He died in 2013 at 92 after the time of his life had lasted almost 70 years: RIP Dennis Whiles, aka George Gaetner.

On the Outside Looking in will not be published again until later in June