|
|
German POWs and the Art of SurvivalBy Simon Rees | Military History | 12 comments | Print This Post | Email This Post Janssen and five comrades went to a nearby station and jumped on a westbound freight train. When the train stopped seemingly in the middle of nowhere, Janssen and a comrade traveled on by foot until they arrived at Travemünde, near Lübeck, on May 3. Subscribe Today
Janssen’s wound wasn’t healing properly, so he went to the hospital, where he was told to stay in the waiting room. He decided to head back to the Trave River and dispose of his pistol and paybook. Returning to the hospital, he soon heard the approach of military vehicles. The British were coming. After being searched for weapons, the German troops in the hospital were told to await further instructions. “That evening a British officer arrived and in very good German informed us that there was no room in the hospital, and that the British would try and accommodate us somehow,” he said. “Later that night, the British came back. They had pulled a train of cattle trucks into the station. They had straw on the floor of the trucks, and we were put into the trucks and locked up. Guards were placed on the platform.This was my first night of captivity.” On the next day they were moved into a hotel. After a few days, the British separated the SS men from the rest of the prisoners and sent them, including Janssen, to a newly liberated concentration camp near Hamburg. “Here our lives as prisoners really started. It was pretty rough and still a little cold, as it was mid-May. There were no blankets, and we slept on concrete and were questioned frequently, although not every day….None of us could speak English, and none of our guards could speak German, so there was no way of making conversation.” After 10 days or so, they were moved to a large bordered-off zone in the Schleswig-Holstein region where again there was no accommodation. “We slept in farm buildings and in hay,” Janssen recalled, adding “some had made temporary holes in the ground, with a roof made of sticks and brush and covered with sods of turf. We were left to our own devices. As far as food was concerned, we had to grab what we could. A lot of stealing was going on—we grabbed potatoes from the fields. Ears of corn were stripped off around the cornfields. Most survived.” One day a batch of British soldiers arrived and announced they were looking for volunteers from among the POWs. Janssen put his name forward and soon found himself working as a clerk processing repatriation papers. Tellingly, those prioritized for return worked in agriculture or food production. In early 1946, his job as a clerk over, Janssen was put onto a train of cattle trucks that was locked up and then started to roll. “We had no idea where we were going and how long the journey would take,” he said. “Finally coming to a halt, we discovered that we had arrived in Belgium. All of us from the train were taken to a camp that I believe was at a place called Berchan. This camp was split into ‘cages,’ with up to roughly 6,000 POWs in each one. The camp population, I believe, was close to 36,000 POWs.The situation here was pretty rough, and we often went hungry.” On April 6 Janssen joined a detachment sent to England. The men were given hearty rations at a transit camp. “[It was] almost like a holiday camp to us,” he recalled. “We could eat as much as we liked, which was fantastic, as by this stage we were quite undernourished.” Performing various jobs for the British army, Janssen found the conditions not only acceptable but almost comfortable. “Specific skills were needed in different camps at different times,” he said, “and if you had a skill you found yourself moving about quite a bit. If you spoke good English, you would be used as a squad leader and, importantly, an interpreter—a skill much in demand.” Pages: 1 2 3 4 5Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to
            Tags: Historical Conflicts, People, Politics, Social History, World War II
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||
What is HistoryNet?The HistoryNet.com is brought to you by the Weider History Group, the world's largest publisher of history magazines. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 5,000 articles originally published in our various magazines. If you are interested in a specific history subject, try searching our archives, you are bound to find something to pique your interest. |
From Our Magazines
|
Weider History Group |
Weider History Network: HistoryNet | Armchair General | Great History | Achtung Panzer! Terms of Use | Copyright © 2009 Weider History Group. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. |
||
Loading ...
12 Comments to “German POWs and the Art of Survival”
Can any one tell me, even in rough terms, the percentage of German POWS that remained in America after WWII. I cannot seem to find it any where on-line. Thanks fo any suggestions.
Bennie
By Ben Rayner on Jul 5, 2008 at 1:58 pm
There are at least 1% of German/Axis POW (of more than 420 thousand incarcerated) remained in the U.S. who didn’t want to return by the end of 1947. Especially of the few thousand Russian Red army who switched side and fought for the Nazi in the western front. Unfortunately they were repatriated to Gulag by Stalin’s order.
There are many others who befriend the locals around the area nearby, married American women and stay after the war. Most of them are located in the mid-west where majority Americans are German or central Europena decendents. I remember talking to a lady in Memphis, TN back in the 1970′ when she remembered fondly the German POW boys she and her friends used to social with. Apparently most of the POW camps had very relaxed control then and even allowed inmates to go out to the towns.
There are some German POW, who after repatriation, couldn’t find jobs in 1950′ Germany and decided to come back to U.S. by immigration.
By George Chen on Jul 26, 2008 at 4:20 am
I cannot find books or articles about German POWs in USSR, before the end of WWII and after WWII. I kow alot of German POWS died due to hard labor and diseases. The Russians would not give the Red Cross a list of German POWs. Did any of the POWs that were eventually released (some) in 1955, write a book?
Did the German government help these men with jobs, housing?
What happened to the POWS that had homes in E. Germany?
I am really upset that Roosevelt and Churchill did nothing to help these Germans. Stalin was playing them as fools and they just followed. I read Stalin viewed Roosevelt as an invalid, and Churchill as a drunk. The Russians committed terrible crimes.
By Daphne Gilbertson on Nov 25, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Those switched russian pows or general Vlasov soldiers sent to gulags further they sent to various hard labor camps. One group of them came to Mongolia during early 50’s and built Mongolian railroad. Also japanese pows used in various hard labor camps in several Mongolian locations.
By Orgo on Dec 8, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Its not surprising that most of the German POW’s that ended up in the hands of the Russian didn’t survive…..There would not have been a war crimes trial after the war if Stalin had had his way…..he wanted to line all the Nazi leaders up and shoot them…
He told Truman and Churchill that holding a trial was a total waste of time……
I believe the Russians looked upon German POW’s as less than human and basically wanted revenge for what the Germans had done to the Russians earlier….With that being said, the Russians had very little compassion or empathy for any of the people they “liberated” in Eastern Europe. I use the term “liberated” very loosely….
Look at the Katyn incident that happened early on…over 20,000 Poles were line up and shot by the Russians and then buried in mass graves….
Stalin was determined to expand/extend communism over the “liberated” nations of Eastern Europe. He promised both FDR and Churchill that “free elections” would be held in Eastern Europe once the war was over, but he never really planned to follow through with his promise….Churchill knew that and said that very thing to FDR but FDR was determined to give “Uncle Joe” the benefit of the doubt…..
The conquest/partition of Poland had been on the drawing board for both Stalin and Hitler for a long time…..years before the German attack on Poland in 1939.
The neutrality treaty signed by both Stalin and Hitler prior to the war, clearly out-lined what was going to happen to Poland and what part of Poland was going to the Russians and what part would be given to Germany…..
Keep in mind that Poland had been recreated at the end of World War I and most of the land that was set aside for the new Poland came from previous German and Russian territory…
By Larry Burgess on May 20, 2009 at 2:21 pm
My father-in-law was a German SS officerand POW who was held in Tennesee. Hremained in the USA after the war. He married my wife’s mother and still lives in Montana at age 90 with her. He receives veteren benefits from Germany every month still! He said he worked on a flower farm as a prisoner and was treated so well he wanted to remain here. He was a panzer commander for the SS Totenkopf division but was not a war criminal. He does have the tattoo under his armpit. He has only returned to germany maybe 2 times. He loves the USA.
By Seattle Mike on May 21, 2009 at 11:14 am
Interesting to hear about your father in law ; I am making a book about lost German prisoners in Russia and USA and already found some interesting stories
Could you please contact me on my email Adam.all@mail.ru
Regards
Adam
By Adam on May 24, 2009 at 7:44 am
it is sad that so many german soldiers were missing after the war,the russians were truly ruthless toward the german soldier and with good reason,however all these german soldiers who surrendered should have had the chance to start over their lives, many lives were cut short,much suffering was present,to not know the fate of loved ones who fought in the war is simply intolerable.
By christopher paul weber on May 26, 2009 at 1:28 am
My father was in the 186th FA Battalion, US First Army from Normandy to the war’s end. After VE Day, they were scheduled to return to the US and prepare for the invasion of Japan. Thankfully, the bombs made that unnecessary. As my father had prior service, he had enough points to get an early discharge. He was sent west from Czechoslovakia to Cherbourg for his return home in September 1945.
As he crossed Germany, he noticed railway trains packed with German prisoners also heading west. He asked where they were going, and was told they were being sent to work in France – as slave laborers! He told me that made him very angry, saying “That was the sort of thing we had been fighting to stop.” He was a conscript himself, and said so had most of the German soldiers been. They had not wanted the war. He said it was right to make Germany pay reparations, but it was wrong to turn ordinary Germans into slaves. Yet such was the fate of many prisoners for years after the war, and not only in the East.
My dad had met the Russians on the Elbe and later in Czechoslovakia. He told of pulling back from captured villages, then seeing the Russians move in and immediately begin looting (or worse). My mother told me one of the first things my father said about the war was that the US quit too soon. He said the US was the only country with the atomic bomb, and should have told Stalin the war was over and the Russians should go back to their own borders. He mentioned how both Hitler and Stalin had attacked Poland and begun WWII as allies. It has always amazed me that Britain and France declared war only on Hitler. Were they afraid of Stalin?
Future historians may well regard the mid-20th Century as a time when civilization went backwards, instead of forwards. It was a return to barbarism.
By Charles Rice on Jun 3, 2009 at 9:44 pm
I’m not sure that only 56,000 German prisoners died in US captivity. The writer James Bacque in his book ‘Other Losses’ mentions around a million fatalities. I do think this is exaggerated, but i reckon the truth is somewhere in between. The French were particularly vicious in their treatment of German prisoners, and they had much less reason to hate them than the Russians. I should also mention that in WW1 German prisoners were also very badly treated by the Russians, so it wasn’t something you could just blame on the Communists. I guess it’s a Slavic thing – just look at the war in Bosnia in the 1990s.
By Mark LV on Aug 7, 2009 at 8:21 pm