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The Not-So-Great Escape: German POWs in the U.S. during WWIIBy Ronald H. Bailey | World War II | 16 comments | Print This Post | Email This Post The general plan was to head south and move only after dark, avoiding trains or buses. Many carried the names and addresses of countrymen or sympathizers in Mexico who might help them get back to Germany. All knew that the odds of actually reaching their homeland were extremely slim. But for now, in the early hours of Christmas Eve, they were free—embarking on an adventure that surely beat life in captivity. Subscribe Today
That night one team found a small dry stable and rested among comfortable bales of hay, celebrating Christmas Eve with a meal of roasted bread crumbs and canned milk, and listening as a Mexican family living nearby sang Christmas carols. Another team stumbled across a dilapidated shack and took up temporary residence; one of them had a harmonica, and he quietly played “Stille Nacht.” Back in Papago Park, the first real opportunity for the American authorities to discover something amiss was Sunday’s four o’clock head count. The German officers remaining in Compound 1A delayed it further by demanding that the count be conducted by an American officer, not a mere sergeant. “It is only proper that as German officers, we have respect and equal treatment,” one insisted imperiously. It was about seven o’clock before Parshall was certain that a large group of prisoners was missing. He telephoned the FBI to report names and descriptions of the escapees. While he was still on that call, another phone rang. It was the sheriff in Phoenix reporting he had an escaped POW in custody. Herbert Fuchs, a twenty-two-year-old U-boat crewman, had quickly grown tired of being wet, cold, and hungry and hitchhiked a ride to the sheriff’s office. Soon thereafter, a Tempe woman called to say that two escapees had knocked on her door and surrendered; the phone rang again, and a Tempe man reported that two hungry and cold POWs had turned themselves in to him. One more call came that Christmas Eve from someone at the Tempe railroad station saying yet another escapee had been arrested. This was Helmut Gugger, a Swiss national who had been drafted into the German navy. Almost certainly under physical persuasion from the Americans, Gugger revealed the existence of the still-hidden tunnel the following day. With a half-dozen escapees already in custody, authorities launched what the Phoenix Gazette trumpeted as “the greatest manhunt in Arizona history.” Soldiers, FBI agents, sheriff’s deputies, police, border patrol, and customs agents all joined the search for the nineteen Germans still at large. Ranchers and Indian scouts, drawn by the $25 reward posted for the capture of each escapee, carried newspaper clippings bearing mug shots of their quarry. “We didn’t think we were that important,” Guggenberger remarked later. J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, had repeatedly warned the American public about the dangers posed by escaped German prisoners. In reality, there was not a single recorded instance of sabotage or assault on an American citizen by an escaped POW. Any crimes committed were typically the theft of an automobile or of clothing needed for the getaway. In any case, public reaction in Arizona soon focused less on any possible menace to law-abiding citizens than on outrage over all the provisions the newspapers reported found on the recaptured POWs, including rationed or otherwise hard-to-get items like cartons of cigarettes, packages of chocolate, coffee, sugar, and even ten pounds of pork fat. One Phoenix resident wrote the Arizona Republic: “Now isn’t that a hell of a state of affairs when we, the tax-paying citizens, cannot get a single slice of bacon for weeks on end when we come home from working in a defense plant and then read in the papers that prisoners of war can get away with slabs of it?” After Christmas, most of the remaining nineteen prisoners hiked south each night as far as they could. Capture was a possibility at any moment, and they were also alert to very real physical danger. During the war, no fewer than fifty-six escaped German POWs were shot to death—the great majority by authorities but some at the hands of trigger-happy civilians. Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to
            Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, World War II
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16 Comments to “The Not-So-Great Escape: German POWs in the U.S. during WWII”
I thoroughly enjoyed this account of a little-known incident. I’d like to find out more about German POWs interred in the states. Of course, this story greatly benefits from the bad guys getting caught!
By Steve on Jun 26, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Very much enjoyed this story. It was also interesting due to the fact that I never really heard about POW camps in the US even though I heard bits and pieces about them.
By Pegasus053 on Jul 5, 2008 at 1:17 am
This story brought back memories of my Mother, a former WAC from Pennsylvania who passed away in 2000. She was stationed at a bomber base in Texas where German POW’s did manual labor. She said that where she worked she could see POW’s working in a warehouse that was attached to her office. One day she saw a crate about to fall on a POW’s head, and yelled a warning to him in Pennsylvania Dutch, which saved him from harm. Weeks later, one of the guards asked her if she would accept a gift from that POW in gratitude. It was a carved rendition of a chalet, which unfortunately has not survived the years.
By Rick on Jul 8, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Hi out there.
This storry was published in about 1972 in the book “The Faustball-Tunnel”. My grandfather told us many times of this adventure….
I like this short article. Thank’s Ronald.
By Utzolino on Aug 2, 2008 at 3:49 pm
My good friend, Steve Hoza, a WWII historian and expert on German POW camps in Arizona in WWII, self-published a book about the twenty-six POW camps in Arizona. There is a chapter in his book about the “harrowing” Camp Papago escape. Steve speaks fulent German and is still in touch with several of the POWs’ families in Germany.
By C. Sachs on Aug 12, 2008 at 9:31 pm
ww11 Luftaffe only prison camp in Arizona.
I had a gun shop in phoenix and Scottsdale for about 15 years. I had a lot of ww11 artifacts displayed and some one brought in a aluminum propeller for a WW L 5 plane I could tell this had been repaired and shortened, most likely it was discarded and no longer airworthy. it was mounted on a wood plac, it had a brass plac that said presented to ?? comander of the luftaffe prisoners of ww11 maney thanks from the prisoners date??
the brass plac disapered no idea who took it or when but i have been donating all my ww11 stufff to a aviators rest home and a museum in colorado. this included a pick up truck full of items from Joe Foss arizona
i would like to replace the brass plac on the prop but i need to know what camp and who was the comander and when they released the prisoners. I know it would not be original but it will get the storey told and preserve the unit for all
By snap lemon on Oct 16, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Does anyone know of a WW2 camp in OHIO? I have a friend whose
Grandfather Theodore Diesslin who told him as a child of his
experience as POW in Ohio. He was a captured soldier of the
German Army.
By Paul Baker on Nov 5, 2008 at 7:02 pm
My dad was first generation German-American, born in Ohio. During the war Dad served in the Army at a German POW camp in the midwest–possibly Michigan (?). He taught the Germans to speak English, and said the POWs were pleasant company. The one remark that will stay with me forever was that Dad liked serving in the Army post-Depression because it was the first time in his life that he had gotten enough to eat.
My dad was the first in his family to have only three “American” names: first, middle, and last. All others had the traditional four German names: first, middle, middle, last. I was told that after WWI, Germans in America distanced themselves from German traditions by naming their children with Anglicized names–more specifically by giving them a Biblical or Christian middle name as my father had.
By Second Generation on Nov 23, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Enjoyed the story. My grandfather was a german conscript who was captured in France. He then was sent to England to a POW camp for a short time, then was transferred to one in Maine. He escaped once and went and saw Niagara Falls before he was recaptured. He said a 10 year old american girl would come to the camp and pass them potatoes through the barbed wire fence.
By Yvonne Toole on Nov 24, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I cant believe how unmotivated most of the escapers were-giving themselves up???
Obviously the camp was too comfortable and few of the germans really believed in the war.
What a contrast to allied escapes in europe and the far east.
I have read before of black servicemen riding in trains disbeleiving of german prisoners in transit in the best carriages and eating the best food at diners on route.
By humphrey on Jan 20, 2009 at 4:31 am
That story was awesome! Thanks so much, I laughed and grinned through most of the escapee’s exploits! Nice to hear they were not desperate killers when on the loose. I don’t think Al Queda escapees would be so nice to those kids but I could be wrong.
By Ralph In Kuwait on Mar 27, 2009 at 1:30 am
There was a POW camp at Camp Perry, near Sandusky OH.
By David on Apr 11, 2009 at 12:35 am
Are there any movies out about the German pows in Arisona and the “not-so great escape”"
By cindy peters on May 17, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I just came across this site after reading about Monopoly helping American prisoners in Germany. My genealogy group just addressed this subject in our county, and it is interesting to see any other stories about escape attempts in the U.S. I don’t think many people know about the POW camps, or are not interested.
By Katie on Sep 18, 2009 at 5:53 pm