On 23 July 1946, the US Army transport ship Brigadier General Arthur W Yates left New York for Europe with 1,385 German prisoners of war from Camp Shanks. They were the last Germans held prisoner on US soil.

In total, there were over 425,000 POWs in the USA, of whom 371,683 were Germans. Every state - except for Nevada, North Dakota, and Vermont - had at least one POW camp. In some of the camps, the bulk of the prisoners had to be separated from the fanatical Nazis who terrorised and even murdered ordinary POWs for “assisting the enemy”.

The Germans were mainly employed in road and agricultural work and related industries, such as canning and tanneries. However, it was not necessary to keep them in the USA. The American economy and infrastructure was not damaged by the war, while Germany lay in ruins, and the workforce was in greater demand there. On top of that, there were unforeseen difficulties with the POWs: they started running away, particularly because they did not want to go back to Germany.

In Fort Lawton, a German committed suicide to avoid being sent home; in Fort Ord, authorities found a 37-metre-long escape tunnel almost complete; and prisoners from Camp Trinidad in Colorado managed to dig a 46-metre-long tunnel with electric lights. The record belongs to Camp Papago Park in Arizona, where 25 Germans escaped through a 61-metre-long tunnel on 24 December 1944. The “personal record” belongs to POW Georg Gärtner, who escaped on 21 September 1945 and surrendered to US authorities at a ripe old age in 1985, having lived free in the US for 40 years.

The POW camps would later be converted into military and civilian facilities, and provide housing for veterans.

Source:

Wesley Gottlock, Barbara Gottlock, “Lost Towns of the Hudson Valley”, The History Press, Charleston, S.C. & London, 2009.