Arnold Krammer is professor of history at Texas A&M
University, specializing in modern European and German history. He is the
author of several books including Nazi Prisoners of War in America (New York:
Stein & Day, 1979, Scarborough, 1983, 1996). His essay, "When the
Afrika Korps Came to Texas" examines the history of the nearly eighty
thousand German, Italian, and Japanese prisoners of war held in Texas during
the Second World War. The essay, which is excerpted here, is included in the
book Invisible Texans: Women and Minorities in Texas History (McGraw-Hill,
2005), a collection of eighteen essays exploring those who have been
under-represented in previous writings about Texas history.
The full text of Arnold Krammer’s essay "When
the Afrika Korps Came to Texas" is here available for dowload as
a PDF.
Just a year and a half after the attack on Pearl Harbor that
embroiled America in the world war, more than 150,000 German prisoners poured
in after the surrender of the Afrika Korps in the spring of 1943. After that,
an average of 20,000 POWs arrived each month, and following the Normandy
invasion of June 1944, the numbers soared to 30,000 per month. During the last
months of the war, prisoners poured in at the astonishing rate of 60,000 per
month. By the end of the war, the United States found itself holding more than
425,000 prisoners of war: 372,000 Germans, 53,000 Italians, and 5,000 Japanese.
Some 90,000 spent their war years in Texas.
But where to put them? The United States had never held
large numbers of foreign war prisoners before. The War Department moved fast
and together with the Corps of Engineers began scouring the country for
temporary camp sites. County fairgrounds, auditoriums, abandoned Civilian
Conservation Corps (CCC) camps, and hastily erected tent cities were held in
readiness. At the same time, in mid-January, 1942, Washington DC commissioned a
study for potential sites for large, permanent camps, although it frankly did
not know if the prisoners were going to be enemy troops or so-called
"Enemy Aliens"—dangerous German or Italian or Japanese citizens
living in the United States. (Indeed, within months, three separate government
programs would evolve, each with its own network of camps: the Justice
Department's Enemy Alien Program, which rounded-up some twenty-four thousand
enemy citizens and their families; the War Relocation Program, which arrested a
whopping 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans, largely from the West Coast
and Hawaii; and finally, the Prisoner of War program, under the control of the
Army's Provost Marshal General's Office).
When considering places to construct POW camps, Washington
looked to the South. First, there was lots of available land in the southern
United States, more than could be found in the crowded North. Second, Texas, in
particular, was located far from the critical war industries on the East and
West Coasts. Also, the mild climate assured minimal construction and operation
costs. Eager Texas businessmen and farmers lobbied vigorously for camps in
their labor-starved state, with the idea of using the incoming prisoners to
fill the huge gap left by the military's needs. Finally, there was the
precedent of the Geneva Accords of 1929. Created after World War I, the Geneva
Accords established the rules of war, and contained guidelines on matters
ranging from the prohibition of explosive or dum-dum bullets to the care of
prisoners of war. Of interest to the War Department were the passages that
guaranteed prisoners' treatment equal to the conditions of the army in charge,
and the recommendation by the Geneva Accords that prisoners be taken to a
climate similar to that in which they had been captured. Since the climate most
similar to that of Tunisia, where the Afrika Korps surrendered in early 1943,
was the American South and, in particular, the state of Texas (although dozens
of camps sprang up in Louisiana, New Mexico, and surrounding states),
construction began in the Lone Star State.
Nearly all six permanent camps [Camp Huntsville, Camp
McLean, Camp Mexia, Camp Brady, Camp Hereford, and Camp Hearne] were finished
and ready for occupancy by January 1943. Each was expected to hold about 3,000
men, with the possibility of expanding the number up to 4,500. Admirable as
this early planning and construction was, it quickly became evident that six
permanent camps, holding between 3,000 and 4,000 POWs would not account for
even a quarter of the incoming prisoners. The War Department decided to authorize
a second type of POW camp on sections of existing Army bases. The advantages
were many: these POW sections could be easily guarded since sentry towers and
fences were already in place; the prisoners could be used to help maintain the
bases, thus freeing numerous American soldiers for shipment overseas; and
nearby communities would be calmed to know that the thousands of possibly
hostile enemy captives were surrounded by many more thousands of armed American
soldiers.
Four military bases in Texas were enlarged to receive POWs
in 1942—Camp Swift (Bastrop), Camp Bowie (Brownwood), Camp Fannin (Tyler), and
Camp Maxey (Paris), with the largest having the whopping capacity of nearly
9,000 men. Three more camps were authorized in 1943: Fort Sam Houston (San
Antonio), which was little more than a tent-city with 170 six-man tents for
both POWs and their American guards; Camp Howze (Gainesville); and Camp Hood
North (Killeen). With the expected invasion of France in 1944 and the prospect
of many thousands of new prisoners, seven more POW camps were built on military
bases in 1944, at Camp Wolters (Mineral Wells), Camp Wallace (Hitchcock), Camp
D. A. Russell (Marfa), Fort Bliss (El Paso), Camp Crockett (Galveston), Camp
Barkeley (Abilene), and tiny Camp Hulen (Palacios), which could hold only 250
POWs. In 1945, German POWs were farmed out to work in Harmon General Hospital
in Longview, Ashburn General Hospital in McKinney, Camp Cushing in San Antonio,
Biggs Air Field in El Paso, Ellington Air Field in Houston, and in work camps
in Lubbock, Childress, Amarillo, Dumas, Big Spring, Pyote, Alto, and Dalhart.
Even after the war was over, in August 1945, one last camp was created at the
Flour Bluff Army Air Field in Corpus Christi.
Together, the fifteen camps could hold an impressive 34,000
enemy prisoners, but there was still not enough space for the arriving
thousands. The problem of overcrowding was solved by creating satellite camps
attached to the major camps, which served the additional purpose of bringing the
POWs closer to the agricultural worksites where they were most needed. There
were more than thirty satellite camps in Texas. Most were located in the
coastal rice-producing area in an arc reaching from Orange County to Matagorda
County, and in East Texas. Branch camps sprouted up in Kaufman, Princeton,
Navasota, Alto, Chireno, Humble, Denison, Milam, Kirbyville, Liberty, Orange,
Anahuac, Alvin, Rosenberg, Angleton, Forney, Wharton, El Campo, Ganado, Eagle
Lake, Bannister, Patroon, Kenedy, Mont Belvieu, Center, China, Lufkin, Bay
City, and Garwood. Even remote El Paso County hosted four agricultural branch
camps at Ysleta, Fabens, Canutillo, and El Paso.
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