5 Things About American Food German POWs Couldn't Explain
WW2 Silent Revealed
20,536 views
In the summer of 1943, corn began sprouting behind the mess hall at Aliceville, Alabama, in rows nobody had planted. The German prisoners held there had been given more food than they could eat, and had started burying what was left. Under the Geneva Convention of 1929, the United States was required to feed captured enemy soldiers exactly what it fed its own troops — and it did. This is the story of five things on that tray that the men who ate it could not explain.
SOURCES:
Books
Arnold Krammer, Nazi Prisoners of War in America (1979)
Lewis H. Carlson, We Were Each Other's Prisoners (1997)
Ruth Beaumont Cook, Guests Behind the Barbed Wire (2007)
Michael R. Waters et al., Lone Star Stalag: German Prisoners of War at Camp Hearne (Texas A&M, 2004)
Antonio Thompson, Axis Prisoners of War in Kentucky (McFarland, 2024)
Aaron Bobrow-Strain, White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf (2012)
Donald L. Miller, Masters of the Air
Gustavo Corni & Horst Gies, Brot, Butter, Kanonen (Akademie Verlag, 1997)
Dietmar Petzina, Autarkiepolitik im dritten Reich (1968)
Theses, articles and lectures
Penny Clark, "Farm Work and Friendship: The German Prisoner of War Camp at Lake Wabaunsee," MA thesis, Emporia State University, 1985
Allen W. Paschal, "The Enemy in Colorado: German Prisoners of War, 1943–46," The Colorado Magazine, Summer 1979
Dr. Janet Worrall, "Prisoners of War in Colorado," lecture to the Fort Collins Historical Society, February 1995
"German Prisoners of War in Mississippi, 1943–1946," Mississippi History Now, MDAH, September 2001
Herbert Backe, "Bauerntum im Kampf um Deutschlands Nahrungsfreiheit," Der Vierjahresplan, 1939, via German History Intersections
Billy Eye, "Ghost of a Place," O.Henry Magazine, April 2021 (Luis Felicia, UNCG history project)
Antonio Thompson, Austin Peay State University news release, 22 May 2024
Alta Vista Journal, Wabaunsee County, Kansas, via Clark
Encyclopedia of Alabama, "World War II POW Camps in Alabama"
Oral history and broadcast
Radiolab, "Nazi Summer Camp," WNYC, 22 May 2015, drawing on Sam Love's 1994 Aliceville oral histories (Hans Copera, Walter Fetholter)
Alabama Public Television, 1989 Aliceville reunion documentary, AAPB cpb-aacip-b6a2a39b7eb
Günter Gräwe, 2016 letter, via army.mil
Archival
U.S. National Archives, RG 389, Records of the Office of the Provost Marshal General — Prisoner of War Division
RG 389, Subject Correspondence Files, 1943–1945, NAID 645921
RG 389, Records Relating to German Prisoners of War During World War II, 1943–1952, NAID 876973
Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 1929
Visuals: archival photographs from the U.S. National Archives..., animated maps, and original illustrations.
9 Comments
5 Things About American Food German POWs Couldn't Explain
WW2 Silent Revealed
20,536 views
In the summer of 1943, corn began sprouting behind the mess hall at Aliceville, Alabama, in rows nobody had planted. The German prisoners held there had been given more food than they could eat, and had started burying what was left. Under the Geneva Convention of 1929, the United States was required to feed captured enemy soldiers exactly what it fed its own troops — and it did. This is the story of five things on that tray that the men who ate it could not explain.
SOURCES:
Books
Arnold Krammer, Nazi Prisoners of War in America (1979)
Lewis H. Carlson, We Were Each Other's Prisoners (1997)
Ruth Beaumont Cook, Guests Behind the Barbed Wire (2007)
Michael R. Waters et al., Lone Star Stalag: German Prisoners of War at Camp Hearne (Texas A&M, 2004)
Antonio Thompson, Axis Prisoners of War in Kentucky (McFarland, 2024)
Aaron Bobrow-Strain, White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf (2012)
Donald L. Miller, Masters of the Air
Gustavo Corni & Horst Gies, Brot, Butter, Kanonen (Akademie Verlag, 1997)
Dietmar Petzina, Autarkiepolitik im dritten Reich (1968)
Theses, articles and lectures
Penny Clark, "Farm Work and Friendship: The German Prisoner of War Camp at Lake Wabaunsee," MA thesis, Emporia State University, 1985
Allen W. Paschal, "The Enemy in Colorado: German Prisoners of War, 1943–46," The Colorado Magazine, Summer 1979
Dr. Janet Worrall, "Prisoners of War in Colorado," lecture to the Fort Collins Historical Society, February 1995
"German Prisoners of War in Mississippi, 1943–1946," Mississippi History Now, MDAH, September 2001
Herbert Backe, "Bauerntum im Kampf um Deutschlands Nahrungsfreiheit," Der Vierjahresplan, 1939, via German History Intersections
Billy Eye, "Ghost of a Place," O.Henry Magazine, April 2021 (Luis Felicia, UNCG history project)
Antonio Thompson, Austin Peay State University news release, 22 May 2024
Alta Vista Journal, Wabaunsee County, Kansas, via Clark
Encyclopedia of Alabama, "World War II POW Camps in Alabama"
Oral history and broadcast
Radiolab, "Nazi Summer Camp," WNYC, 22 May 2015, drawing on Sam Love's 1994 Aliceville oral histories (Hans Copera, Walter Fetholter)
Alabama Public Television, 1989 Aliceville reunion documentary, AAPB cpb-aacip-b6a2a39b7eb
Günter Gräwe, 2016 letter, via army.mil
Archival
U.S. National Archives, RG 389, Records of the Office of the Provost Marshal General — Prisoner of War Division
RG 389, Subject Correspondence Files, 1943–1945, NAID 645921
RG 389, Records Relating to German Prisoners of War During World War II, 1943–1952, NAID 876973
Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 1929
Visuals: archival photographs from the U.S. National Archives..., animated maps, and original illustrations.