POW Camps in the United States

A topic not often brought up about World War II is the POW (Prisoners of War) camps of the Allies. These camps differed from each other in their treatment of prisoners. In America POW camps also varied in their treatment of the prisoners from something approaching luxurious and comfortable to places of brutality where the Geneva Convention was ignored. While there are some examples of prisoner abuse overall my findings would argue that Axis prisoners in U.S. POW camps were for the most part treated well.

~Camp Concordia, Kansas in 1944

When one thinks about World War II and the anguish of people who did not know whether their loved ones were dead or alive, it makes sense that a hatred would develop toward the people of the enemy. When it comes to POW camps on either side, it is not surprising that the people who live near and/or worked at the camp often had feelings of anger and disgust towards the prisoners.

P.O.W.'s captured by American forces were usually sent to the United States for internment. Like the British, the Americans had no intentions of keeping the P.O.W.'s longer than necessary. In fact the Allies realized many men were "conscripted" and had not committed any war crimes, and were ultimately going to be needed to rebuild Germany. The initial approach to treating the prisoners of war was impart "a lead by example" strategy, whereby we hoped by treating the Axis'es prisoners well that our captured soldiers would in turn be treated well.

Treatment in POW camps varied significantly from one camp to the other. While some camps were known to be humane, some went as far as to ignore the Geneva Convention suggesting cruel treatment. In some camps, the POWs were put to work as a way of "restoring" the damage they caused. Typical jobs included the harvesting and processing of crops and building roads and waterways. Work programs were sometimes voluntary, sometimes required and in some cases compensated prisoners for their work. The POW camp in Iowa was an example of a camp that followed the Geneva Convention, and offered work programs. The prisoners were payed a "nominal salary" and were able to purchase items from the "post exchange." The prisoners were also able to watch or perform in plays, and create their own bands. Camps like Iowa even contained libraries, bakeries, and hospitals.

Exercise Programs were typical in POW camps, but usually restricted to non-SS P.O.W.'s. Prisoners in some cases were allowed to create bands, perform plays, and even watch movies. Sometimes to the surprise of the locals who felt the prisoners had more benefits than they did.

This generosity however did not apply to the SS captives, and by the end of the war, fueled by knowledge of the Holocaust, many were advocating much harsher treatment for all prisoners. Even senior leaders like "Eisenhower thought the Germans deserved an experience of the hunger they had imposed on everyone else. Nevertheless, the western commanders set limits to such suffering; they always pressed for enough food to 'prevent disease and unrest.'"

It has been suggested that in some camps, problems of prisoner control angered guards sufficiently to result in the death of prisoners. According to the research of Stephen Ambrose, one third of his interviews with U.S. veterans said they saw "U.S. troops kill German prisoners."

"The Most notorious American POW camps were the so-called Rheinwiesenlager." Here, the Americans allowed "anything up to 40,000 German soldiers to die from hungar and neglect in muddy flats of the Rhine."... "any attempt to feed the prisoners by the German civilian population was pushable by death." ~From the Spring 2009 issue of The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies, pp. 95-110

~POW Camp in Iowa

Despite the evidence of some in humane prisoner treatment in the U.S., I believe there is more support that we treated prisoners well. In the U.S. the was an estimated 300,000 plus P.O.W.'s of which as the above suggests only 13% were treated badly enough to result in death. Of these the majority would still have been do to starvation and disease rather than brutality.

Further evidence of overall humane prisoner treatment comes from the Kansas based POW camp Concordia, reporting that: "After the war, some of the former P.O.W.'s emigrated to the United States, some quite close to the site where they had been prisoners during the war. Even today, the old P.O.W. compound and Cloud County Museum are visited by former P.O.W.'s, their children and now grandchildren."

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