News-Info-Alerts

Re: Wisconsin's 38 POW Camps

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: February 11, 2003

"Historian uncovers story of German POWs in state
Government 'didn't want us to know,' author says

By David Paulsen
Wausau Daily Herald
dpaulsen@wdhprint.com

MARATHON - Betty Cowley has some amazing stories to tell after more than four years of research into a nearly forgotten but fascinating chapter of Wisconsin's history.

The U.S. government housed about 18,000 German prisoners of war in 38 camps across the state during World War II, a fact that has been largely overlooked because a fire destroyed many of the archival records from the period and because "Uncle Sam didn't want us to know," Cowley said.

With only a limited number of official resources, Cowley instead drew on old newspaper articles and interviews with nearly 400 prisoners, guards and Wisconsin residents who remembered the time. The research culminated in "Stalag Wisconsin: Inside WWII Prisoner-of-War Camps," a book published a year ago by Badger Books.

Cowley learned that German POWs, rather than posing a threat, lived and worked peacefully in dozens of Wisconsin communities, interacted with civilians and contributed to the local economy for several years before returning home to Germany after the war.

She presented her research and a selection of photos to a rapt audience Sunday afternoon at the Rib River Ballroom during a meeting of Pommerscher Verein Central Wisconsin, a German heritage organization.

"I love to talk about this," Cowley told the crowd of dozens. "And I'm still excited about the research."

Cowley first heard about the camps several years ago from an older man in Altoona, where she taught high school history for 35 years. When she told her students that Altoona was the site of a POW camp during WWII, they didn't believe her.

It became a personal challenge to find further proof of the camps.

"I had no clue what I was getting into. I had no idea how many," Cowley said.
After two years, she could say with confidence that Wisconsin was home to 38 camps, the largest being Camp McCoy, a base camp near Sparta and Tomah. Smaller branch camps stretched from Bayfield to the Illinois border. In central Wisconsin, camps in Rhinelander, Antigo, Marshfield and Wisconsin Rapids served as the wartime home of hundreds of German prisoners.

The U.S. government tried to keep the camp's existence quiet to avoid alarming the local populace, which in some small towns was outnumbered by the prisoners, Cowley said. The government also wanted to protect the prisoners from Americans seeking revenge for relatives who died in battle at the hands of Germans.

But those concerns were unjustified, Cowley argued. Most German prisoners posed no threat and actually played a productive role in the state's wartime economy.
Prisoners worked as loggers in northern Wisconsin and mashed cranberries in Wisconsin Rapids. About 190 prisoners from the Rhinelander camp helped harvest crops, and still, acres were left to rot because of the lack of manpower, she said.

Their presence certainly wasn't without incident, however, and Cowley shared several humorous and poignant stories from her studies.

Camp McCoy was protected by armed guards, vicious dogs and prison-style fences, but most of the branch camps were surrounded only by snow fences.

"The fencing was never to keep the prisoners in. It was to keep the girls out," Cowley told the crowd Sunday. "You think about it - they're the only guys in town."

Her book is full of stories of German prisoners and their "dates" with women from the towns where they were staying. In one case, the alarm sounded that two prisoners from one of the camps had escaped. Guards in Jeeps roamed the town warning residents that prisoners were on the loose, so they should stay inside.
The guards may have overreacted. After a couple hours of looking, they found the Germans "walking down a country lane hand-in-hand with a couple of ladies," Cowley said.

Prisoners cooked their own food, washed their own clothes and cut each other's hair. They played music in bands and formed teams to play soccer, much to the interest of local onlookers. Some camps sent prisoners to attend religious services in town. Others brought ministers to the prisoners.

In fact, authorities spent more time worrying about violence between Nazis and anti-Nazis among the prisoners than between the prisoners and residents.
"We didn't fear them. Why should we?" Cowley said. "This is what they looked like."

She showed the crowd a picture of four German prisoners taking a break from work to pose for the camera. The men wore T-shirts and jeans. They smoked cigarettes. Hints of smiles rose to their lips.

One of Cowley's underlying arguments is that there was little difference between these young German men and the young American men sent to fight the war overseas.

And people often ask Cowley whether the United States treated its prisoners too well.
No is her answer.

"We followed the rules," Cowley said, referring to international rules governing prisoners of war. Americans, likewise, hoped their relatives were being treated properly as prisoners in Germany. "