News-Info-Alerts

Re: Community Remembers German POWs

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: November 22, 2003

"Community pays homage to German POWs at Fort Custer

By Trace Christenson The Enquirer

AUGUSTA -- He only spent a week here while he was a prisoner of war, but Ernst Floeter only has fond memories of Fort Custer.

The 78-year-old former German soldier returned Sunday to join others to honor 26 of his countrymen buried in Fort Custer National Cemetery.

For the 50th year, the Germans were remembered on Volkstrauertag, Germany's National Day of Mourning.

All the dead were prisoners among 4,000 who were held at Fort Custer and who died before being returned to Germany after World War II. Sixteen of the men died Oct. 31, 1945, when a truck they were in was struck by a train near Blissfield as they were returning from a work detail. The others died of natural causes.

About 200 people, many of them members of a German-American group from Toledo, attended the 45-minute ceremony under heavy clouds and in damp cool air. The German Memorial Service is hosted by the United War Veteran's Council.

Floeter, 78, was the only former prisoner to return this year. Others have come in past years, according to Herb Brietbach of Battle Creek, one of the organizers of the service.

Its the 10th time Floeter has been back, not counting his first week beginning July 13, 1944.

"I remember getting all new uniforms," he said Sunday after the ceremony. "I got to shed all my German junk."

He said each article of clothing was marked with letters designating him as a prisoner of war.

"It had 'P' and 'W' on everything except the socks."

He was one of the thousands of German prisoners brought to camps across the United States. Floeter only remembers it as a good experience.

He said he never wanted to fight in the German army and when he was captured during the Normandy invasion, he called it being liberated.

The 18-year-old prisoner left Germany July 4, 1944, and after his week at Fort Custer was sent to camps in Illinois and then New Mexico.

He recalls the new clothes he was given, the schools he attended and plenty of good food.

"I remember them saying, 'hurry up boys, get ready for seconds,'" he said. "My impression of the United States was 500 percent. I didn't want to fight for Germany. I was glad I was captured by the Americans."

Floeter spent 22 months as a prisoner before being returned to Germany after the war. But in 1957, he returned to the United States and since 1960 has owned and operated a photography studio in Grand Ledge.

He is an American citizen who frequently portrays Uncle Sam in local parades.

And although he didn't know any of the Germans buried at the cemetery, he has returned 10 times over the years.

"It is a nice ceremony," he said. "We are all partners, Germans and Americans."

Clifford Rose of Battle Creek remembers seeing the German prisoners after he returned home from service in the U.S. Navy during the war.

"I got out in 1946 and got a job driving a truck for the government," he said. "They were in the stockade on the west end of the Fort and I talked to a lot of them. They didn't want to go home."

Rose is the county commander of the Kalamazoo American Legions and a member of the Cemetery Honor Guard and said it's the right thing to do to hold the annual ceremony for the German soldiers.

"They didn't want to fight any more than we did," he said.

Honoring them, he said, is honoring all war veterans.

Master of Ceremonies Tom McHale echoed those words.

While the Germans are sometimes called the Forgotten 26, McHale looked over the crowd and said it was obvious they are not forgotten.

"And we are here to honor all veterans," he continued.

Father Patrick Murphy, chaplain at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, said the gathering helps "remember the price of conflict. We remember these men who lost their lives away from home and we embrace these men as brothers in the global community."

Alexander Petri of Chicago, the Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany and the featured speaker, said the ceremony not only is to recognize the German soldiers but all soldiers, and now, the victims of terrorism.

He also reminded the crowd how the force and power of democracy can create a regime change without war.

A century ago, he said, President Woodrow Wilson argued war should not be used for political ends.

"But war is still being legitimized," he said.

Trace Christenson covers crime and courts. He can be reached at 966-0685 or tchrist@battlecr.gannett.com

©2003 Battle Creek Enquirer"