German POWs buried at Fort Benning are not forgotten
ELLIOTT MINOR Associated Press
FORT BENNING, Ga. - Dignitaries will soon gather at the Fort Benning cemetery to honor former enemies - 44 German soldiers, including a highly decorated general, who died as World War II prisoners of war.
Although these soldiers are buried thousands of miles from home, they are not forgotten.
German-born women, many of them wives of current or retired U.S. soldiers, place colorful silk flowers in urns at each grave throughout the year.
And each November, Fort Benning's German Army liaison team hosts "Volkstrauertag" - Germany's day of mourning - to honor the dead soldiers, most of them killed by illnesses or in accidents. For convenience, the memorial service will be held Wednesday - four days earlier than the official observances in Germany.
"The minimum you can do is honor these soldiers who sacrificed," said Lt. Col. Herbert R. Sladek, the German liaison officer. "They were educated in another time period, with another political guideline. In their opinion, they also fought for freedom, liberty and for their fatherland. That's why these people gave all they had - their own lives."
Among the invited guests for the ceremony are the German consul general in Atlanta and Fort Benning's commander, Brig. Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley. Others will include members of Rolling Thunder, a motorcycle club that focuses on POW-MIA issues and "Klub Heimatland," the German women's group that tends the graves.
"They are German soldiers and we feel like we want to pay our respects to them," said Inge Wills, the club's president. "It means something for us to do this for the families who cannot do it."
U.S. Army musicians will play the German equivalent of taps - "Ich hatt' einen Kameraden," a 19th-century dirge about the loss of a buddy in combat.
The German graves and the graves of a few Italian POWs, are surrounded by the headstones of hundreds of U.S. soldiers and family members.
Lt. Gen. Willibald Borowietz, who was killed in an auto accident on July 1, 1945, is the highest-ranking POW buried at Fort Benning. According to his headstone, he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves - the equivalent of the U.S. Medal of Honor.
During World War II, especially during the collapse of the Afrika Corps, about 700 internment camps, including 466 in the South, were thrown up in the United States to detain nearly a half-million enemy soldiers. They arrived sometimes at a rate of 30,000 a month.
About 860 of the German POWs are buried at 43 sites across the United States, according to the German War Graves Commission, a private charity based in Kassel, Germany, that registers, maintains and cares for the graves of the country's war dead abroad. They died from illnesses, accidents and other causes.
The largest number, 108, are buried at the National Cemetery in Chattanooga, Tenn., which also has the graves of 78 World War I German POWs. Other major burial sites are Fort Sam Houston, Texas, with 133, Fort Riley, Kan., with 63 and Fort Reno, Okla., with 62, including the grave of a POW who was murdered by six fellow prisoners. They were executed.
With most of America's able-bodied men overseas fighting the war, the German POWs helped ease a labor shortage by working on farms and in the forests.
Georgia had 40 camps with 11,800 prisoners at places like Fort Benning and what is now Fort Stewart near Savannah and Moody Air Force Base, near Valdosta. There were many smaller camps in rural areas such as Fargo, on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp.
"German POWs were treated very well," said Arnold Krammer, a Texas A&M history professor who has written several books on German POWs.
"In some cases they were given wine and beer with every meal," he said. "Of course, prison is still prison. They were bored and unhappy."
But thousands returned to Germany fluent in English and "having a new love and respect for the United States," Krammer said.
Many climbed into the hierarchy of the postwar government, while others became business executives, writers and artists, he said.
Farmers paid the government for the POWs' work and the government paid the POWs.
"Each prisoner could take back several hundred dollars or more which helped lubricate the German economy," Krammer said. "It was one of those programs that just worked out well for everybody."