My grandfather was a POW here in America and eventuality emigrated here after the war. He was 19 when he was captured and 23 when he finally emigrated. Großvater was my hero he spoiled me rotten, taught me German, sent me to college bought me my very first New car at 18. He was a towering German, grandfather taught me one thing growing up, that it does not matter what race you are, German, American, Jewish ect. We are all the same, we bleed the same, love the same, feel emotions the same, and we all end up in the same place at the end of our Journey. My Großvater lived to he 97 R.I.P Großvater Hantz Steüben 1923-2022. I miss you so much Opa. 😢
Beautiful, "we bleed the same, love the same, feel emotions the same, all end up in the same place at the end of the journey"---Universal truth. So very touching. Thank you for sharing. The survivors of war lived not just for themselves, they lived for all those whom they knew that did not survive.
Only in America and only the greatest generation could hold a POW(prisoner of war) camp reunion and the ex-prisoners show up to it. That speaks volumes to me.
Yes things have changed so much. Could you imagine now? No way. PoWs would be in cages..concrete. heavily guarded..no activities. Totally devoid of grass or much of anything...there would be tanks guarding the place Yet its our diplomacy our ideology that really changes hearts and minds not our weapons not our wealth. This is why we actually Won THIS war Our values are simply much different than then.
My dad was a camp guard for German POW's. He said they had strong work ethic and were very industrious. They liked working on the local farms and they were always making things. Some make all wood coo-coo clocks to sell to camp personnel or the locals they work for.
A friend of my dad who he grew up with in the small company town of New Gulf, Texas was taken prisoner by the Germans in the Ardennes in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. He said he & his fellow prisoners were treated pretty well except for not getting much to eat but that the Germans themselves were starving at that point. The Germans would make the prisoners clean up after the Allies bombing raids. He said one day he & another prisoner were clearing rubble in a church courtyard where some chickens coops were & they found some charred chickens which they ate because they were so hungry. He said " we had barbecued chicken courtesy of the Royal Airforce".
the degree of how tragic and said this is, is just insane. But please dont think i am being facetious or malevolent when I saw I bursted out laughing when you said "...barbecued chicken courtesy of the Royal Airforce"
Oh, piss off. Nobody complained when people were in deep fear of their safety and lives. It was only later when most of the danger had passed that the politicians that had silently winked and nodded at it during the time that they KNEW it was going on, suddenly started acting like a bunch of self righteous Pharasees and postured like only the truest hypocrites possibly could. Nobody died or was maimed from waterboarding, but 3000 people died in a raging inferno on 911, at the hands of suicide Jihadists that thought they were going to a sex paradise and they woke up in the fires of HELL. 👿🔥👹
@@johnathandaviddunster38 Guantanamo yes absolutely proud of that it's saved thousands of lives,but at that base in Iraq where the dumbass Army Weekend Warriors did to those insurgents remember those pictures that my friend was disgusting and that my friend is not what America is all about,
How quaint and charming that these German POWs had such a wonderful time! Many Americans in these areas were of German ancestry, still speaking German in many cases. African - Americans, serving in the US military were rarely if ever, afforded such hospitality by their 'fellow Americans'. Germans, especially officers, traveled in the first class carriages, whilst African-Americans of all ranks, especially when journeying down South were relegated to the lowest of compartments.
@@codygooch510 Evidently your English isn't up to scratch! I used the word "areas";- PLURAL! It is well documented that in many AREAS/STATES, there were German speaking Americans who quickly bonded with these POWs! I take it that you knew each and everyone of Aliceville's c.2500 population in the 1940s?
This is a perfect example of what American greatness is all about. Are we perfect, no way, we learned from our past mistakes and continuing to make up some atrocities, that's why America whent ape shit on how we treated the insurgents from the Iraq war, remember those photos, THATS NOT WHAT WE ARE ABOUT!!!!
@@tommorgan1291 lots of Soviets have been moving into my small town and I have already become good friends with a few. I don't mind at all if they keep coming because the ones I've been meeting are wonderful people and they are very pro-American.
I came across a study that said that the survival rate of an American POW in German captivity was 96% . In Japanese captivity it was 46% ....less than half !
even higher.. it was around 98%.. barely any americans died in german POW camps.... russians on the other had were treated awfully.. well, that was the racism.. americans (and british) were seen as fellow arians, russians not
@@mats7492 NOT TRUE AT ALL. Hundreds of American POW's were executed. Google Malmedy Massacre as an example. It depended on who captured the American POW's. If they were SS, they had a policy not to take prisoners so POW's were executed. If it was the Wehrmacht units that captured American POW's, then they were treated better. I don't know if you caught this, but one of these German POW's mentioned that there was a lot of tension in the camp between the Wehmacht soldiers and the Nazi's (i.e. SS solidiers). The SS were psychopathic party soldiers that carried out the politics of the Nazi Party. They would attack Wehmacht with almost the same intensity as the Allies. Too many Americans don't know the difference between Wehmacht and SS.
@@christschool I think he means for people that made it to POW camps. Summary executions wouldn't have any impact on that stat. I've heard that stat before too. That Germans and Americans had roughly the same survival rate in eachother's camps. British and Commonwealth i'm sure as well.
It was smart of the USA to treat it's POWs decent and feed them good in the long run. Maybe at the time they they thought if we treat the German POWs good they will treat our POWs good in Germany. I am glad they did. When I was drafted in the Army in 1956 and was sent to Germany. All the time I was there I was there I was treated good by the German population in uniform or civilian clothes.I made friends while in Germany and have been back several times to visit friends there I had made. I was in the American sector of course and the feeling seem to be they liked Americans but not the Russians. I only knew one American who was captured by the Germans in my home town and he said he was treated ok. So seems to me it paid off in better treatment of our POWs and the soldiers who occupied Germany after the war.
@Dr. M. H. No, Eisenhower starved millions of Germans after the war. He didn't call them POW's due to the Geneva convention violation . He gave them a NEW name other than POW to get away with it designation of these prisoners as Disarmed Enemy Forces (DEF),
@@christschool And US troops never did such things? In fact most dangerous time for any surrendered troops was just after that surrender. Bad feelings run high, front line troops maybe do not have any manpower available to escort prisoners and so on. Somebody gets an idea "lets shoot all these sob's now and problem goes away".
my german grandpa always told me that he was treated better in the US POW camps than he was in the german army.. also the food rations were massive compared to the wehrmacht rations.. he actually gained weight in the US pow camps.. never said a bad word about the US until his last day... what struck him the most was the horrible treatment of black soldiers back home coming from fighting in europe.. He, the enemy, being a white german, could freely sit in a cafe or go to see a movie without a problem.. the black US SOLDIERS were not allowed to.. he was never able to get over that...
Mat S True. I’m profoundly ashamed by that very same thing. German POWs rode on excellent trains while our black fellow Americans who were fighting for our country were seated at the very back of the train. It makes me weep over the dishonor we gave fellow Americans. Shame, shame on us during that time.
@@christschool 99.9 per cent of the German soldiers were NOT responsible for the Holocaust. They had to do the soldiers duty. Right or wrong, my country...
My dad was a POW guard after being lightly wounded in combat, he could have been discharged, but he asked for lighter duty, so they sent him to a prison camp near Ft. Benning, GA. I can confirm the taboo on discussing politics. I don't know if it was a regulation or not, but by universal agreement with both guards and prisoners, nobody ever brought it up. Religion, he didn't say, so I don't know, but there were both Catholic and Protestant services on Sundays and Holy days, attendance was voluntary, but the ladies auxiliaries of nearby churches would serve coffee and treats. Sugar was rationed but a couple of farmers were also beekeepers, so they would drizzle honey over deep fried bread dough, so these were well attended. The Catholic Mass was done in Latin which was the norm among the Italians and German and American Catholics anyway. For the Protestant service, there was a local Lutheran church assistant Pastor that would preach in tolerable German. I don't think that there were any Protestant Italians, duh. So religion may have been discussed but not in a contentious way, everybody knew better than to cause a ruckus.🤔
Lord knows I wish the Black soldiers would have been welcomed when they returned home from WW2 also. It’s nice they treated the German soldiers with such kindness, but I do wish they would have carried that over to the brave & courageous Black soldiers too!😢
No kidding. It is a disgrace that these enemy soldiers came back over here and were not discriminated against. They didn’t have to drink water from the colored water fountain:
Just the Blacks??? The Japanese born Americans sign up and volunteer to go fight their own kind. They fought hard and honorably while the U.S government strip and took their parents house and farms away, then their parents was rounded up and sent to internment camps. While their son was fighting for your country. The U.S government didn't do this to the American Germans or the American Italians, they only did this to the Japanese Americans. At least the Blacks had a home when they came back, the Japanese soldiers home and their parents home and businesses was taken by your government and auction off. Boohoo to the Black soldiers 😂😂😂😂
Ya I agree, slavery of course was horrible, we fought a war a war that the same race was fighting to save or in slave, in world history, no country has ever fought like this, 700 thousand people died,, to me is the worst, is when these black American heroes come home they were treated like SHIT and continued through Korea, Vietnam, ect ect, in some ways we were no better than the Germans, great post I was looking for this, 😇
I totally agree and I also hate the way our Japanese citizens were treated. I do disagree with that other comment saying the Germans should have been treated bad. And it's really unfathomable that would've happened considering so many Americans are of German ancestry so of course they were going to feel a bond with the Germans.
I felt the same. Imagine the Southerners learning to speak perfect German? Makes our people look ignorant, slovenly and lazy. From an articulate Texan…
18:15 RIP Hermann Blumhardt Katherine Blumhardt Member of German-American Association, the Alabama Prisoner of War Museum, and the St. Mary of the Lakes Catholic Church in Eustis, FL, where his funeral mass was held on August 27, 2010. Katherine Blumhardt -- 16 Juli 2014
For me, as a dutchman, this is all a bit strange to see. My parents and grandparents barely made it through the war and especially the hungerwinter. On every occasion, we, kids from shortly after the war, were reminded of what the Germans (Nazi's or moffen) did to them. At the time, it would have been unthinkable to befriend any German old enough to have participated in the occupation. And I noticed a lot of people who lived during the war, who for many years refused to even sit in a German made car.
The Nazis, the Russians, and the Japanese did not comply with the rules of captured soldiers. the U.K did . And for the U.S it was like their first time with large prisoners, on their soil. so they followed The Third Geneva Convention sets of specific rules for the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs). The Convention's 143 articles require that POWs be treated humanely, adequately housed and receive sufficient food, clothing and medical care. The U.S did this because they hope the Americans pows would be treated well by their enemies. And of course the japanese and the Nazis did not treat the Americans well.
I'm 88 and to this day I try to never buy anything German! Imagine starting two World Wars! I still don't trust them. Look how all the German car companies falsified and sabatoged their emissions! I think they have bad genes.
Thank you for the video. My father was a U.S. Army MP during WWII and he was a prison guard at a German POW camp here in the States. I never asked him nor did he ever told me where he was a guard but I wouldn't be surprised if he was a guard at Aliceville since he was Alabama born and raised in Hartselle.
Great show. I'm very thankful these interviews & all the information was gathered & preserved for me to see in 2022. Have saved it to my playlist. I would love to have seen their military photos - both sides - shared in this production. How they looked at the time.
This is an excellent historical video. This could be the nucleus of a special event in Alabama now that Mercedes’ is a Part of the state ! Military history is all over the state of Alabama. The CMP at Anniston is doing a great job of preserving the M1 Garand and which I’m sure played a significant role in Aliceville Al..
Interesting and informative. Excellent photography job enabling viewers to better understand what/whom the orator was describing. Professional class A research projec!!! Special thanks to veteran ( POW ) inmates/civilians sharing personal information/experiences of camp life. Making this documentary more authentic and possible. Very humane incarceration/treatment in comparison to Russian incarceration.
Rommel was the one that deserves credit for the Kasserine Pass victory, he put the German 88 artillery out of range of our Army and wiped out every vehicle in minutes knowing we could not shoot back and hit anything!
My first guard duty was an ammunition dump. The jeep driver dropped me off and before he picked me up I was given a 45 pistol belt and hoslter. After the jeep left I found out there were no bullets! I called central guard and said I have no bullets. The reply was yep. But you got a gun and they hung up. I was really alert the whole shift! Next day I got a short pass. Went in town to the local hardware and bought a box of 45 bullets. Was I worried about the enemy? No! I was worried about bears. By the way that was 1952 and I was 17.
I've been watching a lot of these videos about different camps and they all say they had a pleasant time. One interview one of the American soldiers said they were in awe of the German soldiers because of how immaculate they always were. It seemed to be the majority of Americans soldiers admired the German ones.
The beaten 6th Army was not so lucky as the Germans in Alabama. They ended up in Siberia. Out of about 600.000 Wehrmacht soldiers taken prisoner in Stalingrad, only 10.000 finally made it home.
Jurgen....I'm amazed that even 10,000 survived, after the treatment they received from the Russians. Several years ago, I read Edwin Hoyt's book "199 Days: The Battle for Stalingrad", and learned a little (most of the book was about the battle, not the aftermath), of the suffering, starvation and mistreatment that the German, Italian and Hungarian POW's suffered after their defeat. (forced marches in the bitter, January cold, not just reduced rations...but NO rations..ugh..terrible)...suffice it to say, they were NOT treated like human beings. I'm sure there are always the exceptions, but judging by this video, I believe we Americans treated POW's decently. Don't think the Japanese could say the same. My grandfather was a Navy Corpsman in the PTO during the war....he always said he was more afraid of being taken prisoner by the Japanese, than being killed by them....
@@deannamorgan7586 Throughout Stalin's rule, it was common practice to get rid of almost anyone who was a potential adversary of the system in the Soviet Union. The main method in use back then was - starvation, no medical treatment, hard labour. I suppose it was Alexander Solshenizin who best described the Archipel Gulag, if I'm not mistaken! After 1917, it was the so - called "bourgeoisie" to face near - extinction, followed by the Kulaks, especially during the Great Famine in Ukraine! So the treatment of the German POWs after Stalingrad and the ensuing "Zusammenbruch des Mittelabschnitts der Ostfront" closely followed the Bolshevist ideology and Stalin's paranoia against possible enemies - not to forget that the threat posed by the Wehrmacht against the Soviet régime was still high!
@@jurgenkuhlmann9194 Very true about Stalin. One of the reasons the Soviet Army suffered such crushing defeats early in the war was because in the 1930's, in one of his many purges, he "removed" almost the entire Officer Corp, so when war came, they had, with few exceptions, almost no experienced, capable officers! I, too, read Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago and found it terrifying. Stalin's rule was brutal, cruel and horrific.
@@deannamorgan7586 If Hitler had not again interfered by ordering the advancing German troops to move south towards the Caucasian oil fields, the "Blitzkrieg" strategy against the Soviet Union would have been successful. It was reported that the Communist leaders in Moscow had already started to burn documents for fear they could fall into German hands. With Stalin having himself locked in somewhere. But this is pure speculation!
well, the photos told me 1 thing. they did not change rail road passenger cars on their trip south. the image showed a B&O car. B&O never even came close to serving Alabama. they loaded them up in NYC and kept them there all the way south.
The German soldier conquered Europe many times. What the accepted actual history of these men is 360° opposite from the truth. Germany is where warriors were honed to knights
@@DiviAugusti He died before I knew about his POW status. My information comes from my mom. He never talked about his war experiences. She has a telegram from him, and the book by Ruth Cook: Friends behind the barbed wire: a true story of hope and friendship. He was a carpenter so I'm sure they kept him busy.
I just finished one on Kindle by i believe his name was Hein Erichsen but I don't recall the exact name of the book. And now I'm reading the one about Aliceville. Super interesting and some hilarious stories about when they would work on the local farms. Also, all these guys in the video are featured in it.
“In 1942, the British and Commonwealth forces claimed a victory at El Alamein…” The US is not part of the Commonwealth, just in case you didn’t realize that yet.
A late friend of mine (former Rommel-Afrika-Korps-fighter) told me of that sign. The pow`s did it to displease the camp guards. Later on they did the same at a pow-camp in Illinois. But there was no reaction. They were treated fair and sometimes were allowed to take part in public events.
It is the "wolfsangel" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfsangel In this form it is e.g. the symbol of the Dutch NSB. But is also today a sign. For example: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SC_Verl It is not quite an SS symbol. But perhaps they should have removed it anyway.
I will never have the nice sentiment toward the Taliban and Pakistani ISI that those Americans have toward Nazis. I certainly will never have a damn bbq with them.
Ya! Back then, they observed that the Germans were just human beings just like that but they never considered the black citizens of Americans as Human beings back then. What an irony
My grandfather was a POW here in America and eventuality emigrated here after the war. He was 19 when he was captured and 23 when he finally emigrated. Großvater was my hero he spoiled me rotten, taught me German, sent me to college bought me my very first New car at 18. He was a towering German, grandfather taught me one thing growing up, that it does not matter what race you are, German, American, Jewish ect. We are all the same, we bleed the same, love the same, feel emotions the same, and we all end up in the same place at the end of our Journey. My Großvater lived to he 97 R.I.P Großvater Hantz Steüben 1923-2022. I miss you so much Opa. 😢
This country gets the best, great story.
@ReichwingConspirator US wouldnt be shi without mexican workers
How wonderful!
Beautiful, "we bleed the same, love the same, feel emotions the same, all end up in the same place at the end of the journey"---Universal truth. So very touching. Thank you for sharing. The survivors of war lived not just for themselves, they lived for all those whom they knew that did not survive.
Only in America and only the greatest generation could hold a POW(prisoner of war) camp reunion and the ex-prisoners show up to it. That speaks volumes to me.
Yes things have changed so much. Could you imagine now? No way. PoWs would be in cages..concrete. heavily guarded..no activities. Totally devoid of grass or much of anything...there would be tanks guarding the place Yet its our diplomacy our ideology that really changes hearts and minds not our weapons not our wealth. This is why we actually Won THIS war Our values are simply much different than then.
My dad was a camp guard for German POW's. He said they had strong work ethic and were very industrious. They liked working on the local farms and they were always making things. Some make all wood coo-coo clocks to sell to camp personnel or the locals they work for.
A friend of my dad who he grew up with in the small company town of New Gulf, Texas was taken prisoner by the Germans in the Ardennes in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. He said he & his fellow prisoners were treated pretty well except for not getting much to eat but that the Germans themselves were starving at that point. The Germans would make the prisoners clean up after the Allies bombing raids. He said one day he & another prisoner were clearing rubble in a church courtyard where some chickens coops were & they found some charred chickens which they ate because they were so hungry. He said " we had barbecued chicken courtesy of the Royal Airforce".
the degree of how tragic and said this is, is just insane. But please dont think i am being facetious or malevolent when I saw I bursted out laughing when you said "...barbecued chicken courtesy of the Royal Airforce"
Me too.😅
I had to laugh, and replay, when that ex POW says Aliceville Alabama. You know he was really there. He says those two words with a southern accent.
I LAUGHED SO HARD 😹😹😹
He sure did!
It makes me proud as an American and Marine, that we treated our POWs so well.
Are you proud of Guantanamo and wash boarding ?????.........
Oh, piss off. Nobody complained when people were in deep fear of their safety and lives. It was only later when most of the danger had passed that the politicians that had silently winked and nodded at it during the time that they KNEW it was going on, suddenly started acting like a bunch of self righteous Pharasees and postured like only the truest hypocrites possibly could. Nobody died or was maimed from waterboarding, but 3000 people died in a raging inferno on 911, at the hands of suicide Jihadists that thought they were going to a sex paradise and they woke up in the fires of HELL. 👿🔥👹
@@johnathandaviddunster38 Guantanamo yes absolutely proud of that it's saved thousands of lives,but at that base in Iraq where the dumbass Army Weekend Warriors did to those insurgents remember those pictures that my friend was disgusting and that my friend is not what America is all about,
Agree!
LOL. You mean water boarding? Your English needs to improve if you are going to make such stupid comments.
USA Danke sehr, never have heard of any former German POW's wanting to return to the Soviet Union to meet up with Russian Guards...!
How quaint and charming that these German POWs had such a wonderful time! Many Americans in these areas were of German ancestry, still speaking German in many cases.
African - Americans, serving in the US military were rarely if ever, afforded such hospitality by their 'fellow Americans'. Germans, especially officers, traveled in the first class carriages, whilst African-Americans of all ranks, especially when journeying down South were relegated to the lowest of compartments.
No. I haven’t heard a single person here in Aliceville who speaks German.
@@codygooch510
Evidently your English isn't up to scratch! I used the word "areas";- PLURAL! It is well documented that in many AREAS/STATES, there were German speaking Americans who quickly bonded with these POWs!
I take it that you knew each and everyone of Aliceville's c.2500 population in the 1940s?
@@yottwr6108 You could count the number of people in western Alabama who spoke fluent German on one hand.
This is a perfect example of what American greatness is all about. Are we perfect, no way, we learned from our past mistakes and continuing to make up some atrocities, that's why America whent ape shit on how we treated the insurgents from the Iraq war, remember those photos, THATS NOT WHAT WE ARE ABOUT!!!!
Get ready for thousands of Ukrainians! Seems USA staying power is drifting off by the political wind!
@@tommorgan1291 lots of Soviets have been moving into my small town and I have already become good friends with a few. I don't mind at all if they keep coming because the ones I've been meeting are wonderful people and they are very pro-American.
I came across a study that said that the survival rate of an American POW in German captivity was 96% . In Japanese captivity it was 46% ....less than half !
even higher.. it was around 98%.. barely any americans died in german POW camps.... russians on the other had were treated awfully.. well, that was the racism.. americans (and british) were seen as fellow arians, russians not
In USSR 20% for Germans. Horrible.
@@mats7492 NOT TRUE AT ALL. Hundreds of American POW's were executed. Google Malmedy Massacre as an example. It depended on who captured the American POW's. If they were SS, they had a policy not to take prisoners so POW's were executed. If it was the Wehrmacht units that captured American POW's, then they were treated better. I don't know if you caught this, but one of these German POW's mentioned that there was a lot of tension in the camp between the Wehmacht soldiers and the Nazi's (i.e. SS solidiers). The SS were psychopathic party soldiers that carried out the politics of the Nazi Party. They would attack Wehmacht with almost the same intensity as the Allies. Too many Americans don't know the difference between Wehmacht and SS.
@Min Tin There are good and bad in every group , Min.
@@christschool I think he means for people that made it to POW camps. Summary executions wouldn't have any impact on that stat. I've heard that stat before too. That Germans and Americans had roughly the same survival rate in eachother's camps. British and Commonwealth i'm sure as well.
It was smart of the USA to treat it's POWs decent and feed them good in the long run. Maybe at the time they they thought if we treat the German POWs good they will treat our POWs good in Germany. I am glad they did. When I was drafted in the Army in 1956 and was sent to Germany. All the time I was there I was there I was treated good by the German population in uniform or civilian clothes.I made friends while in Germany and have been back several times to visit friends there I had made. I was in the American sector of course and the feeling seem to be they liked Americans but not the Russians. I only knew one American who was captured by the Germans in my home town and he said he was treated ok. So seems to me it paid off in better treatment of our POWs and the soldiers who occupied Germany after the war.
US POW's were not treated the same. Look up the Malmedy Massacre.
@Kristie C You think the WW2 Nazi followed the Geneva convention. They murder their leaders to be in power what make u think they follow rules.
@Dr. M. H. No, Eisenhower starved millions of Germans after the war. He didn't call them POW's due to the Geneva convention violation . He gave them a NEW name other than POW to get away with it designation of these prisoners as Disarmed Enemy Forces (DEF),
We treated Japanese POWs good as well. When the war ended, it ended and we became friends.
@@christschool And US troops never did such things? In fact most dangerous time for any surrendered troops was just after that surrender. Bad feelings run high, front line troops maybe do not have any manpower available to escort prisoners and so on. Somebody gets an idea "lets shoot all these sob's now and problem goes away".
my german grandpa always told me that he was treated better in the US POW camps than he was in the german army.. also the food rations were massive compared to the wehrmacht rations.. he actually gained weight in the US pow camps.. never said a bad word about the US until his last day... what struck him the most was the horrible treatment of black soldiers back home coming from fighting in europe.. He, the enemy, being a white german, could freely sit in a cafe or go to see a movie without a problem.. the black US SOLDIERS were not allowed to.. he was never able to get over that...
Mat S
True. I’m profoundly ashamed by that very same thing. German POWs rode on excellent trains while our black fellow Americans who were fighting for our country were seated at the very back of the train. It makes me weep over the dishonor we gave fellow Americans. Shame, shame on us during that time.
Hopefully your grandpa understood how racism worked/works in Germany as well. You know, the whole Holocaust thing.
@@christschool 99.9 per cent of the German soldiers were NOT responsible for the Holocaust. They had to do the soldiers duty. Right or wrong, my country...
@@9traktor True, but the German people weren't ignorant of what was going on with the Nazi party when it rose to power.
@Min Tin You're as ignorant of history as you are of the english language.
I'm thinking there wasn't a reunion in Russia's prisoner of war camps.
not necessary - most are still buried there.
Touching
Some Germans did make connections in Russia, over time the Russians began to see the Germans were just men in a bad situation too.
@@mountainguyed67 some 800,000 went in and only 5,000 returned, that’s scary..
@@sotis1756 how is that possible? Are you sure about that number ? You mean 7,955,000 POW died like that ?
Very interesting to watch this and hear these men’s story. Since this was filmed. Almost All these people have passed on
My dad was a POW guard after being lightly wounded in combat, he could have been discharged, but he asked for lighter duty, so they sent him to a prison camp near Ft. Benning, GA. I can confirm the taboo on discussing politics. I don't know if it was a regulation or not, but by universal agreement with both guards and prisoners, nobody ever brought it up. Religion, he didn't say, so I don't know, but there were both Catholic and Protestant services on Sundays and Holy days, attendance was voluntary, but the ladies auxiliaries of nearby churches would serve coffee and treats. Sugar was rationed but a couple of farmers were also beekeepers, so they would drizzle honey over deep fried bread dough, so these were well attended. The Catholic Mass was done in Latin which was the norm among the Italians and German and American Catholics anyway. For the Protestant service, there was a local Lutheran church assistant Pastor that would preach in tolerable German. I don't think that there were any Protestant Italians, duh. So religion may have been discussed but not in a contentious way, everybody knew better than to cause a ruckus.🤔
Excellent! This type video should be in the classrooms of our schools!
Today in schools they learn about 55 different genders. If you know what I mean
Very valid observation! Thank you!
Lord knows I wish the Black soldiers would have been welcomed when they returned home from WW2 also. It’s nice they treated the German soldiers with such kindness, but I do wish they would have carried that over to the brave & courageous Black soldiers too!😢
No kidding. It is a disgrace that these enemy soldiers came back over here and were not discriminated against. They didn’t have to drink water from the colored water fountain:
Just the Blacks???
The Japanese born Americans sign up and volunteer to go fight their own kind. They fought hard and honorably while the U.S government strip and took their parents house and farms away, then their parents was rounded up and sent to internment camps. While their son was fighting for your country.
The U.S government didn't do this to the American Germans or the American Italians, they only did this to the Japanese Americans.
At least the Blacks had a home when they came back, the Japanese soldiers home and their parents home and businesses was taken by your government and auction off.
Boohoo to the Black soldiers 😂😂😂😂
Ya I agree, slavery of course was horrible, we fought a war a war that the same race was fighting to save or in slave, in world history, no country has ever fought like this, 700 thousand people died,, to me is the worst, is when these black American heroes come home they were treated like SHIT and continued through Korea, Vietnam, ect ect, in some ways we were no better than the Germans, great post I was looking for this, 😇
I totally agree and I also hate the way our Japanese citizens were treated. I do disagree with that other comment saying the Germans should have been treated bad. And it's really unfathomable that would've happened considering so many Americans are of German ancestry so of course they were going to feel a bond with the Germans.
The luckiest soldiers in the war.
I knew Mr Peter Ertel personally. Great man. Loved music.
The German speaking english is a lot clearer and easier to understand than most of the others in this video.
The Deep South.
I felt the same. Imagine the Southerners learning to speak perfect German? Makes our people look ignorant, slovenly and lazy.
From an articulate Texan…
@@davidjose9808 don't worry, we (Germans) think the exact same way about southern and eastern Germans.
great video, thanks for sharing
I grew up 20 miles from this camp. I had heard that the Aliceville citizens were upset that the POWs had better food than the citizens.
Excellent! Thanks so much !! We definitely owe you a beer!
18:15 RIP Hermann Blumhardt Katherine Blumhardt
Member of German-American Association, the Alabama Prisoner of War Museum, and the St. Mary of the Lakes Catholic Church in Eustis, FL,
where his funeral mass was held on August 27, 2010. Katherine Blumhardt -- 16 Juli 2014
For me, as a dutchman, this is all a bit strange to see.
My parents and grandparents barely made it through the war and especially the hungerwinter.
On every occasion, we, kids from shortly after the war, were reminded of what the Germans (Nazi's or moffen) did to them.
At the time, it would have been unthinkable to befriend any German old enough to have participated in the occupation.
And I noticed a lot of people who lived during the war, who for many years refused to even sit in a German made car.
The Nazis, the Russians, and the Japanese did not comply with the rules of captured soldiers. the U.K did .
And for the U.S it was like their first time with large prisoners, on their soil. so they followed The Third Geneva Convention sets of specific rules for the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs). The Convention's 143 articles require that POWs be treated humanely, adequately housed and receive sufficient food, clothing and medical care.
The U.S did this because they hope the Americans pows would be treated well by their enemies. And of course the japanese and the Nazis did not treat the Americans well.
I'm 88 and to this day I try to never buy anything German! Imagine starting two World Wars! I still don't trust them. Look how all the German car companies falsified and sabatoged their emissions! I think they have bad genes.
American here. I can completely understand. They were your occupiers. They bombed your buildings and your civilians killed.
Thank you for the video. My father was a U.S. Army MP during WWII and he was a prison guard at a German POW camp here in the States. I never asked him nor did he ever told me where he was a guard but I wouldn't be surprised if he was a guard at Aliceville since he was Alabama born and raised in Hartselle.
Great upload.
What a lovely story.
Great show. I'm very thankful these interviews & all the information was gathered & preserved for me to see in 2022. Have saved it to my playlist.
I would love to have seen their military photos - both sides - shared in this production. How they looked at the time.
This was so very heartwarming!
This is an excellent historical video. This could be the nucleus of a special event in Alabama now that Mercedes’ is a Part of the state ! Military history is all over the state of Alabama. The CMP at Anniston is doing a great job of preserving the M1 Garand and which I’m sure played a significant role in Aliceville Al..
You're all great people former enemies now forever friends
God bless you for these fine words!
Interesting and informative. Excellent photography job enabling viewers to better understand what/whom the orator was describing. Professional class A research projec!!! Special thanks to veteran ( POW ) inmates/civilians sharing personal information/experiences of camp life. Making this documentary more authentic and possible. Very humane incarceration/treatment in comparison to Russian incarceration.
Rommel was the one that deserves credit for the Kasserine Pass victory, he put the German 88 artillery out of range of our Army and wiped out every vehicle in minutes knowing we could not shoot back and hit anything!
Perhaps your right. But we also had a totally incompetent General and his crony staff. Patten took over and that was that!
I met a younger cousin of General Patten in 1990 and he could have been his Twin Brother.@@tommorgan1291
My first guard duty was an ammunition dump. The jeep driver dropped me off and before he picked me up I was given a 45 pistol belt and hoslter. After the jeep left I found out there were no bullets! I called central guard and said I have no bullets. The reply was yep. But you got a gun and they hung up. I was really alert the whole shift! Next day I got a short pass. Went in town to the local hardware and bought a box of 45 bullets. Was I worried about the enemy? No! I was worried about bears. By the way that was 1952 and I was 17.
What a great story!
By sheer luck that they were treated so well . All it would have taken is 1 or 2 sadistic bullies to turn their experience into a nightmare
You are so right! I was HR for a prison system and it was a challenge to weed out the power hungry and sadist!
I've been watching a lot of these videos about different camps and they all say they had a pleasant time. One interview one of the American soldiers said they were in awe of the German soldiers because of how immaculate they always were. It seemed to be the majority of Americans soldiers admired the German ones.
The beaten 6th Army was not so lucky as the Germans in Alabama. They ended up in Siberia. Out of about 600.000 Wehrmacht soldiers taken prisoner in Stalingrad, only 10.000 finally made it home.
Jurgen....I'm amazed that even 10,000 survived, after the treatment they received from the Russians. Several years ago, I read Edwin Hoyt's book "199 Days: The Battle for Stalingrad", and learned a little (most of the book was about the battle, not the aftermath), of the suffering, starvation and mistreatment that the German, Italian and Hungarian POW's suffered after their defeat. (forced marches in the bitter, January cold, not just reduced rations...but NO rations..ugh..terrible)...suffice it to say, they were NOT treated like human beings. I'm sure there are always the exceptions, but judging by this video, I believe we Americans treated POW's decently. Don't think the Japanese could say the same. My grandfather was a Navy Corpsman in the PTO during the war....he always said he was more afraid of being taken prisoner by the Japanese, than being killed by them....
how very sad that so many died
@@deannamorgan7586 Throughout Stalin's rule, it was common practice to get rid of almost anyone who was a potential adversary of the system in the Soviet Union. The main method in use back then was - starvation, no medical treatment, hard labour. I suppose it was Alexander Solshenizin who best described the Archipel Gulag, if I'm not mistaken! After 1917, it was the so - called "bourgeoisie" to face near - extinction, followed by the Kulaks, especially during the Great Famine in Ukraine! So the treatment of the German POWs after Stalingrad and the ensuing "Zusammenbruch des Mittelabschnitts der Ostfront" closely followed the Bolshevist ideology and Stalin's paranoia against possible enemies - not to forget that the threat posed by the Wehrmacht against the Soviet régime was still high!
@@jurgenkuhlmann9194 Very true about Stalin. One of the reasons the Soviet Army suffered such crushing defeats early in the war was because in the 1930's, in one of his many purges, he "removed" almost the entire Officer Corp, so when war came, they had, with few exceptions, almost no experienced, capable officers! I, too, read Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago and found it terrifying. Stalin's rule was brutal, cruel and horrific.
@@deannamorgan7586 If Hitler had not again interfered by ordering the advancing German troops to move south towards the Caucasian oil fields, the "Blitzkrieg" strategy against the Soviet Union would have been successful. It was reported that the Communist leaders in Moscow had already started to burn documents for fear they could fall into German hands. With Stalin having himself locked in somewhere. But this is pure speculation!
5:47 "We came to Aliceville, Ala-BAY-ma."
I can’t believe what those guys were able to do with beef bones.
Where in Germany was he from? My grandmother was from Potsdam and my grandfather was from Kaiserslautern. They came here just before WW1.
well, the photos told me 1 thing.
they did not change rail road passenger cars on their trip south.
the image showed a B&O car.
B&O never even came close to serving Alabama. they loaded them up in NYC and kept them there all the way south.
The German soldier conquered Europe many times. What the accepted actual history of these men is 360° opposite from the truth. Germany is where warriors were honed to knights
Does anyone know what year this was filmed?
great job
That was so cool.
well done America!
Nice story among all the horror s of war
Lived 20 miles from there....
My Grandfather was at Camp Alice. Eugene Zimmermann
Did he tell any stories?
@@DiviAugusti He died before I knew about his POW status. My information comes from my mom. He never talked about his war experiences. She has a telegram from him, and the book by Ruth Cook: Friends behind the barbed wire: a true story of hope and friendship. He was a carpenter so I'm sure they kept him busy.
I am interested in books about the German POW experience in America. Does anyone have recommendations?
Lone Star Stalag, Nazi Prisoners of War in America are both great books.
I just finished one on Kindle by i believe his name was Hein Erichsen but I don't recall the exact name of the book. And now I'm reading the one about Aliceville. Super interesting and some hilarious stories about when they would work on the local farms. Also, all these guys in the video are featured in it.
Super interesting.
8:50. Dr. Strangelove makes an appearance
wow this is the 1st i've heard of this
A description under the title would be nice.
History is always written by victors
Our barber emigrated after the war.
I think the commentator meant Empire forces no yanks were at Alamein theyd just entered the war even the Kasserine pass fiasco was yet to come.
i think he said british and commonwealth forces.
“In 1942, the British and Commonwealth forces claimed a victory at El Alamein…” The US is not part of the Commonwealth, just in case you didn’t realize that yet.
@@DiviAugusti there were'nt any commonwealth troops bck then. Only Imperiala.
@@peterforden5917 No. It would be way easier just to take the L on this one.
15:38 Nobody gonna say it? Look at it, it's an SS symbol in the grass.
its a traditional european symbol, but also used by the nazis, i'd say 50/50 chance it was used ideologically
A late friend of mine (former Rommel-Afrika-Korps-fighter) told me of that sign. The pow`s did it to displease the camp guards. Later on they did the same at a pow-camp in Illinois. But there was no reaction. They were treated fair and sometimes were allowed to take part in public events.
It is the "wolfsangel" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfsangel
In this form it is e.g. the symbol of the Dutch NSB. But is also today a sign. For example: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SC_Verl
It is not quite an SS symbol. But perhaps they should have removed it anyway.
9traktor jj
@@tonniebaumeister On it's end, it was used by 34th SS Div, Nederland #2, as well.
I will never have the nice sentiment toward the Taliban and Pakistani ISI that those Americans have toward Nazis. I certainly will never have a damn bbq with them.
Now, some "Americans" are jockeying to say how OK they are with torturing prisoners. Guantanamo is our eternal shame.
Don’t forget how we treated prisoners in Iraq, very shameful
Aliceville Alabama. They loved German soldiers who were killing Americans but hated black American soldiers who were fighting the Germans.
Too bad our prisoners of war didn’t get the same treatment as these prisoners. Our prisoners were often abused
Russia could have used them
Hell no! Russia did use them. 80% of them DIED. America and the Brits at least fed them.
he is not a true prussian soldier. he should be ashamed of himself. he cared for himself and not for the fatherland.
Ya! Back then, they observed that the Germans were just human beings just like that but they never considered the black citizens of Americans as Human beings back then. What an irony