Introducing Daniel Mayer

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While I have lunch I’ll try to help you understand just how incredible yesterday was for me. I’ll begin by introducing you to Daniel Mayer. The paintings you see in the photos are his. Even in the top left photo, he painted the “frame” on the wall. Amazing, isn’t it? And, of course, the photos can’t show you the detail of the brush strokes. Obviously, this man had talent. So, how did he come to paint these lovely scenes on the walls of a building in western Kentucky? Answer: he was a German POW in World War II. Camp Breckenridge was one of hundreds of POW camps that were established in the United States during World War II. As the tide turned in the favor of the Allies, the European theater was overrun with prisoners of war. The United States had no “official” POW camps (we won’t talk about the Japanese internment camps here), because there was only one battle on American soil during the war (Pearl Harbor). The Allies asked the US to take in some of the prisoners from the North African campaign and other areas where the Allies were making significant progress against German and Italian forces. That’s how Daniel Mayer ended up at Camp Breckenridge. As you can see by his grave marker, he was a German soldier, an Obergefreiter (private). Most of the paintings on the second floor of the building that was the mess hall are Mayer’s paintings, as well as the centerpiece (bottom left). He painted that from a post card his wife sent him. Yes, it’s a sad ending: he died of natural causes while in the POW camp, a month after he finished the large painting that took him 13 months to complete. Mayer was one of five German POWs who died at Camp Breckenridge. He was originally buried at the camp cemetery; however, when the camp was closed the bodies of the soldiers were moved to the cemetery at Fort Knox. Mayer would definitely have had a brilliant artistic career under different circumstances. Then again, under different circumstances, we may never have heard of him. PHOTOS: (Top left) Painting of a landscape, including the “frame” that Mayer painted (Top right) A landscape from Europe that Mayer painted on the first floor wall (Bottom left) The centerpiece, a large painting of a German building. It took Mayer 13 months to paint. (Bottom right) A photo of Mayer’s grave marker