More Mind-Blowing History

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So, my fellow Americans, did you know that there were over 400,000 German prisoners of war in over 700 POW camps in the United States during World War II? Yeah! I think the Manhattan Project is better known that this fact! One of those places was Camp Breckenridge in Morganfield, Kentucky. It was, according to reports, the FIRST prisoner-of-war camp in the U.S, receiving German prisoners in May 1943. One reason you’ve probably never heard of it is that these weren’t in the middle of Manhattan or downtown Los Angeles. Part of the rules for establishing these bases was that they were located in rural areas. That prevented any danger to large population centers. It also acted as an extra line of defense of sorts: a German escapee wasn’t likely to find many people in rural Union County, Kentucky who spoke German! The United States abided by the Geneva Convention, meaning that these prisoners of war were treated humanely. There was NO Bridge on the River Kwai or Bataan Death March here. They were given three meals per day as required by the Geneva Convention. They also were given the option of working for 80c an hour (minimum wage at the time) on farms (mostly) near the camps. Many of the POWs gladly took jobs to make money, to break up the boredom, and to, in many cases, get extra goodies like meals from the families they were working for. Of course, not everybody was happy with this. Despite the fact that there was a massive labor shortage because so many men were in the military, the POW presence wasn’t welcomed by all. Some thought the Germans should be killed in an “eye for an eye” retaliation the way Germans were killing American soldiers. (Of course, that’s prohibited by the Geneva Convention, but the civilians didn’t see it that way.) After the war quite a few of the prisoners didn’t want to go home. Some of them realized that the treatment they received as a prisoner here was better than what they got under the dictatorships in Italy or Germany. Many of the German soldiers were also concerned about being sent to areas that were under Soviet control (and if you want some genuine atrocity to study, read about the Soviet “payback” to Germans, including citizens, as they marched into Berlin) or fear of attacks from pro-Nazi superiors. In this photo of the building that’s still standing from the Camp Breckenridge days of World War II, you can see the paintings of German POW Daniel Mayer (see my earlier discussion about him) on the walls. Sadly, many of the buildings that served as POW barracks (and artistic outlets) were demolished when the last prisoner cleared out. The fact that this art still remains is heartwarming to any fan of art or history…or both.