German prisoner of war camps in the US???

[Libertas1776]

132. The 3rd Geneva Convention

Since we actually followed the Geneva Conventions (what a quaint thought nowadays) back then, the German prisoners were treated exceptionally well compared to say, a prisoner ending up in a Russian gulag, which was a virtual death sentence. They were fed the same rations as American GIs, as required by the Conventions, so lots of meat, chocolate, and of course cigarettes! They were supplied with leisure items such as books, art supplies, etc.

I recall watching a documentary about the subject. Toward the end of the war, when Germany's war crimes were known to the world, the prisoners were made to watch film recordings of the Nazi death camps and the holocaust. The men that the documentary interviewed claimed they were shocked and horrified and wanted to know who was responsible for such deeds. At least for these interviewees, their claims were likely true as they had been fighting and were captured in North Africa early in the war, so its not unreasonable to believe that they were genuinely shocked at the extermination in the European theater.

Of course, separate from the regular Wehrmacht which post war would claim to be non-Nazi, strictly soldiers and all that (tho, historians of late have begun to contend that claim) there were the die hard gung ho nazis, the SS types who would threaten the soldiers within the camps if they dared speak ill of the Fatherland and of Hitler. In many cases, some prisoners were outright murdered. The guards tended to look the other way, although eventually their hand was forced to take action. I believe in one incident, about 12 Nazi prisoners were executed by the US for murdering prisoners. The execution itself wasnt carried out until after the war's end and Germany's collapse to assure there was not retaliation against American POWs.

There's a good fictional dramatization based around these real events in a movie starring Walter Matthau and Harry Morgan called "The Incident". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incident_%281990_film%29