By 1943, Arkansas had received the first of 23,000 German and Italian prisoners of war, who would live and work at military installations and branch camps throughout the state. The camp buildings are preserved in. at aheuer@stlpr.org. Short tried to have it designated a permanent home for the Army's military police training school. Other POWs were transported to work on farms and canneries in neighboring communities. Some 500 POW facilities were built, mainly in. Following World War II, the facilities were taken over by the Veterans Administration with both a hospital and large domiciliary complement. The level of instruction was so high that some German universities offered full credit to returning POWs. Had program to instill democratic values in Germans based on newspaper. The camp was just east of the village of Weingarten, on Missouri Highway 32, west of Ste. :_Z";co?0N1mx@a_ ES[0 It held soldiers and officers of the Italian army captured in the Allied Mediterranean campaigns during World War II. Camps in the St. Louis area included Gumbo Flats in the Chesterfield Valley, Jefferson Barracks, riverboats, and an Ordinance Depot in Baden. Eventually, in the wake of the Nazis' six-month reign of terror, the War Department acknowledged the problem and began to enact reforms. In fact, much of life that prisoners of war led in Missouri during that time was like that of U.S. Army privates serving in those camps: they received the same food and housing, ate meals in the mess halls, were given days off and performed duties ranging from laundry to cooking to working as orderlies in the Officers Club. Some were transferred to a special camp for Nazi incorrigibles in Oklahoma. UT POW CD. {/[I:{ tBcn{ FG}{ Photo by Buel White of the Post-Dispatch. About 500 American soldiers were assigned to guard 3,600 Italians at the camp. 2 0 obj There was such a labor shortage that pretty shortly the government moved these prisoners from the four main military bases to dozens of camps throughout the state. The result of the First Lady's initiative was the Prisoner of War Special Projects Division, led by Lt. Col. Edward Davison out of Camp Kearney in Rhode Island. Click here for a state map showing branch camp locations. Less well known are the prisoner of war camps that sprang up in rural communities across the country to house combatants from Europe and Japan. 330 German POWs lived in a tent city around the Louis Glunz dance hall and worked on farms and in area canneries during the 1945 harvest. Post-Dispatch file photo, Two German POWs watch the film of Nazi atrocities during a mandatory assembly at their camp at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. In Texas, according to Humanities Texas, some residents feared having Nazis nearby and, worried about escapes, locked their doors and cautioned their daughters. The Enemy Among Us: POWs in Missouri During World War II. The U.S. government learned quickly to separate those elements, Fiedler said, and relationships improved. As chronicled by AP, on a September night in 1945, POW Georg Gaertner escaped from New Mexico's Camp Deming by slipping under a fence and hopping a train bound for San Pedro. Fort Meade housed about 4,000 German and Italian POWs during World War II. Out of the ruins of fascist defeat, the U.S. and its allies hoped to plant the seeds of democracy. The 1929 Geneva Convention, recognizing that it is the duty of prisoners to attempt escape, contains numerous regulations limiting the severity of punishments for escapees. Prisoner-of-war camps in the United States during World War II. "During one of my uncle's visits back to Alton, he asked his mother for an aluminum pie pan," McDowell said. My uncle then gave the cigarette case as a gift to my father, who was living in Jefferson City at the time and working as superintendent of the tobacco factory inside the Missouri State Penitentiary, stated McDowell. *wh};yeErfRV8n#z According toSociety for Military History, because of its scant experience dealing with POWs, the U.S. chose to follow the edicts of the untried 1929 Geneva Convention. When labor shortages due to enlistment hit the American economy, however, the War Department rethought its strategy and greatly expanded POW labor. The majority of escapees were captured quickly and without incident. Cartoonist Mort Walker was also stationed there and drew inspiration for Camp Swampy of his Beetle Bailey comic strip. The camp, located south of Neosho, Missouri, was established in 1941. It was noted many of the Italians were "semi-emaciated" when arriving in the United States because of a poor diet. According to American Reeducation of German POWs, 1943-1946, as the war dragged on and U.S. casualties mounted, stories about cushy POW camp life and vicious crimes committed by Nazis prisoners enraged many Americans. Indeed, in correspondence, one POW described his camp as a "goldener Kafig," or golden cage, while another wrote home to say imprisonment was like a "rest-cure. People didnt get in the car and drive 75 miles: it was a locally-focused world. Most Americans regarded them as curiosities, but there was conflict. Five weeks after Germanys surrender, American security had become a bit haphazard. The Bushwhacker military exhibit honors those Vernon County citizens who have served in armed conflicts, and especially those who have given their lives in service to their country. The post also served as an infantry replacement center and had a German prisoner of war camp. According to the Coloradoan, Gaertner had decided to escape because he knew that upon his release, he would be repatriated to eastern Germany, where his family lived. % 1 0 obj Romantic relationships remained off limits and strictly forbidden, Fiedler said. Fiedler recounted the tale of one Italian gentleman who, after he returned to his home country, wrote to a farmer he worked for in Sikeston remarking on how much he liked working with him. Despite the challenges of overseeing the internment of former enemy soldiers, the camp experienced few security incidents and conditions remained rather cordial, in part due to the sustenance given the prisoners. Thousands of Axis POWs worked in the fields, replacing American farm boys gone to war. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Also offered was circus and acrobatic instruction, including trampoline jumping, taught by professional circus performers. Jeremy P. Amick POWs who were a part of the ISU received better housing, uniforms and pay. Too old to participate in the company sports . 6 & 7, Chesterfield, MO 63017. Between 1861 and 1865, American Civil War prison camps were operated by the Union and the Confederacy to detain over 400,000 captured soldiers. 600 German POWs were interned in the Schwartz Ballroom from October 1944 to January 1946. In addition, Article 43 of the Convention required the appointment of POW administrators, and often, Nazi officers would assume this role, becoming in effect, camp commandants. q2JShr6 The case not only had a specially crafted latching mechanism, but was also etched with an emblem of an eagle on the cover with barracks buildings and a guard tower from the camp inscribed upon the inside. After completing his initial training, he was designated as infantry and became a clerk with the 201st Infantry Regiment. Located between Farmington and Ste. In 1985, Gaertner surrendered to the INS and, as a publicity stunt, to Bryant Gumbel on "Today." xwcy[9R^Z hF/!\Zf7!%% {{start_at_rate}} {{format_dollars}} {{start_price}} {{format_cents}} {{term}}, {{promotional_format_dollars}}{{promotional_price}}{{promotional_format_cents}} {{term}}. When a group of female columnists informed Eleanor Roosevelt about the situation, she vowed to investigate and take action. Eventually, every state (with the exceptions of Nevada, North Dakota, and Vermont) had at least one POW camp. Black soldiers experienced institutionalized discrimination both at home and overseas, and their prejudicial treatment occurred at the hands of not only white Americans but white POWs as well. However, POW Camp Road is not about the road itself. Now home to the CMP Headquarters and Gary Anderson competition center. In what must have been one of the bizarre coincidences of World War II, Hennes was a prisoner at the same camp as his father, Friedrich Hennes. Camp Upton was also used to hold Japanese citizens who were in New York City at the time war broke out, including businessman with whom the governments of Japan and the United States negotiated an exchange. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. Last edited on 25 December 2022, at 21:03, Learn how and when to remove this template message, University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, http://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=29115, http://worldandmilitarynotes.com/pow/camp-mcalester-ok-usa-pow-camp/, Fort Leavenworth Military Prison Cemetery, Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology, https://www.westbatonrougemuseum.com/573/Port-Allen-Prisoner-of-War-Sub-Camp-No-7, German prisoners of war in the United States, Italian Prisoners of War and Italian Service Units: From Enemies to Co-belligerents, Paul J. Jordan, University of Massachusetts Boston, PDF text of report: DAPAM Issue 20; Issue 213: Prisoner of war utilization by the United States Army 1776-1945, Raw Text of: Prisoner of war utilization by the United States Army 1776-1945, "Bellemead (New Jersey) Italian Service Unit", "German POWS Lived and Died in Florida Camps" by Jim Robinson, The Orlando Sentinel 4 May 2004, http://www.ourmidland.com/local_news/article_69cbc6a7-0b7a-59db-bf4a-f3d309b87808.html, "On American Soil: Camp Florence, Arizona. When returning to camp, one of the POWs with whom Taylor had established a friendship was given the pie pan and used it to demonstrate his abilities as an artist and craftsman by fashioning it into a cigarette case. Likewise, hundreds of thousands of American GIs were returning to the states and would need the jobs the prisoners of war would be filling so they were no longer needed for their labor efforts, Fiedler said. Some even "started to enjoy the novelty.". In Chesterfield Valley, Fiedler said, there are stories of farmers getting to know the prisoners of war and inviting them in for lunch. Missouri figured into this equation, housing some 15,000 prisoners of war from Germany and Italy inside state lines. As noted in Humanities Texas, the first big batch of POWs arrived in the spring of 1943 following the surrender of Germany's Afrika Korps. The camp was named for General Harvey C Clark, Missouri's adjutant general and commander of Missouri's National Guard. Post-Dispatch file photo, The chow line on a boat camp at St. Louis in 1945. In Kansas, for example, some farmers invited their POW workers for meals and allowed them to go hunting or pony riding unattended. Weingarten was the location of a large prisoner of war camp during WWII. They were: Fort Leonard Wood Camp Weingarten near Ste. Not only did POWs dine well, they took college courses, set up libraries, and formed orchestras and soccer leagues. "He then took it back to camp with him and that's when he gave it to one of the Italian POWs.". For those that did return to Europe, the United States government hoped they would bring the memory of their equitable experience in the camps here back with them. In his written account (via The Fallen Foe), POW Fritz Ensslin, for example, claimed that many transferred POWs died in France performing "forced labor. The camp was made up of 450 prisoners from Germany and Aus. In Section B of Fort Custer National Cemetery, there are 26 German graves. Little remains of the once sprawling POW camp located approximately 90 miles south of St. Louis, with the exception of a stone fireplace that was part of the Officer's Club. Even as conditions worsened for American POWs held in the European theater of World War II and word spread around the United States about Hitlers efforts to exterminate the Jews, the U.S. government remained firm that prisoners of war should be treated according to the Geneva Conventions. The complex, serviced by a spur of the Kansas City Southern Railroad, included a main manufacturing facility, an engine testing area (ETA) for the live fire testing of rocket engines, a component testing area (CTA), and a former Camp Crowder warehouse, Building 900, as a warehouse and later engine overhaul and manufacturing. As noted in Humanities Texas, POWs were put to work right from the start, although their assignments were limited due to fears of escape, sabotage, and overseas exploitation. They were even compensated at the same rate of a private, at 10 cents per hour, which could be saved for their release or spent at camp stores. 6U z*&`873 hkg7*I|dx^EY?IF$zwUJH!/V>H>is&n /t; For 16 years, starting in 1957, rocket engines for missiles such as the Atlas, Thor and Saturn were assembled and tested at Air Force Plant 65. Although the total number of escape attempts from U.S. camps was proportionately low, according to Humanities Texas, some POWs did try. The POWs were required to watch the film during an assembly in June 1945, one month after Germany surrendered. This included 371,683 Germans, 50,273 Italians, and 3,915 Japanese. Located where the present day Cleburne Conference center is located in the 1500 block of West Henderson(business HWY 67), Housed German POWs from the Afrika Korps after their defeat in North Africa. From 1942 through 1945, more than 400,000 Axis prisoners were shipped to the United States and detained in camps in rural areas across the country. Educational programs were varied. Photo by Buel White of the Post-Dispatch, The chow line on a boat camp at St. Louis in 1945. According to Society for Military History, to create rights and status equal to the U.S. military, German officers above the rank of captain were assigned their own POW orderlies and generals were housed in private huts. Justifiably, much has been written about America's World War II Japanese internment camps and the systemic racism that spawned them. And it was the Germans, Nazi and non-Nazi, who defined camp life more than any other group of captives. Most of the POWs went to large camps, including one covering 960 acres near Weingarten in Ste. These branch camps held 50 to 250 prisoners and were placed in communities in which the prisoners could be of use to community businesses such as bakeries, farms, maintenance jobs, dock workers for the railroad and riverboats, and factories. As noted by Humanities Texas,methods of escape were as varied as reasons for trying and were occasionally quite inventive. 12 0 obj No one was happy to be a prisoner of war, but many were glad to bide time to count the days until they got back home, Fiedler said. Shortly after Taylor received assignment to Camp Weingarten, Italian prisoners of war began to arrive at the camp in May 1943. My mothers brother, Dwight Hafford Taylor, was raised in the community of Alton in southern Missouri, said McDowell. <> Although Nazi POWs denounced Der Ruf as Jewish propaganda, according to the New England Historical Society, most POWs loved reading it, and its effectiveness at changing hearts and minds was indisputable. This movements became known as the "Tiger Death March," so called for the brutal treatment that the prisoners . Camp Clark was established in 1908 and was used as an assembly point for troops serving in Central America, in the Mexican border war, and in World War I. Large German pow camp 2 miles outside of Thomasville. They ruled with an iron fist, ordering work stoppages and holding kangaroo courts. The military exhibit wouldnt be complete without a salute to Nevadas Camp Clark. Although her uncle passed away in 1970, records accessed through the National Archives and Records Administration indicate he was drafted into the U.S. Army and entered service at Jefferson Barracks on November 10, 1942. As noted in American Reeducation of German POWs, 1943-1946, in discussions with their guards, prisoners would sometimes use America's discriminatory practices as a "what about" counter argument. Blacks in the military expressed outrage that, after risking their lives fighting Nazis, they were considered beneath their white enemies back home. POWs in the US. As noted by the Library of Congress, among the many protections and guarantees provided to POWs were adequate food, housing, and medical care, "protection from violence, intimidation, insults, and public curiosity," prohibition against medical experimentation, and reciprocal military rights and status. | Located between Olympia and Tacoma, Washington. When Levin and Straussberg fled Hellwig farm on June 16, 1945, they were among roughly 100 German POWs who lived there. The base's movie theatre was disassembled and reassembled on the campus of what is today the University of Missouri Kansas City where it was the University of Kansas City Playhouse until being torn down for a new theatre. Camp was located in North Thibodaux along Coulon Road. Where are they going to escape to?. Other citizens wrote angry letters to the editor and staged protests. The farmer did not want to respond by letter but his daughter did, which would eventually result in a marriage. Helmuth Levin and Private Rudolf Straussberg left notes of explanation on their bunks. American commanders said it couldn't happen. ",#(7),01444'9=82. Camps typically held between 50 and 250 POWs and the men were housed in any sort of structure that was available. Close to Fort Lincoln and held over 5,000 soldiers. Using a secret 60-foot tunnel equipped with lighting and air bellows, 12 German officers slipped away from their barracks and, armed with tissue-paper maps, went separately toward Mexico. The U.S. government initially did not separate what Fiedler referred to as dyed-in-the-wool Nazis, who were committed to the National Socialist movement under Adolf Hitler. This was a local story. Fort Leonard Wood, in central Missouri Camp Weingarten, near Ste. Im baffled., Suspect charged in fatal shooting in downtown St. Louis, Former Sweetie Pies TV star Tim Norman gets two life sentences in nephews death, Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol slams ump C.B. The camp, located south of Neosho, Missouri, was established in 1941. Photo by Buel White of the Post-Dispatch, One of two boats, known as "boat camps," moored in the St. Louis area to house prisoners of war who worked on levees and other river projects. Her family eventually found a prisoner of war using it in the middle of the night to go meet a beau in the moonlight. CHESTERFIELD Cpl. Pfc. There were also few wholesale escape attempts made by prisoners of war in Missouri. The prison camps were identical to housing areas that our own troops occupied.. The photo was taken in March 1945, shortly after radio . The caption information from 1945 does not identify the boat as the one on the Missouri River, near today's Chesterfield, or the one at the foot of Arsenal Street. To request a transcript for St. Louis on the Air, Trichloroethylene contamination in soils and groundwater has been documented at the site and may include off-site contamination in a number of private wells. U.S. Army to establish a temporary side camp, under the ad-ministration of a larger main camp in Missouri, to house POWs at the old Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp near Shen-andoah. 500 German POWs were housed in a warehouse and tent city next to the Rockfield Canning Co. plant, where many of them worked as pea packers. <>/Metadata 855 0 R/ViewerPreferences 856 0 R>> In "Icons of Insult: German and Italian Prisoners of War in African American Letters During World War II," author Matthias Reiss recounts numerous instances of racist encounters involving white Americans and POWs. I dont want to imply that people just accepted what the government did, but the ordinary citizen did realize this was a unique time, Fiedler said. As noted in New Georgia Encyclopedia, the hard-liners doled out harsh discipline and attacked fellow prisoners for their lack of patriotism, among other offenses. For one thing, they were needed to help rebuild European infrastructure. They decorated their barracks with their work. {{start_at_rate}} {{format_dollars}} {{start_price}} {{format_cents}} {{term}}, {{promotional_format_dollars}}{{promotional_price}}{{promotional_format_cents}} {{term}}, 4 killed, 4 critically injured in crash at South Grand Boulevard and Forest Park Avenue, Parents push back on allegations against St. Louis transgender center. POW and ISU Camps and Hospitals in US. Also housed several hundred German POWs who worked in nearby agricultural farms. | Updated May 7, 2018 at 11:23 a.m. Former Jefferson City resident Lyman Lester McDowell was given this cigarette case by his brother-in-law, Dwight Taylor, during World War II. From 1942 to 1945, more than 400,000 Axis prisoners were shipped to the United States and detained in camps across the nation. Capacity for 4800 at main camp. Camp Crowder was a military installation named in honor of Major General Enoch H. Crowder, provost marshal of the United States during World War I and author of the 1917 Selective Service Act. <> This was no invasionary force; rather these were prisoners of war, part of a flood of almost a half-million men captured and sent to the United States, held here until the end of the war. By 1943 the army had acquired 42,786.41 acres (173.2km2), 66.9 sq. His hometown really wasnt all that far from Camp Weingarten, she added. In the United States, at the end of World War II there were 175 Branch Camps serving 511 Area Camps containing over 425,000 prisoners of war (mostly German). American commanders said it couldn't happen. The camps were located all over the US, but were mostly in the South, due to the higher expense of heating the barracks in colder areas. As author David Fiedler explains in his book "The Enemy Among Us: POWs in Missouri During World. Post-Dispatch file photo. In 1942, the camp was reopened as a prisoner-of-war camp to house Italian and German prisoners. In Southern POW camps, some facilities were segregated by race, and Black servicemen were given the worst jobs. They were contracted to work on farms and in canneries, mills, and tanneries. The front gate of the POW camp at Hellwig Brothers Farm on Gumbo Flats, part of the Missouri River bottomland in St. Louis County. Fort Crowder was a U.S. Army post located in Newton and McDonald counties in southwest Missouri, constructed and used during World War II. I will someday donate the cigarette case to a museum for preservation and display, and I believe my brother, Harold McDowell, would agree. The location of the former POW camp is a residential area now. The main camps supported a number of branch camps, which were used to put POWs where their labor could be best utilized. They worked at 8 local canneries until moving to other parts of Wisconsin in August, 1945. All enlisted men were required to work, and they were paid 80 cents a day, the same rate American privates received. POW Camp, Co.1, Tooele (original postage). The author further explained, (T)he camp was enlarged to the point that some 5,800 POWs could be held there, and approximately 380 buildings of all types would be constructed on an expanded 950-acre site.. Kurt Rossmeisl escaped on 4 August 1945 and surrendered in 1959. About 100 POWs lived there and worked on area farms, replacing Americans who had gone to war. German and Italian POW Camp during 19421945 housing mostly Africa Corps Officers and Italians enlisted from the Torch Campaign. The Convention allowed the display of swastikas, and some POWs were buried in local military cemeteries with Nazi flags and with swastikas engraved on their headstones. Established at Weingarten, a sleepy little town on State Highway 32 between Ste. PublishedDecember 8, 2016 at 3:26 PM CST, Credit Kelly Moffitt | St. Louis Public Radio. Genevieve and Farmington, Missouri, (Camp Weingarten) had no pre-war existence," Fiedler wrote. mi. Wxi7Enw{)}$yIOJ }E>kZkz6v;_c-dPc=lJeVP 2d}$uDOZeWEB{WHV>'HXDkX9F$j#h"6&U&Y{@G;hdGtDIWbRTo(BaA`cEln!PjYYN0S UJW)G)E*}!2HfK?8`P Levin and Straussberg were among the 420,000 German and Italian prisoners of war who spent part of World War II under guard in the United States. Camp Weingarten quickly grew into a sprawling facility to house Italian POWs brought to the United States and, explained Jefferson City resident Carolyn McDowell, was the site where one of her uncles spent his entire period of service with the U.S. Army in World War II. The most famous of those buried on the installation is German submariner. <> Italian POW Rosters in US. 11 0 obj Similar scenes played out across rural America, but over time, as noted in The Washington Post, many of these small communities adjusted to the POW presence. 6 0 obj The Italian and one German POW who committed suicide rather than be repatriated are buried just outside the post cemetery boundaries. Send questions and comments about this story to feedback@stlpublicradio.org. Her research led her to Arnold Krammer, who ended up writing a tell-all book with Gaertner. With Glidden is Lt. Lawrence Ponetretti, an Army interpreter. For his "crimes," they strangled him to death. Copyright 2023, News Tribune Publishing. About 15,000 of them were sent to 30 camps scattered across Missouri. oW5( in Newton and McDonald counties. endobj This was not seen as a standing thing., The government realized early on that these men were not a threat of escape or destruction or other nefarious deeds, Fiedler said. Genevieve. stream [1] Approximately 90% of Italian POWs pledged to help the United States, by volunteering in Italian Service Units (ISU). Sixteen of the men were killed or died as a result of an accident on 31 October 1945. During one kangaroo court in Georgia, two pro-Nazi POWs charged an anti-Nazi POW with being an informant and liking American jazz. Troopers nabbed Levin in an empty clubhouse. ", As noted in Returning to America: German Prisoners of War and American Experience, of the more than half million Germans who immigrated to America between 1947 and 1960, several thousand were former POWs. The POW was then moved to a camp in the United Kingdom before being placed on a troopship bound for Canada in October the same year. The majority of the camps were located in the Midwest, South, and Southwest, and the biggest contingency of POWs 372,000 were German. ", "August 1943 description of the Camp Maxey", "World War II Camp Had Impact on CIty" by Michael Hawfield, The News-Sentinel 15 December 1990, Camp Thomas A. Scott - Fort Wayne, Indiana - WWII Prisoner of War Camps on Waymarking.com, https://web.archive.org/web/20220720230229/https://www.unionleader.com/nh/travel/historical_markers/roadside-history-camp-stark-nhs-wwii-german-pow-camp-housed-about-250-soldiers/article_9dd52830-ef9f-57d6-9ef3-ce2472704b70.html, "Waterloo Township officials say rundown prison camp is a hazard and should be razed", "Uboat.net - the Men - Prisoners of War - German POWs in North America", "Fomer [sic] Site of the Caven Point Army Depot - Jersey City, New Jersey", The German POW camps of Michigan during WWII, Map of WWII POW Camps in the US with links, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_World_War_II_prisoner-of-war_camps_in_the_United_States&oldid=1129515906, Originally an Army Airfield flight training facility. Only one escaped entirely. 300 German POWs were interned at the Fond du Lac County Fairgrounds from June to August 1944 while they harvested peas on local farms and worked in canneries. Facilities now serve as an adjunct to the state's mental health program. Genevieve Camp Crowder near Neosha Camp Clark near Nevada Attached to these main camps were branch camps to which they sent prisoners. Often, descendants of those POWs come for a visit to see where their relatives spent the war. Earlier that evening, a English-speaking fellow prisoner heard an American radio broadcast suggesting that German POWs be dispatched to the uncertain care of the Soviet army. Missouri had four POW camps,. Originally, when the government agreed to bring them here, they were concerned about security, Fiedler said. You may come to the Missouri Valley Room to view it or request a photocopy from the Library's Document Delivery service. <> A few concrete ammunition bunkers are the last remnants of the POW camp. The elder Hennes was captured by Americans in Europe in the fall of 1944. endobj Not only was racism detrimental to Black servicemen's morale, it also became a Nazi propaganda talking point. "My uncle then gave the cigarette case as a gift to my father, who was living in Jefferson City at the time and working as superintendent of the tobacco factory inside the Missouri State Penitentiary," McDowell stated. endobj Subscribe with this special offer to keep reading, (renews at {{format_dollars}}{{start_price}}{{format_cents}}/month + tax). A walled patio and fireplace with masks of Comedy and Tragedy were built near the theater and are still landmarks on the university campus. Now called Dennis Whiles, Gaertner told Jean he had been raised in an orphanage, thus eliminating any questions about his family. 339-351. See. The POW camps adhered to the Geneva Conventions Missouri Digital Heritage Over 3000 German POWs were interned at Billy Mitchell Field airport (known today as Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport (MKE)) from January 1945 to April 1946. Photo by Buel White of the Post-Dispatch, The main avenue at Camp Weingarten lined by small barracks buildings in June 1943. Housed German POWs from the Afrika Corps after defeat in North Africa. Photo by Buel White of the Post-Dispatch. This was probably a coal mining tunnel in that Engleville was a coal mining camp where this POW camp is purported to be located. Consequently, fanatical Nazis were thrown in with anti-Nazis. About 15,000 German and Italian prisoners of war spent part of World War II under guard at 30 camps scattered across Missouri.