American authorities also obtained information from the generals through direct interrogation. In fact, the Americans, in contrast to their British counterparts, seemed to rely a great deal more on direct interrogation of the generals for information than they did on the microphones they had surreptitiously placed in the generals’ rooms. Notably, these interrogations seemed to have always taken place with two or more of the generals present, rather than isolating the officers. But like their British allies, American authorities also attempted to construct character sketches of the generals in their custody along the way.
The Americans regarded von Vaerst and Köchy, in particular, as the most intelligent and experienced of the four generals at Byron Hot Springs. Von Vaerst, being the highest-ranking of the generals then in American custody, was the recognized leader among the German prisoners. He and his colleague General Bülowius both indicated their “astonishment” that with so many Germans in the United States, the two countries should be at war. They insisted that the Germans had “no feeling against [the United States]”—Germany’s declaration of war on December 11, 1941, apparently notwithstanding—and they looked forward to a time when Germany and the United States could be allied.11
Von Vaerst reserved his hatred and suspicion for the Russians, indicating his surprise that the British and the Americans could be allied with the Russians in any fashion. He noted his belief that the German command’s biggest mistake was invading Russia in June 1941, stating that “only after it was too late” did the Germans realize the size of the Russian army. He later indicated that the severity of the Russian winter was “the only thing that had saved the Russians thus far.” Von Vaerst and all his colleagues consistently portrayed the Russians as “little better than beasts” and emphasized “the peril of the Russians to western civilization.” Von Vaerst ended his last interrogation at Byron Hot Springs by noting that “even though we cannot make any further invasion of Russia, we can and must hold the Russians away from Germany.”12
These comments bred suspicion among the American interrogators that the generals were attempting to justify German brutality against the Russians, both soldiers and civilians, on the Eastern Front. Yet it seems equally likely that the generals at Byron Hot Springs intended their comments to engender some kind of kindred spirit between Germany and the Western Allies. By this point in the war, the Germans had good reason to fear Russian reprisals and appear to have been desperately trying to dismiss German-American differences in the hope that the Western Allies would come to see the Soviets as the graver threat to Western civilization.
The former German air field regional commander in Tunisia, Brigadier General Carl Peter Bernard Köchy, like his colleague von Vaerst, impressed American authorities as “a very intelligent man” and one of “imagination and thoughtful character.” Indeed, Köchy was a prize catch, having served in both the German Army and Navy before transferring to the air force. With regard to the German war with Russia, Köchy did not believe that defeat was inevitable, although he felt it to be likely, and he did not share von Vaerst’s conviction that the Germans could continue to hold the territory they then possessed in western Russia. Like von Vaerst, however, Köchy saw the Eastern Front as the crucial theater of the war for Germany, characterizing the German hatred for the Russians as unparalleled in history.13
Köchy possessed a fairly realistic view of the international scene at the time, stating that “no matter the outcome of the war,” Britain “had long ceased to be the dominating influence in the world” and that the United States would “fall heir to that world-wide influence.” He felt that if defeat became inevitable, Germany would surrender to Britain and the United States unconditionally, if necessary, noting that “if Germany’s wagon became small and broken, her only hope would be to hitch it to a star.”14
Like von Vaerst, Köchy seemed to be attempting to foster some sort of German alliance with the Western Allies to save Germany from Soviet occupation. Moreover, his comment about Germany potentially surrendering “unconditionally, if necessary” may have been an allusion to the conclusion of the First World War, in which the Germans signed an armistice but did not unconditionally surrender. Perhaps Köchy, and likely numerous other German general officers, realized by this point that the war could not be won but maintained hope that Germany could possibly extricate itself without entirely capitulating. As both his and von Vaerst’s comments attest, their biggest concern by June 1943 was not winning the war but keeping the Soviets out of Germany.
In contrast to Generals von Vaerst and Köchy, American authorities viewed General Borowietz as a man of “limited outlook,” characterizing him as having “had neither the time nor the inclination to think,” and as one whose “statements and opinions on world affairs are therefore of very small importance compared with those of General Köchy.”15 Curiously, American officials appeared even less interested in General Bülowius. While they interrogated him along with his fellow generals, they offered no discussion of his personal beliefs and experiences or any assessment of his intelligence or character. Perhaps American interrogators took less interest in Bülowius because he had commanded the Manteuffel Division for only a short time before surrendering and because he had been criticized for performing poorly in his previous position as commander of the Afrika Korps. Perhaps Bülowius simply offered very little of interest to his interrogators. American records provide no explanation for their lack of interest in the general.
In addition to seeking technical information and the generals’ perspectives on the war, the Americans, like their British counterparts, also attempted to gauge each general’s political views—at least von Vaerst, Borowietz, and Köchy. No evaluation of Bülowius can be found in the American records. Remarkably, General von Vaerst stated that he and his colleagues were Nazis and “strong believers in Hitler,” although adding that “it took the [Nazis] a considerable time to convince them that the ideals, plans, and aims of the Party would be the only thing that would restore a united and strong Germany.” Conversely, Köchy appeared quite critical of the Nazi regime, noting that he felt strongly that “the present Nazi hierarchy is to a great extent composed of men unfitted for the position, and unworthy of their tasks, and that they are there almost solely because of having shared Hitler’s early struggles.” He noted his strong disapproval of the concentration camps and “gangster methods” that he believed were responsible for arousing worldwide hatred of Germany and that would likely lead to Germany’s defeat in the war. Borowietz did not seem concerned with “political or ideological conditions,” reportedly not mentioning Hitler or the Nazi regime at all.16
It is important to note that the generals made these comments directly to the Byron Hot Springs interrogators, not into American microphones. This adds a potentially new dimension to assessing the prisoners’ motivations for making such statements. One wonders if von Vaerst’s stated loyalty to the Nazi regime accurately reflected his personal convictions. Maybe von Vaerst indeed shared Hitler’s vision for a greater Germany, or, as the highest-ranking German officer at Byron Hot Springs, perhaps he sought to set a proper example of loyalty to the German state for his subordinates. Given the threats by Nazi stalwarts of reporting prisoner disloyalty to authorities in Berlin, perhaps von Vaerst feared expressing his genuine political views for fear of reprisals against his family in Germany. Like von Arnim at Trent Park, von Vaerst’s position of leadership among the prisoners in California and his sometimes contradictory statements made his political views difficult to adequately ascertain. That the Americans later chose him as a candidate for reeducation, however, suggests that he changed his stated views while in captivity, initially masked some fairly strong anti-Nazi sentiments, or deceived the Americans into thinking that he had. Considering that the American staff at Byron Hot Springs held von Vaerst in high regard from the beginning suggests that they did not take his early pro-Nazi statements too seriously.
General Köchy may be even more of an enigma. The Ame
ricans regarded Köchy quite highly, perhaps because he initially appeared to be the most openly anti-Nazi of the general officer prisoners at Byron Hot Springs. Curiously, however, the general later fell under a great deal of suspicion from Allied officials in postwar Germany. His name appeared on several Allied lists of suspected “militarists” to be watched by occupation authorities after his repatriation. It seems puzzling that a prisoner like Köchy, initially held in such high regard, would eventually find himself the object of such suspicion. Perhaps Köchy secretly harbored pro-Nazi sentiments throughout his incarceration in the United States that reemerged in Europe following the war. Notably, the Allies distinguished between potential militarists and Nazi sympathizers during the postwar occupation of Germany despite the fact that they seemed to view these two as one and the same during the prisoners’ wartime captivity. In this light, perhaps Köchy sincerely condemned the National Socialist leadership and their “gangster methods.” Yet, as the British came to suspect about many of their general officer prisoners at Trent Park, perhaps Köchy despised Hitler and the Nazis not because they attempted to place Germany in a dominant position in Europe but because they failed to do so.
Ultimately, the Americans did not reach the same kind of concrete conclusions about the political persuasions of their German generals that the British did at Trent Park. American authorities stamped the files of all of these German generals, as well as those of their accompanying subordinates, “Nazi sympathies undetermined.”17 The Americans made no further attempts to determine any of their captive generals’ political views until well after the success of the Allied invasion of Normandy. At that time, the emergence of American concerns about the postwar reconstruction of Germany made these types of concerns more relevant. American emulation of British treatment of general officer prisoners abruptly ended as well. Camp authorities at Byron Hot Springs notified the Provost Marshal General’s Office on June 29, 1943, that the prisoners should be transferred to a suitable internment camp and all interrogations ceased.
Notably, Washington had already decided before the generals had been transferred to California that their stay at Byron Hot Springs would be brief. On the very day the generals first arrived in the United States—June 3, 1943—the U.S. Provost Marshal General’s Office had authorized the construction of a compound at the existing prisoner-of-war camp in Clinton, Mississippi, specifically for the long-term internment of German general officer prisoners. While the “generals’ camp” was not scheduled to be completed until early fall, American authorities could not wait that long. Presumably, the American interrogators believed little further information of any value could be obtained from these prisoners and it was no longer worth the expense to keep them at Byron Hot Springs. Furthermore, because American military intelligence operated only two interrogation facilities, it needed to make room at Byron Hot Springs for other prisoners possessing potentially valuable information.
Consequently, the generals and their aides were temporarily transferred to Camp Mexia, Texas, to await the completion of their designated home in Mississippi. The use of elegant accommodations like those in California for general officer prisoners obviously represented the exception rather than the rule. In fact, aside from the three weeks when von Vaerst and his colleagues occupied Byron Hot Springs, the elite interrogation center almost exclusively housed enlisted men and noncommissioned officers. None of the other German generals who were later transferred to the United States ever came to this facility. Unlike in Britain, America’s finest prisoner-of-war accommodations were barely seen by its highest-ranking prisoners.
Aside from the brevity of the endeavor, the approach taken by U.S. interrogators toward their captive German generals also calls into question the seriousness of the American effort. The British interrogation team that sent these generals to the United States informed the Americans that prisoners took “time to settle down” and that optimum interrogation results occurred only after “full realization of captivity and incipient boredom settle in.” Yet American authorities held the generals at Byron Hot Springs for only a little over three weeks before transferring them to a regular internment camp. Furthermore, American interrogators speculated midway through the internment and interrogation process that “pessimism is not expressed when more than two [of the generals] are present.”18 Since the Americans clearly suspected that these men would not reveal their real feelings about the war in the presence of their colleagues, and certainly not in the presence of subordinate officers, it would be reasonable to assume that they would have interviewed each one individually. There is no evidence that they did; in fact, the generals were almost always paired for interrogations and frequently interviewed in groups of three or more.
Perhaps the Americans felt the information they received was not worth their time and expense. Indeed, most of the information appears to have been less than vital to the Allied war effort. Nevertheless, the nature of information received from a prisoner is in part a function of the questions and approach of the interrogators. Despite the initial oversight provided by Major Spencer, an American officer who was highly regarded by the British and experienced in CSDIC interrogation procedures, it appears that the Americans did not see eye to eye with the British on all these interrogation matters after all. With the first group of generals revealing little useful information and the British supplying American military intelligence with information on the generals in England, Washington saw no need to continue the operation.
Unfortunately for the generals in the United States, not only did the two Allies’ respective policies regarding interrogation diverge, but significant discrepancies in the manner in which the two nations accommodated their captured German generals emerged as well. Where the British continued to host their “guests” in a stately mansion at Trent Park, the Americans began providing their general officer prisoners with poorly insulated bungalows that barely met the minimum requirements of the Geneva Convention. And where British intelligence maintained its interrogation efforts and surveillance of the generals’ conversations throughout the war, American authorities abandoned the process entirely and made no further attempts to gather intelligence from their captive generals. For all intents and purposes, the Americans viewed these men as they did any other prisoners of war.
After their transfer to Texas in July 1943, the generals in the United States angrily complained about the accommodations provided for them at Camp Mexia, a far cry from the opulence to which they had quickly become accustomed at Byron Hot Springs. Their complaints, however, fell on deaf ears. More German general officers arrived in the United States in 1943 and 1944, but American authorities took little interest in them. Camp Mexia’s accommodations, spartan by the generals’ standards, provided a foretaste of much of the rest of the time these prisoners would spend in the United States.
On July 2, 1943, the four German generals and Colonel von Quast departed California by train. They arrived in Mexia, Texas, on July 8, the first day of hundred-plus-degree temperatures in the summer of 1943. A little over two weeks later, on July 24, Mexia experienced a record high temperature of 105 degrees. This trend continued through August, with a new record high of 107 degrees established on August 16. In late August, when morning temperatures finally dipped into the mid-seventies, the Mexia Weekly Herald exuberantly noted that “Hope Springs in Hearts of Heat Weary Sufferers.”19 The temperatures of northern California must have instantly become a fond memory for men plunged into the sweltering humidity of a hot Texas summer, particularly in an era predating the widespread availability of air conditioning.
Camp Mexia was a typical large prisoner-of-war camp in the United States during the Second World War. It was built on land already owned by the federal government about three miles outside of Mexia, a small Texas town east of Waco and about eighty miles south of Dallas. The Provost Marshal General’s Office commonly chose small towns like Mexia because any prisoners who managed to escape would have a difficult time sabotaging industry i
n places where little existed. The town’s relatively close proximity to a major city like Dallas, however, offered easy access to necessary supplies, equipment, and personnel. Moreover, placing POW camps in the American South was relatively cheap because it relieved the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of having to insulate the numerous barracks necessary to accommodate all of America’s prisoners of war.
The prisoner-of-war camp at Mexia contained two sections: one large enclosure comprising four compounds, each capable of accommodating up to sixteen hundred enlisted prisoners, and a smaller enclosure built to house up to one thousand officer prisoners. Eventually, Camp Mexia would become the largest POW camp in the state of Texas when it reached its full capacity of over six thousand prisoners. When the generals arrived in July 1943, however, the camp had been occupied for only about a month and there were fewer than four thousand prisoners residing there.20
An area several hundred yards wide divided the officers’ enclosure from that of the enlisted men. The American guard companies’ quarters were located in this open space. The two sections were connected by a barbed-wire corridor through which select enlisted prisoners were allowed to enter the officers’ enclosure to fulfill their responsibilities as orderlies for the senior officers. American army doctors, with the aid of German doctors who were themselves prisoners, provided medical care to the POWs and American personnel alike at the camp hospital, a modern facility with x-ray equipment and operating rooms. The enlisted prisoners prepared food for the entire camp and did laundry for the officers. Furthermore, because the camp had only recently been built, other enlisted prisoners busied themselves constructing sidewalks and gardens within the officers’ compound as well as around the camp administration barracks.21
Hitler's Generals in America Page 8