Hitler's Generals in America

by Derek R. Mallett

  Poor assessments of the clothing and bedding were only the beginning. Feer and Gufler continued their litany of criticisms, contending that the generals also suffered due to the poorly insulated flooring that made their houses unnecessarily cold in the winter. After fighting in the North African desert, even a comparatively mild winter in Mississippi would not have been comfortable for men sitting idle in poorly insulated homes and without proper attire and blankets.44

  In addition to being cold, the generals apparently also suffered from boredom. Feer and Gufler observed that the officers lacked a sufficient quantity of books and recreation equipment. Where American POW camps typically provided common libraries for enlisted prisoners, the general officers were allowed to obtain their own individual books. The officers would then often share their collections with each other to augment the amount of reading material available. According to the inspectors, however, von Vaerst, who was the senior general and who had been in the United States for over seven months, had been able to acquire only three books. The generals had turned to wood carving, painting, and gardening due to the dearth of reading material and because these were apparently the only activities for which they could obtain adequate supplies. But even some of these activities had met with frustration, as the American guards in the generals’ compound had “carelessly trampled the gardens” during their daily patrols.45

  Yet what most troubled the Swiss inspector and his State Department counterpart was a visible discrepancy between the treatment provided for the generals and that provided the enlisted prisoners in the adjacent compounds. The two inspectors lauded “the atmosphere of the enlisted men’s stockade” and the “excellent administration” and “relationship between the commanding officer and his staff with the enlisted men held prisoner.” Astonishingly, the inspectors stated that the generals’ compound “makes an impression so sharply in contrast to the impression made by the enlisted men’s stockade as to be startling.” They were convinced that “the generals [had] been placed at a long distance from the camp administration and forgotten.”46

  This obvious discrepancy in accommodations and amenities between the compounds, something the generals could easily observe through the barbed wire, stirred a great deal of resentment among them. They expressed their belief to the Swiss representative that “the Camp Commander had probably been ordered by Washington to isolate them in their ‘village’ and humiliate them by systematic neglect.” They felt “abandoned.” They further bemoaned the fact that on the rare occasion when an American officer visited them, he almost always began by mentioning how busy he was, giving the “impression that it would be inadvisable for them to take up anything with him except the most extremely vital matters.”47

  The Swiss representative made special note of the complaints of General Frantz, who was “particularly bitter” about the treatment he had received while in American custody. Frantz had worked for an American company for many years before the war and deplored his current conditions, particularly when contrasted with the lavish treatment he received while on earlier business trips to Detroit. Moreover, Feer reported that all the general officers felt “abandoned to the care of privates and non-commissioned officers, many of whom [had] apparently handled them in an exceedingly rude and ill-considered manner.”48

  This kind of behavior contrasted sharply with the “most flattering attention” that had been paid to these officers by the British. Generals Frantz and Schnarrenberger, who had been transferred directly to Clinton from Trent Park, claimed that “considerate treatment [had] stopped abruptly when they were handed over to the American military authorities in England.” The other generals fondly recalled the American Major Spencer, who had “handled them with tact and consideration,” and the lavish accommodations they had enjoyed at Byron Hot Springs. But there was a striking contrast between the treatment they had previously received from the British and from American personnel in California and the treatment they subsequently received. This discrepancy convinced the generals that “their present state [was] the result not of neglect but of a deliberate desire on the part of the War Department to humiliate them.”49

  Making matters worse, the Swiss representative feared the generals’ suspicions might be correct. He was “greatly upset by the manner in which the Generals were being treated.” Both Feer and Gufler questioned how well America could understand European problems if they treated “Europeans of rank and culture” in this manner. “A good many tricks have been missed in the handling of the German Generals,” Gufler stated, noting his impression that “the United States is decidedly not putting a good foot forward in its treatment of them.” The inspectors recommended providing more reading material, clothing, and recreational equipment. Most importantly, they advised Clinton authorities to appoint some American officer personnel “to pay more attention to this side of the camp’s activities,” referring to the need to build some kind of relationship between the American camp personnel and the general officer prisoners. Feer and Gufler suggested that “some attention paid to the Generals might in the future bear valuable fruit to the United States.”50

  Feer and Gufler’s condemnation of Camp Clinton’s officer compound was only the first in a long series of complaints, by both camp inspectors and the generals themselves, about American treatment of these men. The strongest indictment of the treatment of the German generals at Camp Clinton came three months later, in May 1944. After a follow-up inspection by Bernard Gufler, this time accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel M. C. Bernays of the U.S. War Department’s Personnel Division, the two men condemned American treatment of these senior prisoners, singling out Clinton commanding officer James Mc-Ilhenny for criticism. The two inspectors characterized Camp Clinton as “superficially attractive but otherwise [leaving] a good deal to be desired.” They laid the blame for Clinton’s shortcomings squarely at the feet of Mc-Ilhenny and his staff by noting that “the prisoners have a number of complaints not heard in other camps, most of which could probably be straightened out if someone in authority in camp administration would show more energy and imagination than hitherto has been displayed by this camp administration.”51

  Regarding the general officer prisoners, Gufler and Bernays issued a now-familiar list of complaints, noting that many were requests that the generals had already made when Gufler visited the camp three months prior. These requests included the assignment of orderlies for Köchy and von Quast, American recognition of von Quast’s promotion to brigadier general, the generals’ petition to take walks outside the camp without signing formal parole forms, the “necessity of insulating their houses, especially the floors,” and the prisoners’ wish for tennis courts and possibly a swimming pool. The generals also wanted to send pictures of themselves and their bungalows, as well as some portraits of the camp painted by Schnarrenberger and Borowietz, to their families and friends in Germany.52

  With the exception of insulating the generals’ quarters, the two inspectors recognized that some of these complaints were minor. Their overall assessment of the camp, however, remained highly critical. As representatives of the American government, Gufler and Bernays expressed their impression that “we [the United States] still continue to miss tricks at every turn in our handling of these high officers. They [the generals] still speak highly of their excellent treatment by the British and of the excellent treatment some of them had in the United States prior to their arrival at Camp Clinton. [The generals] still appear to feel neglected and ignored and apparently are in truth neglected and ignored.” The inspectors observed that the camp failed to provide “many little things” that the generals desired to purchase with their own money, despite the fact that these items could easily be obtained in Jackson, a short drive away.53

  Significantly, especially for two Americans inspecting one of their own nation’s prisoner-of-war camps, Gufler and Bernays suggested that their government might be ill-suited for the job of handling high-ranking prisoners of war. They concluded that “unless
we can learn to play a cleverer game with these general officers it might appear advisable to turn them back to the British who know how to play the game.” The two inspectors recommended transferring the generals to Camp Crossville, Tennessee, “unless some arrangements can be made to manage matters better from a point of view of our long term interest at Camp Clinton.” They believed it would be worth the cost and trouble of relocating these prisoners because they felt Crossville’s commanding officer, Colonel Harry E. Dudley, would be “capable and willing to handle the problems presented by those general officers much more to the credit and profit of the United States than it is being handled at Clinton.”54

  A large part of the problem stemmed from the War Department’s choice of commanding officers. Considering the American need for qualified officers overseas, a significant portion of prisoner-of-war camp commandants consisted of U.S. Army officers who were either brought out of retirement, close to retirement, or unqualified in some fashion for other positions. Furthermore, these commanding officers exercised a great deal of autonomy in the running of their respective camps. Thus, the atmosphere of an American POW camp largely reflected the character and ability of its commanding officer, who had almost certainly been chosen more for convenience than qualifications.

  Unfortunately for the generals at Camp Clinton, the U.S. War Department had entrusted the care of these prisoners to a commanding officer, Colonel Mc-Ilhenny, whom the American camp inspectors found unimaginative, lacking in energy, and negligent. Moreover, the colonel did not appear particularly concerned about addressing any of the issues raised by the various inspectors who had visited Camp Clinton. Mc-Ilhenny kept the inspectors waiting, delayed appointments, and generally displayed a strong disregard for what these men were trying to accomplish.

  Further complicating the problem of poor leadership, the needs of American combat forces overseas required the services of the crack military police guard companies that had originally been stationed at Clinton. Beginning in the spring of 1944, the inability to find men suitable to serve as camp guards became a common problem at the prisoner-of-war camps in the United States. A memorandum prepared by the U.S. State Department in December 1944 summed up the situation by observing that “most camp commanders [were] handicapped by the assignment of soldiers as guard personnel who have certain handicaps, mostly of a mental nature.” Almost all of the young men physically and mentally fit for combat duty were sent to Europe or the Pacific, leaving only those deemed unfit in some fashion with responsibility for the POW camps.55

  The problem became so acute that it spurred a U.S. War Department investigation into the “status of training and physical condition of men assigned to Clinton, Mississippi,” in August 1944. Following the investigation, Director of Military Training John P. Clegg concluded in regard to Clinton’s guard personnel that “these men seem to have had sufficient training to do functional duty here if they have properly assimilated it. In some instances this is doubtful.” Indeed, the investigators assessed each of the 262 guards then assigned to Camp Clinton and produced a report titled “Partial List of Enlisted Men Suffering from Mental Disturbances Employed by Prisoner of War Camp [Clinton] during Month of August 1944.” This list included 69 men assigned to guard duty at Clinton who had averaged almost three transfers each before assuming their positions in Mississippi. Some of these men had been previously transferred as many as eight or ten times, suggesting that these guards had been reassigned to Camp Clinton due to prior poor performance at other camps.56

  Furthermore, from the total list of 262 American guards at Clinton, 34 were diagnosed with “psychoneurosis,” 7 with “hysteria,” 9 with “anxiety,” and 7 as being in a “constitutional psychopathic state.” Other common diagnoses included “inadequate personality,” “mental deficiency,” “emotional immaturity,” “emotional instability,” “low mentality,” “alcoholism,” and “moron.” The report identified one private as suffering from “borderline mental deficiency with mild antisocial tendencies, mild psychopathic trends and mild neurotic tendencies.” The list goes on.57

  No aspect of the accommodation of the German prisoner-of-war generals better epitomizes the differences between the American and British treatment of these men than the quality of the respective camp guard personnel after the summer of 1944. The highly qualified and well-trained men of the first three MPEG companies had been replaced by limited-duty soldiers possessing far less ability, and in many cases severe weaknesses. Generals Frantz and Schnarrenberger had arrived in the United States after a summer at Trent Park where they regularly interacted with British officers, including the aristocratic Lord Aberfeldy, who displayed exemplary military courtesy. Generals von Vaerst, Borowietz, Bülowius, and Köchy and Colonel von Quast arrived from Camp Mexia expecting treatment that American authorities had promised would be more suitable to their rank. Upon arriving in Mississippi, these generals found drunkenness, idiocy, and incompetence among the American personnel with whom they would have the most daily contact.

  British authorities reserved the finest men available to serve as officers and guards on the estates housing their general officer prisoners, while the guards at American camps seem to have been some of the worst lot available. Throughout the generals’ stay at Camp Clinton, a number of other problems and complaints would arise, but none of these exceeded the absurdity of placing America’s highest-ranking prisoners of war in the hands of some of the U.S. military’s least qualified personnel. Moreover, this problem lasted throughout the war. Regardless of the changes that the War Department would eventually make in its treatment of the German generals, these prisoners continued to find that a significant portion of their guard personnel were not fit to serve in this capacity.

  The criticisms that Gufler and Bernays leveled at the American treatment of German general officers demonstrated that the problems largely resulted from the dictates of an uncooperative camp commandant and the behavior of his largely unqualified personnel rather than systemic War Department policies intended to isolate or humiliate the generals. It is understandable that American combat forces required the best personnel available, even at the expense of the overall quality of personnel at installations in the United States. However, one questions why the War Department did not take greater care to provide for its senior officer prisoners by finding a more suitable camp administrator and staff for at least this one camp. That it did not do so and that, in fact, the provost marshal general allowed Colonel Mc-Ilhenny to remain in his post for months after the inspectors indicted his leadership suggests American disregard for the importance of these prisoners. U.S. War and State Department officials eventually reconsidered the value of the general officers in their custody and made policy changes accordingly, but not until compelled to do so by the success of the Normandy campaign and the consequent emergence of American concerns regarding the postwar reconstruction of Europe.

  3

  The Seeds of the American Transformation

  Following the successful Allied invasion of northwest France in June 1944, Washington finally initiated a relationship with its senior German officer prisoners. Driven by a burgeoning sense of imminent victory, American policy makers began thinking ahead to the postwar reconstruction of Europe and what role, if any, the men in their custody might play in that process. Change began slowly.

  Less than two weeks after D-Day, the British realized the need to free space at Trent Park for the many Wehrmacht generals who would likely be captured in the coming months and began transferring some of the generals to American custody. CSDIC started by sending three of its biggest troublemakers. Generals Ludwig Crüwell and Hans Jürgen von Arnim, along with their aides-de-camp, departed for the United States on June 17, 1944. One week later, after a transatlantic flight and rail passage from Fort George Meade, Maryland, the two senior officers arrived at Camp Clinton. Within a few more weeks, Heinrich von Hülsen joined his “pro-Nazi” colleagues as a prisoner of the Americans at the Mississippi camp.1
/>   A little over two months later, after a flood of German general officers surrendered to the Allies in southern and western France, three more generals arrived in Clinton, Mississippi. These three officers, Ludwig Bieringer, Ferdinand Neuling, and Hans Schuberth, were the first generals to arrive on American soil who had not first been prisoners of the British. Rather than allowing CSDIC to take the lead in interrogating these three generals as it had in the past, the two Allies collaborated on the effort through a joint operation in France labeled “CSDIC West.” American interrogator Lieutenant Colonel Gerald Duin, who would later play a prominent role in the American postwar relationship with Wehrmacht generals in the United States, interrogated these three generals as part of the combined operation and then immediately transferred them to Camp Clinton.2 Considering that the British needed to make space at Trent Park and that the interrogations took place as part of a coordinated effort, the British almost certainly supported the direct transfer of these three prisoners to the United States. But this arrangement represented the seeds of independent American activity that would continue to grow until, by the end of the war, American military intelligence supplanted CSDIC’s leadership in regard to the Anglo-American relationship with German general officer prisoners.

  Generalmajor Heinrich-Hermann von Hülsen (Courtesy of the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum)