Mason’s recommended course of action for the general officer prisoners came at a time when the U.S. War Department was implementing an “intellectual diversion” or reeducation program for all of the German prisoners of war in the United States. The newly created Prisoner of War Special Projects Division of the Provost Marshal General’s Office, led by Lieutenant Colonel Edward Davison, initiated the operation on September 6, 1944. The goals of the program included correcting “misinformation and prejudices surviving Nazi conditioning” and convincing the prisoners to “understand and believe historical and ethical truth as generally conceived by Western civilization.” If the agency accomplished these goals, the German POWs “might come to respect the American people and their ideological values” and “form the nucleus of a new German ideology which will reject militarism and totalitarian controls and will advocate a democratic system of government” for postwar Germany. American camp authorities now sought to achieve these goals by enlarging POW camp libraries, showing films, and providing prominent lecturers for the prisoners and subscriptions to American newspapers and magazines, all with an emphasis on detailing American culture and democratic values. In effect, a propaganda offensive had begun. “Assistant executive officers” were assigned to each of the major POW camps in the United States with the sole purpose of implementing and supervising the reeducation program.41
Mason’s proposals regarding the German generals, especially his reliance on educational materials, newspapers, and film, most likely sprang from the State and War Department discussions of the reeducation program that had taken place during the spring and summer of 1944. Mason based his recommendations, however, on the assumption that the general officer prisoners would play key roles in postwar German government and society. Curiously, Lieutenant Colonel Davison and Major General Wilhelm D. Styer, the chief of staff for the Army Service Forces, had other ideas.
Styer wrote to Davison in late September 1944, concerned about Mason’s lack of understanding of both the enemy generals and Allied war aims, and he offered his own recommendations for the generals’ “re-education” program. Styer’s primary concern was Mason’s assumption that the general officers would play influential roles in postwar Germany. Styer stated that this was “contrary to official policy towards Germany” and declared that this could not “be made a basis for the policy of [the Special Projects Division] in regard to German generals in our custody.” Rather, he insisted, “no Junker general will ever be able to exercise any influence whatsoever in the future of Germany. That, to put it mildly, is one of the essential war aims of the Allies expressed in many speeches by Allied leaders, and in accordance with the wishes of the majority of the American people.” Styer did not oppose organizing a reeducation program for the generals. But he advocated one based on the assumption that any American use of German generals after the war would only be in isolated cases where the circumstances had been properly evaluated.42
Styer did not believe that the British harbored any designs for using the generals in postwar Germany either. In fact, he seemed perturbed by the numerous inspection reports from Camp Clinton that took for granted the German generals’ contentions that the British had treated them much better than the Americans did. Based on information he had received from American personnel who had at some point been attached to CSDIC in England, Styer contended that “the British [had] no doubt about the true nature of a Junker general.” If the British granted their captive generals any privileges that exceeded American treatment of these men, they did so “for psychological warfare reasons only and not to ‘preserve them and their influence’ in Germany.”43
Styer also took issue with Mason’s characterization of religious guidance for the prisoners as being inherently anti-Nazi and his belief that most of the generals respected Christianity. Indeed, Styer questioned the need to provide the generals with a German priest and minister at all, stating that German Army chaplains were not Christians in the American sense. “They indoctrinate the German soldier with Wotanism,” according to Styer, “and close each service with a prayer for final victory and Hitler.” If the Provost Marshal General’s Office wanted to provide religious guidance to the generals, Styer cautioned that it should at least be highly judicious in selecting German personnel.44
Styer’s comments highlight a fundamental issue regarding American treatment of German general officer prisoners. The British based their policy toward POW generals largely on their immediate interest in winning the war. Whether this involved surreptitiously gathering military intelligence or attempting to use the generals for psychological warfare, the focus remained on defeating Nazi Germany. Once this task had been accomplished, the British quickly lost interest in Wehrmacht general officers. Conversely, American policy regarding the United States’s captive generals lacked direction until late in the war. Washington was not motivated to gather intelligence from the generals, in part because the British graciously shared the fruits of their efforts with the War Department. John Brown Mason and the State Department recommended using generals to rebuild postwar Germany, but this advice was at odds with existing war aims, including the elimination of German militarism. American treatment of Wehrmacht prisoner-of-war generals proceeded haphazardly because Washington lacked a clear idea of what it wanted from these men.
In spite of his objections regarding the basis for Mason’s proposal, Styer concurred that some form of reorientation program was needed for the POW generals. He advocated the immediate assignment of a German officer prisoner to provide English-language instruction for the generals and the provision of subscriptions to Swiss newspapers and one copy each of the New York Times and Life for each captive general. Styer agreed that each general should be permitted to purchase his own radio and that special lectures and tours of industrial and historical sites should be provided. Styer concluded by observing that it was common knowledge that “the American personnel at Camp Clinton [were] not tops.” However, he believed that the appointment of a well-qualified assistant executive officer for the camp could compensate for much of the existing discrepancy.45
Styer supported the idea of a reeducation program for the generals on the basis that they might be used to influence the outcome of the war but not in order to allow them any role in postwar Germany. After the War and State Departments weighed the proposals of both Mason and Styer, Washington finally seemed to reach some consensus on a reeducation policy for the German general officer prisoners. The first steps included “an affirmative program to indoctrinate the general officer prisoners at Camp Clinton with a favorable attitude toward this country and its institutions, and, if possible, to utilize them for psychological warfare purposes and for the purpose of favorably influencing other German prisoners in United States custody.” The War Department left “psychological warfare purposes” undefined. In light of references to Soviet efforts in this regard, it is quite likely that American officials envisioned asking the generals to offer public statements critical of the Nazi regime that might undermine morale among both German troops fighting in Western Europe and German civilians suffering on the home front.46 But, again, this was not clearly defined.
In regard to indoctrinating the generals with a favorable attitude toward the United States, the reeducation program incorporated many of the tactics suggested by Mason and Styer. Authorities at Clinton and their War Department superiors increased the library holdings in the generals’ compound to over two thousand volumes, all approved by American censors. The collection largely consisted of books on American history, literature, and culture, as well as other important works dealing with democratic values and Western civilization. Most of these were in English, although Washington attempted to provide as many German-language volumes as possible. In addition to the expanded library, the generals received subscriptions to Time, Newsweek, Life, Collier’s, Reader’s Digest, and the Saturday Evening Post, among others, and several daily copies of the New York Times. Clinton officials also purchased a 16-mm film p
rojector for the generals’ recreation building, where motion pictures, particularly those emphasizing the familiar themes of American culture and democratic values, were shown twice a week. Washington made arrangements with Harvard University to send a professor “to confer with the German general officer prisoners of war on educational topics of interest to them” and created a special fund to pay for incidentals that the generals desired, such as the pajamas and slippers that the prisoners had repeatedly requested in the past.47
While putting this program together, Washington officials also entertained the possibility of offering the generals a change of scenery to complement their new intellectual diversions. Because of the myriad criticisms of Colonel Mc-Ilhenny, whom some in the Provost Marshal General’s Office referred to as “the impossible camp commander at Clinton,” discussions began within the War Department in the fall of 1944 about the possibility of transferring the general officer prisoners to Camp Pryor, Oklahoma. While Pryor later housed officer prisoners, American authorities decided not to use it for the German generals. Instead, they directed their attention to a former Japanese American relocation center in Jerome, Arkansas. The Japanese Americans had been evacuated from Jerome in June 1944 and the camp had been appropriated by the War Department and reactivated as a prisoner-of-war camp a few months later. Washington initially seemed quite interested in improving accommodations for the general officer prisoners and believed Jerome had “quarters which [compared] favorably with the buildings occupied by the German generals in England.”48 For undetermined reasons, the idea of transferring all of the generals to Arkansas was abandoned. Certainly, the War Department quickly discovered that Jerome did not compare as favorably with Trent Park as it had initially suspected. Moreover, the camp would not be ready to receive high-ranking occupants for quite some time. Whether because of these reasons or because the officers at Clinton did not wish to relocate, Washington gave up the idea of moving the generals to a different camp and kept them at Clinton for the duration of the war.
Along with favorably impressing the generals by introducing them to American history and culture, American authorities also needed to assign to Clinton an officer with special qualifications who could insinuate himself into the prisoners’ confidence and secretly ascertain the suitability and willingness of any of the generals to collaborate with American officials for the purposes of psychological warfare. The PMGO’s Special Projects Division planned to provide a permanent assistant executive officer to Camp Clinton to supervise the intellectual diversion program of the entire camp. But a special officer was immediately sent for temporary duty to carry out the psychological warfare mission.
For this special assignment, the provost marshal general chose Captain Walter Hans Rapp. Born in Germany, albeit to American parents, Rapp spoke German fluently. He also showed “a good understanding of German soldier mentality.” He had graduated from Stanford Law School and from the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. His military career thus far had provided him with “considerable experience in the Mediterranean Theater as [a] military intelligence officer, especially in the interrogation of prisoners.”49
Rapp arrived at Camp Clinton in mid-November 1944. At the time of his arrival, Captain Tidwell, Clinton’s executive officer, was away on a special teaching assignment at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. This allowed Colonel Mc-Ilhenny to introduce Rapp to the prisoners and American personnel as Tidwell’s temporary replacement, which explained his short, four-week stay in the camp. Taking over Tidwell’s responsibilities as the American liaison with the general officer prisoners, including accompanying them on their daily walks, provided Rapp with a great opportunity for significant daily interaction with the generals. Moreover, Mc-Ilhenny informed the prisoners that Rapp had been “exclusively assigned to take care of their desires and requests.” This announcement, coupled with Rapp’s ability to converse with the generals in their own language, delighted the prisoners, particularly von Arnim, who felt that American authorities were finally making a special effort to address the generals’ requests and concerns.50
Captain Rapp’s primary “mission,” as the Provost Marshal General’s Office referred to his assignment, was the first attempt by American officials to evaluate the political orientation of individual officers since the first small parcel of generals had been interned at Byron Hot Springs seventeen months earlier in June 1943. Obstacles arose immediately. First, Rapp criticized the placement of general officer prisoners at a camp that also housed German enlisted POWs. The generals’ orderlies and kitchen personnel went back and forth between the two compounds every day, allowing the enlisted prisoners to keep constant tabs on the generals’ activities and amenities, as well as to overhear a great deal of their conversations. This arrangement, according to Rapp, presented two problems. First, the enlisted men came to resent the generals for receiving better treatment than they did. The enlisted POWs understood that certain privileges accompanied higher rank but were angry because they believed these circumstances had already been abused in the German Army prior to their capture.51
Second, and more important to the mission, many of the generals were unwilling to speak openly about any potential anti-Nazi sentiments, according to Rapp, due to the social environment of the camp. Many of the generals’ aides and orderlies operated “a kind of espionage system,” using it to eavesdrop on the generals’ conversations and report these comments to their own NCOs or camp spokesmen, who in turn circulated this information back to von Arnim in the generals’ compound.52 Considering von Arnim’s threats about postwar Nazi retribution against pessimists and defeatists and the real fear that family members in Germany might suffer if these kinds of accusations made it back to Germany during the war, it is not surprising that many of the senior officers wished to stay out of political discussions.
Aside from these legitimate fears, Rapp also revealed a division among the general officers themselves. Much like the prisoners at Trent Park, the generals divided politically according to when they were captured, Rapp believed. One group of generals had all been captured in North Africa in the spring of 1943, and consequently their comrades referred to them as Afrikaner, or Africans. The other group, labeled Französen, or Frenchmen, had all been captured during or after the Allied invasion of Normandy beginning in June 1944.53
Rapp described the Afrikaner as the “least susceptible to [American] ways of life and thought” and as men who “still [believed] in Hitler and his ability to win this war.” He attributed this to the fact that these prisoners, who at this point had been in captivity for over eighteen months, did not have firsthand knowledge of the Allied air assault on Germany or the successful Soviet offensive on the Eastern Front. The letters they received from their families made little mention of the hardships on the German home front, likely in an effort to keep from exacerbating the prisoners’ fears and anxiety about their families when there was virtually nothing they could do to help. Because of this ignorance about the state of the war, Rapp believed, the Afrikaner generals simply dismissed reports from American newspapers and radio broadcasts as propaganda and steadfastly held unrealistic hopes that new secret weapons or a great military leader, perhaps even another Rommel, would emerge to save the day for the German Fatherland.54
The Französen generals, by contrast, held more realistic views of the war, according to Rapp. Unlike their Afrikaner counterparts, some of these men had been in Germany within the previous few months. They had “personally felt the shortage of food, the rule of the Gestapo and the destruction [of Germany] through air power.” A few of these men had even seen their homes destroyed or had lost their families, and “such horrible experience[s] [had] made a lasting and profound impression upon them as far as the ultimate outcome of this war [was] concerned.” Rapp reported that if the Französen generals dared to even describe the prevalent conditions in Germany in the fall of 1944, their Afrikaner counterparts would castigate their pessimism, defeatism, and “lies
.” Because of these circumstances, Rapp recommended that American officials segregate the general officer prisoners by date of capture as soon as possible. This, he believed, would easily separate the potentially “anti-Nazi” officers from the stalwart “Nazis” without tainting the individual reputations of the men with whom the Americans sought to collaborate.55
While Washington tried to determine exactly what to do with the “anti-Nazi” prisoners, Rapp continued his daily interaction with the generals. The most important part of his mission involved speaking to the officers individually, where possible, and assessing each man’s relative willingness to collaborate with American authorities. Given Rapp’s short stay at Clinton, he admittedly had little time to properly evaluate the individual generals. In fact, his reports to the PMGO in Washington provide assessments of only nineteen of the thirty-one general officer prisoners then interned in Mississippi. Yet Rapp’s evaluations are important because they provided the basis for American decisions about which generals would later be transferred to the soon-to-be-established reeducation camp in Arkansas. Rapp’s reports are also notable because they illustrate some differences with earlier British characterizations of some of these men and because they sometimes undermine Rapp’s own facile categorizations of the Afrikaner and the Französen generals.
Rapp expressed pleasant surprise at how quickly he made connections with “four or five generals who [were] willing to throw in their fortune” with American authorities, although he stressed the need to provide these prisoners “complete security, treatment compatible with their honor as soldiers, and certain recommended privileges.” The most promising among these anti-Nazi prisoners, according to Rapp, were Botho Elster and Ludwig Bieringer. Elster immediately informed Rapp that he realized the purpose of the American captain’s mission and that Washington “could count on him one hundred percent.” The general pointed to his decision to surrender twenty thousand men as evidence of his German, as opposed to Nazi, patriotism, which he claimed prevented him from supporting Hitler’s “government of hoodlums.” Elster assured Rapp that a significant number of the generals at Clinton believed as he did and that if the Americans showed patience and did not pressure them these men would eventually come forward as well. Elster quickly introduced Rapp to a handful of other anti-Nazi generals and arranged to provide the American captain with “inside information” from the officers’ compound.56 It appeared that Rapp’s mission was going to pay dividends sooner than expected.
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