Like Raugust from the Special Projects Division, Olle Axberg from the Y.M.C.A. also visited Ruston a few weeks prior to his first visit to Dermott. In May 1945 Axberg noticed that Camp Ruston possessed some unique characteristics. First, both the prisoner spokesman in the officers’ compound and the American assistant executive officer in charge of the reeducation program were former university professors. Perhaps because of these impressive educational credentials, the camp offered an array of courses for the prisoners, including not only English-language instruction but also French, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese. European, German, and Austrian history, the history of art, American literature, meteorology, electrical engineering, and “monetary politics,” among other topics, were included in the list of ongoing classes at the time of Axberg’s visit. Moreover, some interesting topics appeared on the list of weekly roundtable discussions conducted by the prisoners. Small groups of prisoners, ranging from ten to thirty men, discussed theology, law, and the “sense and purpose in gymnastics,” and a remarkable seventy-five regularly discoursed on “traffic and commercial life in West Africa.” Most notably, one hundred prisoners met to pore over the proposals for a United Nations organization emanating from the Dumbarton Oaks Conference. Axberg concluded his report by observing the presence of eleven professional painters and sculptors among the prisoners at Camp Ruston.36
Ruston appears to have been everything that Dermott was not. American officials and camp inspectors feared a growing Nazi underground at Dermott as early as February 1945, a month prior to the arrival of the five general officers from Clinton, when reports proclaimed that none existed at Ruston. In regard to the reorientation program, the fractious political divide and Nazi intimidation at Dermott stood in contrast to Ruston’s intellectual environment, replete with professional artists and university professors. And by late summer 1945, when a “fanatical Nazi element” remained “significantly influential” in the Arkansas camp, inspectors from the PMGO reported that the “officers and enlisted prisoner compounds [at Ruston] were found to be in an unusually neat and orderly condition” and they rated the military courtesy displayed by the prisoners as “excellent.” And this assessment came after the Louisiana camp’s prisoner population had grown to almost three thousand men.37
The puzzlement derives not from the fact that Washington eventually sent newly arriving “anti-Nazi” generals to Ruston rather than Dermott, but that it had not done so sooner. It is curious that the War Department expended considerable time and resources choosing general officers to be transferred to Dermott and endured a months-long delay in preparing that camp for their arrival when it could have easily sent these prisoners to a highly regarded, existing anti-Nazi camp at Ruston that was located even closer to Clinton than Dermott was. That Washington officials chose to send the generals to Dermott in the spring of 1945 instead of to Ruston suggests that the War Department initially harbored some ideas about working with the generals in some capacity at the Arkansas camp, likely using them to influence nationalistic-minded prisoners. Washington abandoned this idea and transferred an overwhelming number of Nazi stalwarts to Dermott during the spring and summer of 1945. Yet it remains puzzling why the most cooperative generals—Elster, Bieringer, von Liebenstein, and von Sponeck in particular—were not subsequently transferred to Ruston, once the War Department determined that they would not be used in the Arkansas camp.
Von Sponeck wrote a memoir about his experiences in the Second World War and devoted a significant portion of the work to his time in Allied prisoner-of-war camps. Notably, the general made no mention of any political strife or Nazi intimidation among the prisoners at Camp Dermott. Von Sponeck stated that the generals and their aides-de-camp dined in their own barracks and had little contact with the rest of the prisoner population.38 Apparently, segregated, barbed-wire enclosures had been constructed at Dermott by the time of the generals’ arrival in late March 1945. While this suggests that the generals were in no particular danger or in uncomfortable circumstances in Arkansas, it also establishes that the generals did not engage in any kind of attempts to influence the other prisoners in the camp. If Washington had chosen not to use them, why not transfer these anti-Nazi generals to a real anti-Nazi camp?
Inspector Olle Axberg returned to Camp Ruston in the fall of 1945. By this time, the War Department had transferred to other locations almost all of the prisoners who had been interned there during the Y.M.C.A. representative’s first visit. The Louisiana camp had come to hold not only a mixture of officers and enlisted men, as before, but a blend of nationalities as well, including German and Italian prisoners as well as over one hundred Russians who had been conscripted by German forces in northern France and were subsequently captured by the Allies. Despite these changes, Axberg again praised the commanding officer, Colonel Thomas A. Bay, and his staff for displaying the “greatest hospitality” and stated that they simply had “a grand time together.” Moreover, he characterized the library facilities and services as “excellent” and observed that the educational program included courses in English, American history, and American civics, which accorded exactly with the tenets of the American POW reorientation program.39
By September 1945, following the conclusion of the war, Washington began sending senior anti-Nazi officer prisoners to Camp Ruston. Curiously, when Military Intelligence Service interrogators finished with General Walter Vierow and sent him to Camp Dermott, they sent his Fort Hunt roommates, Captain Karl Gebhardt, Major Reinhold Koenning, and Colonel Werner von Tippelskirch, to Ruston. This may best highlight the different War Department perspectives on the two camps. The war criminal Vierow joined the Nazi-influenced crowd in Arkansas while his Fort Hunt colleagues, obviously believed to be of different political stripes, were transported to the anti-Nazi environs of Ruston, Louisiana. Other luminaries soon followed. Brigadier General Hans Gaul arrived at Ruston in mid-October 1945 and Brigadier General Rudolf Herrmann came one week later. Both prisoners had been “classified as anti-Nazi” and the War Department wanted them interned “with the other anti-Nazi German prisoners of war” at Camp Ruston.40
In spite of Washington’s decision after the war ended to send anti-Nazi officer prisoners to Camp Ruston rather than to Camp Dermott, there is no evidence that any kind of special reorientation program was initiated in the Louisiana camp. In fact, it appears that Hans Gaul and Rudolf Herrmann were the only two German general officers sent to Ruston. Most likely, the War Department sent these two prisoners to Louisiana because they were openly anti-Nazi and had already provided American authorities with any valuable information they possessed. Since they had been cooperative and, by the time of their arrival in the United States, the reorientation program at Camp Dermott had not developed, the friendly atmosphere awaiting them at Ruston seemed like the logical choice.
While Washington devoted a great deal of attention to Camps Dermott and Ruston, some of the most intriguing developments occurred among the generals who remained at Camp Clinton. Shortly after the departure of von Vaerst, Elster, Bieringer, von Sponeck, and von Liebenstein in late March 1945, five more generals had taken their place in the generals’ compound in Mississippi. British authorities at Trent Park, in a move to make room for yet another influx of German general officer prisoners, had transferred these five men to American custody. Upon their arrival at National Airport in Washington, D.C., on April 12, 1945, the PMGO transferred Generals Dietrich von Choltitz, Hermann Ramcke, Wilhelm Ullersperger, and Knut Eberding, along with SS General Anton Dunckern, to Camp Clinton.41
These men quickly became involved in a significant upheaval among the prisoners at Clinton. Following the end of hostilities in Germany, Clinton’s general officer prisoners split into two groups, one doggedly retaining their pro-Nazi sympathies despite the collapse of the Hitler regime and the other openly denouncing Nazism. The break was precipitated by a change in American rules. Shortly after Germany’s surrender, Clinton camp authorities issued a directive to the prisoners “prohibit
ing the possession or displaying of any Nazi insignia except those worn on the uniform.” Spurred by this directive, one faction of the generals completely removed all swastika insignias from their uniforms, angering the pro-Nazi clique, who saw this as an act of treason. The divide became so extensive that the two groups refused to associate, sitting on opposite sides of the mess hall during meals and refusing to speak to one another in the barracks. At one point the disagreement became so heated that it erupted into a fistfight between two of the generals. To quell the disturbance and prevent future confrontations, the housing situation had to be rearranged so that only generals with similar political beliefs shared quarters.42
This type of political divide among the generals at Clinton had occurred previously, after the so-called Französen had arrived in the summer and fall of 1944 and found themselves at odds with the Afrikaner. The curious aspect of the factions in the spring of 1945, however, was both their composition and leadership. The prisoners split almost in half, with fourteen “anti-Nazis” and thirteen “Nazis.” Remarkably, the supposed Afrikaner, the generals alleged to be the most virulent Nazis, were evenly split between the two factions. Four of the Afrikaner joined one group and four the other, and curiously, the unspoken leader of both factions was an Afrikaner. It is no surprise that ranking general and long-time German patriot von Arnim continued to head up the pro-Nazi faction after the war concluded, although by this time he had perhaps become even more adamant in his views. Remarkably, however, the new leader of the anti-Nazi faction was none other than Ludwig Crüwell.43
British observers had once referred to Crüwell as a “nitwit” and a “moron” and viewed him as a Nazi stalwart. They considered him one of the biggest troublemakers among the generals at Trent Park because of his continual complaining, instigation of confrontations between his fellow prisoners, and vocal support for Hitler. Curiously, Crüwell did not create the same impression among American camp authorities after being transferred across the Atlantic in June 1944, although the Americans did not closely observe or eavesdrop on their general officer prisoners like the British did. Regardless, after the fall of the Hitler regime, Crüwell emerged as an openly defiant anti-Nazi leader among the generals in American custody, raising questions about his motivations.
Hermann Ramcke wrote about the political divide among the generals at Camp Clinton in his memoir, Fallschirmjäger: Damals und Danach. While he did not mention Ludwig Crüwell specifically, Ramcke condemned those senior officers like Crüwell who claimed after the war ended that they had always secretly opposed Hitler’s leadership. Ramcke alleged that these prisoners were opportunists who sought early repatriation and the potential of obtaining a good position in postwar Germany by “loudly supporting democratic re-education” in American prisoner-of-war camps. He charged these men with engaging in “all kinds of ridiculous acts” to win favor with the Americans, including removing the swastika insignias from their uniforms.44
Considering Ramcke’s firm support for Hitler and the Nazi regime, even after the end of the war in Europe, his view of Crüwell and other prisoners who showed some willingness to collaborate with the Americans is not surprising. Moreover, there were certainly a number of Wehrmacht generals who suddenly converted to anti-Nazism when the war ended though they had previously not opposed Hitler; in some cases they had even supported him. Yet some generals may have had legitimate reasons for their change of heart other than simple opportunism. Crüwell may serve as the best example. As previously stated, he had four children living in Germany during the war. Following the death of his wife, they had been cared for temporarily by Frau Emmy Göring, the wife of one of the most prominent leaders in the Nazi regime. The Nazis frequently targeted the families of those they believed had betrayed them and could easily have done so in this case, having firsthand knowledge of the identity and whereabouts of Crüwell’s children. Perhaps his highly vocal support for Hitler was a ruse intended to protect his children. Had he expressed opposition to National Socialism in a British or American prisoner-of-war camp prior to Germany’s collapse, and had news of this reached the Nazi leadership, his children might have been in grave danger. Von Choltitz supported the idea that Crüwell’s pro-Nazi views were solely intended to protect his children. He expressed complete surprise upon hearing of Crüwell’s pro-Nazi activities at Trent Park because, according to von Choltitz, when the Nazis had first risen to power in Germany and it was still possible to vocalize opposition to the regime, Crüwell had been a “wild and open anti-Nazi.”45
Both Crüwell and Ramcke maintained the positions they staked out at Camp Clinton in the summer of 1945. Following the resumption of his life in postwar Germany, Crüwell enjoyed a prosperous postwar career and remained an active collaborator with Western Allied interests in the Federal Republic of Germany. Whether this meant that he finally felt safe revealing his genuine democratic sympathies or opportunistically saw the handwriting on the wall will likely never be determined. Ramcke, on the other hand, became one of the West’s most vocal German critics. No one doubted his sincerity when he labeled Allied soldiers “war criminals” in a speech before a reunion of SS veterans in October 1952.46
The rift between the generals at Clinton continued for the remaining ten months they would spend in Mississippi before returning to Europe in March 1946. Camp officials accepted it as a permanent fixture in the camp and learned to work around it. In August 1945, for instance, Lieutenant Louis B. Wishar, who took responsibility for Camp Clinton’s reeducation program in the spring of 1945, arranged for a series of lectures on American history to be presented to the generals in German. Each of these lectures was given twice, once for the “anti-Nazi” group of general officers and once for the “Nazis.” The ongoing English-language instruction was organized in the same fashion. Two parallel courses were offered at each level, “less advanced” and “more advanced,” so as to accommodate the wishes of the prisoners that the two cliques remain separated.47
Curiously, considering the animosity that existed between the two groups of generals, two International Red Cross inspectors who visited Camp Clinton in November 1945, together with Charles Eberhardt of the U.S. Department of State, found “no complaints worthy of mention.” By this date the generals seemed most anxious about their impending repatriation, especially those whose homes were now located in the Russian-occupied zone of Germany. They were much less concerned with the kinds of routine matters, like a lack of pajamas or slippers, that had occupied their attention in the past. Surprisingly, the inspectors stated that there were no complaints about the food rations, which, as in all other German POW camps in America, had been reduced following the end of the war and the news of Nazi atrocities. Eberhardt and the Red Cross representatives reported that, by November 1945, the prisoners received thirty-four hundred calories per day, with more for the enlisted prisoners working on the Mississippi River Model Project, and found the generals satisfied with this allotment.48
Apparently, not all of the generals were quite so content. Ramcke blasted American authorities in his memoirs. He criticized the “unreasonable propaganda” against the German people that had appeared in the American press, the “unbearable reduction of rations” after May 1945 that, he claimed, violated international law, and the complete withdrawal of tobacco and other luxuries. Ramcke argued that this treatment of prisoners of war by the American government undermined the ongoing reeducation program, contending that courses in American democracy would be ineffectual if American officials refused to model democratic behavior themselves.49
Ramcke penned letters of complaint to Bryon Price, the director of the U.S. Office of Censorship, and U.S. Senator James O. Eastland, Democrat of Mississippi. Ramcke suspected that the letters would never reach these men if sent through normal camp channels, which included review by U.S. Army censors, or if he asked one of the American camp employees to mail the letters for him. Astonishingly, he decided to leave the camp and mail them himself. Ramcke found a slight depression on
the north side of the camp that led to a large drainage pipe, an area where American personnel had a limited view from the guard towers. He improvised a wire cutter and a handsaw that he used to cut through both the camp fence and the iron grate blocking the entrance to the drainage pipe. Feigning sickness during morning roll call on New Year’s Day 1946, Ramcke slipped out of the camp and managed to catch a ride to Jackson from an unsuspecting driver on the nearby highway.50
To disguise his lack of English-language skills, Ramcke claimed, he practiced some basic American slang phrases and pretended to be hard of hearing. He used a dollar bill that an American officer had given him as a memento to purchase stamps at a local drugstore and enjoyed a hearty breakfast of ham, eggs, pancakes, and his first real cup of coffee in months. Because he needed to return to the camp under the cover of darkness, Ramcke had to kill time until sunset. After venturing to the post office to mail his letters, he spent the afternoon reading the newspaper, smoking a cigar, and watching members of Jackson’s high society celebrate the New Year at the regal Heidelberg Hotel. The German general finally sneaked into the woods across from the POW camp in the late afternoon and slipped back through the wire fence undetected after nightfall.51
It was just a matter of time before camp authorities caught wind of Ramcke’s stunt. Because he had signed his full name to both of the letters he mailed, Washington officials had a relatively easy time figuring out the origin of the letters. Upon being confronted at Camp Clinton in mid-February 1946 by Colonel Mc-Ilhenny, who happened to be holding a copy of Ramcke’s letter to Byron Price, the general confessed that he had mailed it himself but refused to provide any details as to how he had accomplished this feat. Mc-Ilhenny sent Ramcke to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, where he was placed in solitary confinement and restricted to a diet of bread and water. After four days of this treatment, Ramcke finally agreed to talk, but he told camp authorities that he had escaped by digging under the camp fence.52 Most likely, he wanted to keep his real escape route open in case he felt the need to exploit it a second time. It is doubtful that American authorities believed his story, especially considering that there would have been no trace of digging along the fence line, but they also likely saw no point in continuing the restricted diet and solitary confinement. The German generals were scheduled to be returned to Europe the following month and Camp Clinton was slated to be closed. Further punishing Ramcke to prevent any future escapes would have been unnecessary.53
Hitler's Generals in America Page 17