by Alexis Clark
I see not the radiant hearts of the children at the Christmas tree,
The presenting of gifts with joy.
Oh, you terrible war, bringing misery,
shattering much happiness,
now Fate has exiled me in a strange land.
Do you know of the longing for our Homeland,
with forests of firs and snow-capped peaks?
So here we stand behind barbed wire, as fit as fir trees.
We sing Christmas songs, each ringing true,
because each is thankful for his life,
and wish that they bring greetings to our parents, brothers and sisters.
The hope stays again with us, enduring the love of our Homeland, again to see.1
The fatigue and weariness of living in captivity had penetrated the minds of many prisoners. The U.S. military monitored their morale throughout the war, either by intercepting mail or by recording interactions between prisoners and American officers, which revealed a growing consensus among U.S.-based POWs, especially during the final months, that Hitler was a madman who needed to be stopped. When FDR died on April 12, 1945, almost every POW at Camp Florence reportedly added his signature to a document to camp officials expressing condolences for the death of the U.S. president.2
Naturally there were prisoners who remained loyal to Hitler to the bitter end. One German POW, in captivity in an American camp in Europe, wrote in an intercepted letter, “The majority of us are confident that the Fuehrer will spare the Homeland from enemy intruders.”3 But that didn’t happen, of course. And most German prisoners in the United States were relieved when the war came to an end.
Their relief was matched with fear and anxiety, however. Though longing to be reunited with loved ones, deep down the prisoners knew it was highly unlikely that they’d be able to resume the same lives they had led in Germany before the war. Instead, thousands wanted to stay in the United States to build new memories in a place that had become familiar and ripe with possibilities for a fresh start.
Rumors started to spread that they would be used as slave labor by the Russians, British, or French. The level of distress among the prisoners became so acute that there were reports of several thousand POWs wanting to volunteer to join the American army to help fight the Japanese.4 They would learn, though, that under the Geneva Convention all prisoners had to be returned to their homelands.
POW camps began to close down as the facilities were converted for other purposes. Camp Florence would turn into a minimum-security prison and later a state hospital after it transferred out the POWs who had lived there.5 Thousands of POWs moved to different camps throughout the United States before they left America for good. Many went to Camp Rupert in Idaho to harvest potatoes; others went elsewhere around the country to harvest fruit.6
The tenuous status of German POWs was exacerbated by the return of American soldiers, many wounded, who would need to recover and then find work. It was a complicated matter because certain factions wanted the POWs to remain in the United States and others wanted them gone. Labor unions, committed to the employment of American workers, wanted the German prisoners returned to Europe immediately, while farmers wanted to hold on to the cheap POW labor. Not only had they grown to depend on the Germans to tend to their farms, but an unexpected bond had developed, and a fair number of American farm families wanted the POWs to stay.7 It was an emotional topic that the government did not want to see spiral out of control.
Some congressmen and senators argued emphatically that the POWs needed to leave the United States immediately and go home to Europe, where they could rebuild all the areas the Nazis had destroyed. Still, the farmers and industry leaders didn’t back down. They insisted that low-wage prisoner of war labor had kept their farms and factories in business. Several politicians, indeed, discovered that even with the POWs, there was still a labor shortage—so these industries risked ruin if the prisoners departed immediately.8
Although it was unlikely that returning soldiers would feel threatened by jobs German POWs were doing, which were disparagingly referred to as “stoop-labor,” the government could not risk having the public believe their loved ones would be competing with German POWs for jobs, no matter how remote the likelihood of such competition. Brigadier General B.M. Bryan, assistant provost marshal general, released a statement to emphasize the government’s commitment to its soldiers. “We are not going to prevent any American from getting a job because of a prisoner. . . . If there’s a civilian for the job he gets it.”9 But the truth was that no one had a clear-cut solution.
The War Department initially said it would first return the prisoners it deemed “useless,” meaning the sick, the insane, and the unrepentant Nazis, but that announcement wasn’t well received. Some Americans thought it wasn’t fair for the hard-core ideological POWs to be able to leave captivity so quickly and resume their lives back in Germany. “Genuine Nazis are being rewarded for their convictions with a speedy reunion with their families,” according to a May 31, 1945 New York Times article.10
Moreover, the logistics of sending almost 400,000 German soldiers back to a battered and fragile Europe was daunting. There had been little guidance provided by the Geneva Convention about the return of prisoners in circumstances of an “unconditional surrender.” In place was a broadly worded provision in Article 75 stating that, “In any case, the repatriation of prisoners shall be effected as soon as possible after the conclusion of peace.”11 There were no firm deadlines, which gave the United States flexibility. However, the continued care and guarding of POWs in Europe and the United States were unsustainable.
A decision was finally made to ship the POWs back as soon as possible. Between 1945 and 1948 the War Department staggered the return of prisoners, with the majority sent back to Europe during 1946. The speediness of their return was also motivated by President Truman’s strategy, during a burgeoning Cold War, to strengthen ties with France and Britain, who desperately needed cheap POW labor to rebuild their bombed-out countries.12 But that wasn’t a smooth transition either.
Coordinating with the French and British was challenging, as both countries wanted to keep the POWs in captivity for as long as possible, in what sometimes turned out to be questionable and inhumane conditions, before finally releasing them. Article 75 of the Geneva Convention also stated, “Prisoners of war who are subject to criminal proceedings for a crime or offence at common law may, however, be detained until the end of the proceedings, and, if need be, until the expiration of the sentence. The same applies to prisoners convicted for a crime or offence at common law.” With the loose wording, the French or Brits could accurately claim the destruction of their countries by the Nazis was both a crime and an offense, which meant their prolonged detainment of prisoners was not a violation.13
The American military government in Germany also preferred that the POWs be dispersed to other countries for the rebuilding efforts before returning home. In Germany there were food and fuel shortages, ravaged cities, and occupying forces. There was a real fear that POWs, upon returning home, would become disillusioned and resentful, starting uprisings and hindering efforts to establish peace. The War Department decided that some POWs would work in labor battalions in England and France, usually for six months but sometimes longer, and others would be repatriated directly to Germany—it was sheer luck which assignment a particular prisoner was given.14
For the journey back to Europe, POWs were given a barracks bag filled with blankets, a first-aid kit, and eating utensils. The government issued them checks, usually worth $50, or for POWs who had saved up more money from their work, a few hundred dollars. The prisoners took trains from their camps to the army’s largest port of embarkation, which was at Camp Shanks, in Rockland County, New York. There they boarded vessels that usually carried three thousand prisoners across the Atlantic on a trip that lasted nine to ten days.15
Most vessels docked at Southampton, England, or Le Havre, France, off the English Channel. France held the German POWs
the longest, possibly out of a combination of revenge and a genuine need for labor given the massive devastation the Nazis inflicted on the country during the war. Of the 700,000 German POWs France received from the combined European and American units, the French still had 440,000 under its authority in April 1947, almost two years after the war ended. And another 10,000 were still there in 1948.16
Unlike the German POWs who had been in captivity in Europe during the war, those who had been detained in the United States realized how comfortable their accommodations had been in comparison. At a camp in Hull, England, the prisoners lived in huts instead of barracks, and slept in bunk beds on straw sacks instead of mattresses. The hatred of Germans was palpable, and one report described a situation where prisoners who worked trimming hedges on a farm in the boiling sun had nothing offered to them but a dirty stream from which to drink water.17
Many of the POWs who were sent back to Germany couldn’t believe the devastation. Some cities were unrecognizable. Instead of going immediately home to their loved ones, as they’d hoped, thousands of POWs lived in camps scattered across the country. At one in Münster, in northwest Germany, in the British zone, the POWs were forced to visit concentration camps.
The U.S. military had shown the prisoners detained in America film footage that the Allied forces had taken when they discovered the atrocities of the Holocaust. They wanted to see how the POWs would react. The responses varied; some wept, some held their heads low, others sat stoic. Many believed it was a manufactured propaganda film with actors. Some even thought the lifeless emaciated bodies were actually Germans who had been tortured and killed by the Russians. POW Friedrich Mögel, first detained in Arizona, then after the war, in Münster, was sent with other prisoners to the Dachau concentration camp outside of Munich. He was forced to stay there for two weeks to counter the false narrative that the camps weren’t real. He was given his dismissal papers afterward.18
The exact date that Frederick left the United States isn’t clear, but sometime after the baby was conceived in April 1946, he was sent back to Europe. Frederick’s sister, Charlotte, said he was released to the British army and worked in a camp for approximately six months before returning home. The nature of his work and the details of the conditions he had to endure remain a mystery, with the exception of the bitter memory Frederick shared with Charlotte about being stripped of all his belongings by British soldiers upon entering the country. And like his fellow comrades who knew they were only a few days away from Germany by train, he just wanted his captivity to finally be over so he could begin to rebuild his life.19
Elinor hadn’t lived in Milton since she left for nursing school in 1940, so her return after the war in early September 1946 would have been difficult under any circumstances. Almost six months pregnant and armed with nothing but a promise of Frederick’s return, she was terrified at the thought of facing her mother and all that Milton represented. She later shared with her niece Hope Taylor that she knew her mother would think she had lost her mind. Frederick could have been lying about his feelings for her. Or maybe he would find the obstacles too great and decide to stay in Europe, never to reappear in the United States again and raise his child. But Elinor was convinced that he would keep his word.
Gladys’s hypertension was serious. She mostly stayed in bed, but her weakened state didn’t diminish her anger toward Elinor. As predicted, Gladys was furious about and embarrassed by her daughter’s pregnancy. She was so disappointed she could barely look at Elinor, refusing to speak to her unless it was absolutely necessary.
Gladys was a very proud and religious woman. It was a major blight in her eyes to have Elinor return home pregnant and unmarried, and she worried about Elinor’s reputation. The whole story seemed unfathomable to her even when Elinor told her that the pregnancy was planned. Tension permeated the house. With her strong personality, Gladys needed time to process the impending birth of her first grandchild.
Eventually Gladys turned a corner. The reality was that she put family before everything, and she decided that Elinor needed her support more than her scorn. Also, as a widow, she was lonely. She forgave Elinor for shaming the family and understood that her daughter was in a vulnerable situation and, frankly, desperate.20
When Stephen Albert was born in Boston on December 18, 1946, Gladys embraced him without any hesitation, falling in love with the cream-colored baby. She held her grandson as much as she could, and even while ailing, she lifted him up in her arms with an expression of sheer adoration—a moment that Elinor captured in a photograph glued in one of her cherished scrapbooks.
But what Gladys felt for her new grandson didn’t translate into any warmth for Frederick. She was convinced that he was nothing more than a hustler who had fooled her daughter into getting pregnant so he could get a sponsored visa, rather than remain in war-torn Germany, which everyone knew was in shambles. Gladys believed that the promises Frederick had made to Elinor about lasting love and marriage were just a slick way to gain entry into the United States.21 But Elinor’s trust in the father of her child never wavered.
Frederick knew he would return to Elinor, but he didn’t know when and he didn’t know how. He was also broke and hadn’t been in regular contact with his parents since his conscription. He was bitter about his layover in the transitional camp in England, but after his stint was up, he returned to Austria.
Vienna had been spared heavy destruction compared to other major cities, particularly in Germany, and for a while during the war, Karl, Margarete, and Charlotte were able to make do with the bomb shelters in the basements of their apartment buildings until official shelters were built across the city. Charlotte remembered sweeping up dirt and pieces of glass scattered in the streets from the impact of the nearby air raids.
The devastation of the bombings changed landscapes entirely. By the end of the war, 75 percent of Germany had been severely bombed. More than 150 cities were decimated by air raids, with many repeatedly bombed into oblivion. The city of Kassel lost 10,000 civilians in a single night, on October 22, 1943, after an unrelenting series of bombs was unleashed by British warplanes. In Hamburg, more than 45,000 German residents died one July evening after a firestorm spread through the city. The number of German civilian deaths caused by Allied air raids alone was 600,000, and out of that, it was reported, 76,000 were children.22
Frederick moved in with Charlotte, who still had an intact apartment. Fortunately, it was in the American zone of Vienna, as opposed to the Russian zone, where she heard about people being robbed, raped, and killed by Soviet soldiers. She was divorced from her Austrian husband and had given her baby daughter, Kristina, to her parents to raise; Karl and Margarete had temporarily moved in with Margarete’s sister in Siegen, Germany. Frederick relied on Charlotte completely and received food stamps provided by Allied occupying forces. Fortunately, he was able to resume his studies at the art academy while he figured out a way to return to Elinor.23
During this time, Frederick also started a brief romance with Charlotte’s landlady. Back in the United States, Elinor gave no indication to anyone close to her that she and Frederick were in an open relationship. The plan, as far as she was concerned, involved doing everything possible to get her unofficial fiancé back on American soil. There were no discussions of dating other people, nor would such an arrangement work for Elinor given her compromised state. The fact was that Frederick was showing early signs of being a womanizer. He was capable of being romantically involved with two women simultaneously, a character trait he inherited from his father.24 He also was twenty-one years old, with an uncertain future. He wanted nothing more than to marry Elinor—that decision was never in question—but how he would manage to move to America, build a life with her, and provide for their baby wasn’t clear at all. The two lovers exchanged letters, with one written from Frederick to Elinor that she later glued into one of her scrapbooks. Worn with age, ink-smudged, and collaged with stamps and a large photo of Frederick, the readable parts rev
eal his devotion: “I need you terribly,” “You are a part of me,” “I can’t let you wait so long,” and “I love you.”
Although Frederick did not remain faithful to Elinor during their separation, he loved her and remained committed to the idea of finding a way to get to the United States to be with her. Charlotte recalled that Frederick carried on with the landlady for months. And there wouldn’t have been much Elinor could have done if she suspected the relationship. The option of raising a child on her own wasn’t feasible considering how sick her mother had become. She really had nowhere to go; her future was riding on Frederick’s return.
Frederick learned about his son’s birth through a Western Union telegram: “EIGHT POUND SON BORN DECEMBER EIGHTEENTH MOTHER CHILD WELL. GLADYS POWELL.” The very next day, Frederick telegraphed back, “BEST WISHES TO MOTHER AND CHILD LOVE FRIKA ALBERT.” Although tersely worded, the telegrams were cherished mementos saved by both Elinor and Frederick and were later displayed proudly in one of Elinor’s many scrapbooks.
Gwyneth Blessitt Moore stayed in the army after the war ended. Her family was in New York, and on a trip home she made her way farther north to see Elinor. Not much had changed in the army since their time together at Camp Florence. The end of the war hadn’t altered race relations between whites and blacks in the military at all. It still functioned under Jim Crow, especially in the southern states. Gwyneth was stationed in Fort Bragg in North Carolina, which was a completely segregated base. There were separate barracks, hospitals, and recreational facilities for blacks and whites. “When we went to the movie theater, the black soldiers had to sit upstairs, and the whites downstairs,” she recalled. Yet Gwyneth enjoyed her time at Fort Bragg because she met her husband there, an African American soldier who also was stationed at the post.
During one visit, Elinor asked Gwyneth to write a letter to the American consulate in Vienna in support of Frederick’s immigration to the United States. She wanted her friend, who had been promoted to first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, to provide a character endorsement of Frederick, along with proof of income to help out with Frederick’s resettlement. Gwyneth obliged.