German Child Soldiers Were "Enslaved" on American Farms — But They Refused to Stop Working
Автор: WW2 Warfronts
Загружено: 2026-01-06
Просмотров: 10538
They arrived as enemies—and children—expecting cruelty, only to discover that captivity could feel more human than freedom itself.
In October 1944, as World War II raged across Europe, a U.S. Army truck delivered fifteen German POWs to a Nebraska farm. The oldest was just seventeen. The youngest, fourteen. Products of a collapsing German army after Normandy, these boys had been rushed into Wehrmacht uniforms with weeks of training before capture. Nazi propaganda had warned them America was hell. What they found instead was farmer William Garrett, a man whose own sons were fighting overseas, and a country desperate for labor on the American homefront.
Under the Geneva Convention, more than 400,000 German POWs were held in the United States, many assigned to farms and factories fueling U.S. industrial power in WWII. Declassified camp reports and surviving letters reveal a startling truth: these “enslaved” boys were fed better than they had been in the German army. One, Klaus Werner, later wrote that an American farmer gave him his own coat during a deadly storm.
When ordered to stop work, they refused—choosing to save an American harvest over military obedience.
In the machinery of war, kindness became the most subversive act of all.
Доступные форматы для скачивания:
Скачать видео mp4
-
Информация по загрузке:
