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CHAPTER 4 The Final Months From V-E Day to the Camp’s Closing IN THE EARLY YEARS OF THE WAR, most of the POWs could not fathom the idea of a German defeat. Their confidence in a German victory was based on their complete trust in the Fuehrer and in the fighting ability of the German military. In some but not all cases, the soldiers’ faith also stemmed from the belief that they were fighting for a just cause. The Mood of the POWs Guards and other employees of Camp Hearne were aware that the POWs, despite being imprisoned, continued to maintain hope for a German victory . Some of the POWs thought that the German army would invade America and rescue them from imprisonment. Guard Bobby Sullivan recalled, “They thought when Hitler came over here he would laugh at the fatigues with ‘PW’ written on them, when he came to liberate them.” “We were proud and we didn’t really feel we were defeated,” said POW Willi Nellessen. Nellessen remembered that when they were initially imprisoned in , the soldiers thought that a German victory was imminent. “There was a lot of betting taking place. One person said, ‘I bet in one-half year the war will be over.’In fact, he was so convinced of it that he said,‘I will shave my head now.’ He believed that if he shaved his head and the sun shone on it that it would encourage the growth of new hair. He said, ‘So when I return to Germany in onehalf year, I will have a beautiful, full head of hair on my head and everyone will be impressed by me, especially the girls.’ This soldier convinced the others in his barrack to shave their heads as well and one day, to the amusement of everyone, when it was time for lunch, they all appeared . . . a group of people who had all these white heads glistening in the sun.” Hugo Wannemacher remembered the same optimism:“You know, we had these sayings. For instance, we’re going to return in half a year. And there was a time when everybody thought in half a year, we’re going to return to Germany.” Werner Kritzler agreed: “First we didn’t doubt, we couldn’t conceive of the possibility that we would lose the war. In the beginning, we never had any doubt of this.” Wannemacher related an incident that reflects the POWs’ willingness to believe a German victory was possible even toward the end of the war. When the men in his barrack heard a radio report that the fighting between the Russians and the Germans had stopped, they mistakenly interpreted it to mean that the Germans had won and that the two countries were now entering into peace negotiations. “So we got very, very happy,” he explained. He said they were thinking, “If we only had to fight the British and the Americans, we might not outright win, but there will be a peace settlement.”The surge of joy caused some of the POWs to smash furniture in the barracks. Apparently the men figured they would be leaving the camp soon and therefore would no longer need their furniture. They also ripped boards off the lavatory walls. Willi Nellessen told another story involving a false rumor. The American newspapers had reported on the brutalities of Russian soldiers toward the Germans as the Russians reclaimed portions of their territory. Nellessen said the word around the camp was that the Americans were now siding with the Germans against the Russians, “that the United States established some sort of alliance with the democratic movement in Germany . . . ‘We’re the United States against the Russians’ and therefore the German prisoners in the United States would be immediately repatriated to Germany to join the forces of that alliance.” Even when it should have been obvious that the Germans were losing the war, some of the POWs could not reconcile themselves to the facts. Hans Lammersdorf commented:“It didn’t look good. The air war was very perturbing, to see our cities leveled one after the other. But there still was not total defeatism, we still hoped somehow we could make it. [We believed what was] against common sense.”As the war progressed, it was increasingly hard to remain optimistic. “The majority hoped [for a German victory], though they had serious doubts,” Lammersdorf recalled. “Of course, those fanatics never would concede that there was a possibility of losing the...

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