-Alemaster
Astonished German POWs roll through Texas expecting brutality—and find coffee, wages, and cowboys. This episode traces how enemies became ranch hands, neighbors, and, eventually, Americans.
- A train window view: Amarillo, chaps, and culture shock
- Camp life: hot showers, scrip pay, Western swing
- Cotton fields & cattle drives with ranchers who shake hands
- The Papago Park tunnel…and a very dry “river”
- VE Day goodbyes—and surprising returns as immigrants
What happens when propaganda slams into Texas hospitality? The answer rewrites what captivity—and humanity—can look like.
I watched that a few days ago and it is immensely saddening - the world shown there is one destroyed by decades of rising matriarchal influence, and the poison of unrestricted immigration.
ReplyDeleteI saw it a few days ago myself and I agree with your statement
DeleteJD
The left in this country have had their minds poisoned by the very type of propaganda that Goebels produced. The foot soldiers of ANTIFA would slit the throat of any Christian patriot including their children and not bat an eye and we are supposed to be fellow countrymen. Notice how there was a common connection of Christianity.
DeleteMy grandpa had a farm close to POW Camp Atlanta in Nebraska. He had several German POW's working for him. At war's end several of them asked if he would help them move to the US.
ReplyDeleteDad was doing construction on the east coast and had several POWs working with him. Said there were no problems, they all got along
ReplyDeleteFrequented a Geust Haus in Germany, early 80's. The owner and the group of men who were there most evenings had all been captured at Kasserine Pass, held at Ft Dix and worked the farms in South Jersey. It was about 2 years before they let on they spoke English. We butchred the German language, but always attempted. Good times
ReplyDeleteThat was good!
ReplyDeleteThe county next to the one I grew up in had a POW camp. My grandfather would make the drive to pick 2 of them up to work on the farm. They both came back after they were repatriated to become US citizens. A lot of them came back.
ReplyDeleteWhile living inn Alabama, my wife and me traveled around for my wife's job as a State Library consultant and we got introduced to a curator at the museum of WW2 German prisoner camp in Aliceville, Alabama and we traveled back several times for weeks at a time to help document the life and times of the POWs there. What struck the Germans were how kind and approachable and friendly and generous the town and rural folks were to them. They expected anger and brutalities. They worked the local farms and lumber mills and some cattle farms and were included in local celebrations and holidays. The POWs made prison art and painted pictures and handed them as mementos and gifts. As we found in the official documents and correspondence a lot of long lasting friendships and over a hundred Germans immigrated with their families to the area.
ReplyDeleteI have learned to beware of these WWII vids--some are legit, but AI is overrunning YouTube, including many such channels. They're bogus.
ReplyDeleteFirst thing I notice is the "scratched film" overlay is WAY overdone.
DeleteWhat are y'all going to over-analyze and pick apart when I'm done with this blog?
DeleteOh no, please sir don't shut down the blog.... What are we going to do with our time if we don't have your memes?
DeleteShut the fuck off. Man up and take it.
If you publish a blog you will get comments you like and comments you don't like. If you don't want the negative comments then stop publishing shit but don't come here "threatening" people.
What a fucking snowflake! Boooo, people complaint that they don't like my memes! Booooo they don't appreciate all the minutes I took from my day to copy memes from other people that are smarter than me. Booooo.
Fucking bitch
Oh, Jesus. Another internet tough guy. Go back and read your comment - you don't even have the fucking balls to back your mouth with a name, choosing instead to post anonymously, and you're calling me a fucking bitch? Seriously?
DeleteI'm not "threatening" anybody. I did a post on the 6th of January that I was going to quit this year, so I'm just fulfilling a promise.
https://ogdaa.blogspot.com/2025/01/yeah-im-back.html
Dealing with assholes like you make it a lot easier, though.
As far as copying memes, show me one single blog that doesn't do that. And if you think you can do a better job, have at it. You go right on ahead and spend a couple hours a day gathering and posting material for others to read - for free. I don't get paid to do this and you don't get charged for reading it, yet you're going to complain, you self entitled son of a bitch?
And finally, don't bother replying. I won't post it. I won't even finish reading it once I figure out it's from you. That's my Right as the blog admin. You're perfectly entitled to your own opinion but nothing says I have to give you a platform to insult and talk shit about me.
They are our brothers. That needs to be a thing again.
ReplyDeleteMy grandparents farmed outside of Hanford during the war..My grandmother used to say “them Nazis were the best workers we ever had”. Tagus Ranch was a camp, as well as Rough and Ready Island.
ReplyDeleteMy father was a German Reichsmarine sailor, captured by the Brits, sent as POW to a series of camps in Alberta Canada. He went through the same realization of the magnitude of the Nazi lies and frauds when he saw how Canadians lived and especially how much food they ate and casually wasted.
ReplyDeleteWhen the war ended he was a cowboy at a ranch near Brooks Alberta. They told him he had to go home. He then tried 3 times to flee, with the assistance and connivance of the rancher. All unsuccessful, caught every time, forced back to Germany, got a job with the US Army as translator and made it back to Canada in 1951.
I hope you have this amazing story written down for future generations.
DeleteBack in the late 70's early 80's i worked and became friends with a German ex POW here in England, he stayed after the war and married a local girl.
ReplyDeleteOne of the hardest working most honourable men its been my pleasure to know, a decent man.
He did the work of 3 men and no one deserved a long happy retirement more than than him, sadly he died only a few months after retiring.
Hans it was an honour to have been your colleague and friend.
When I was a kid a ww2 german fighter pilot lived behind us. He had a wife and kids and his mother with him. His mom was always critical of the US and I know on one occasion my mom, my dear sweet mom, squared up on her and told her to take her sorry ass back to germany if she didnt like it here. On another occasion I told my dad about the anti american statements only represented it as mr. B saying it. Hey I was 5 and not too articulate. I remember my dad storming across the yard to confront our neighbor and thought they were going to fight. They talked for a while, shook hands and walked away. All my dad had to say was, it was a long war and hard on everyone. Dad had flown 2 tours as a ball turret gunner in ‘43 and ‘44 and had experienced personal loss. If he’d thought mr. B was a jerk he’d have decked him. I’d never given much thought to why the family had come here, now I wonder if he’d gotten captured.
ReplyDeleteIt's 1945 ... would you rather live in a destroyed country rife with hatred, or a prosperous country full of good people?
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the train ride, we visited the old German POW camp near Concordia, KS and one of the tidbits they share on the tour was that the German pow's accused their handlers of running the trains in circles to confuse them because none could believe that the USA was large enough to have spent so many days on the train getting to Kansas. They also commented that a number of the prisoners voluntarily worked for local farmers and none gave their employers (yes, they were paid) any grief at all.
ReplyDeleteMy big takeaway is pretty much the same conclusion I came to some years ago: the only people that want war are the people that profit from it: the military/industrial complex, which include politicians of all stripes. At least those of us in civilized society, I should add.
ReplyDeleteI used to live in Roswell, NM. During and after the war they had plenty of German POW's working on public infrastructure, to include storm drain channels. You can (or many could? Been many years since I was there) walk through the channels and see the messages they wrote in the concrete before it set up. Interesting history, and everyone I spoke with that was there back in the day didn't have a problem with them. Actually spoke pretty highly of them.
ReplyDeleteI am a Phoenix native. The stories of the German POW camps here are well known.
ReplyDeleteThe instance of the attempted escape at Papago Park has always saddened me.
The amount of effort and resourcefulness wasted due to a lack of information that any local grade-schooler knows.
The tunnel: The soil around Papago Park is no easy dig. Mostly rocky, with large, widespread caliche deposits. Imagine digging through concrete.
The "river": The Salt River is a bone-dry riverbed except for a few days during monsoon season in late spring and early fall; and even then, the water disappears below the surface within 20-40 miles outside Phoenix. Just far enough to carry them into the MIDDLE of one of the most inhospitable deserts on earth.
They not only created a small, collapsible boat, they also crafted life vests for each of the men. Their plan being to take the "Salt River" all the way to the Gulf of California. (Take a look at Google maps to see what kind of journey that would have been, even if there HAD been water.)
I always wondered at the crushing realization when they finally saw the dry riverbed.
Sad.
As I mentioned to Alemaster, my dad was raised in the Casa Grande area and remembers giving candy through the fence to POWs, candy that was given to him by his mother for that purpose.
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