21:null 22:["$","title",null,{"children":"Reeducation of German POWs in the United States during World War II | Yotam Rubin | Observable"}] 27:Tfcb,md`# Reeducation of German POWs in the United States during World War II ## Note on the Essay This essay, focusing on the re-education efforts of German POWs by the US military between 1945-1946, is presented in a manner different than the conventional historical essay found in academic journals. Despite recent advances in publishing which have been adopted by many publishers, the form of the scientific paper, including in the different fields of humanities, has remained largely static. The typical essay found in academic journals retains its structure from the traditional paper essay. This essay provides a demonstration of how a historical essay may benefit from these recent developments. In this essay, I aimed at showcasing different ways in which historical information can be usefully visualized. Visualizations include the presentation of timelines, hierarchical structures, geographic structures and statistical information. In a historical essay meant for publishing, this richness of visualization may be redundant, but for this essay, I wished to demonstrate the possibilities and available tools a historian may take advantage of. Therefore, while this essay does present a clear historical thesis and follows the structure and methods of a standard essay, it is designed mainly to showcase how the humanities and history, in particular, can benefit from recent developments. For technical reasons, the essay is written in English rather in Hebrew, mainly to make it accessible to non-Israeli researchers, but also due to some technical considerations. The essay comes in two flavors - one, as a standard, standalone essay available as a PDF, and other as an online document that includes the interactive visualizations. ## Introduction By 1946, Germany's population stood at 65,137,274. During this time, it also had about 4 million soldiers of its defeated army interned in POW camps in the UK, France, Russia, the United States1 and other countries. This large figure, which made up 6.25% of Germany's total population presented a unique opportunity for the victorious powers to influence post-war Germany through the re-education of the repatriated prisoners. Re-education was designed to cleanse the German soldiers of their Nazi ideology and infuse them with the ideology of the respective winning power. This opportunity was seized by nearly every major victorious nation - The USSR, the United Kingdom, France, Canada and the United States. This essay examines the US army's effort to re-educate German POWs who were interned in American POW camps. I will focus on two facets of the re-education effort. First, I will examine the curriculum and structure of the re-education program. The second facet I shall examine is the reception of German POWs to the American campaign of re-education. I have relied both on oral and written testimonies of former POW as well as archival data from the US army. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of archival documents is not available online, so I have not had the opportunity to examine those documents directly, but exclusively through secondary sources. Re-education did not take place in a vacuum. Rather, it was carried on in the context of captivity in POW camps. To complete the picture of a POW's experience under re-education, it is necessary to briefly describe camp routine from the inmates' perspective. I argue that despite that relative to the re-education program's meager resources and budgeting, parts of it had successfully shaped a democratic-leaning worldview in the certain German inmates, and contributed to them later actively participating in German politics and public discourse. I also argue that parts of the program that relied on prisoner coercion, in particular, the publishing of the camp paper Der Ruf, were not positively received by the general population and therefore had negligible success in shaping prisoners' political leanings. ##### Figure #1: General timeline of the reeducation program `28:T2932,md`## The Program In 1943, the OPMG2 launched an official re-education project headed under the newly established Special Projects Division (SPD).3 Led by American scholas, the program initially started as a covert effort, taking place unbeknownst to the POW population. When Germany surrendered, re-education became public and operated openly. The program was made up of different branches and employed different means of re-education. The SPD was led by Major Edward Davison. Davison was born and raised in Scotland and later moved to the US, where he taught at several academic institutions and wrote poetry. He joined the US army in 1943. Similarly to other officers serving in the SPD, Davison held humanistic beliefs. Under his directorship, the SPD embarked on a re-education effort whose fundamental philosophy was the belief that the POWs could be persuaded to relinquish support for Nazi Germany through intellectual persuasion. Since Davison lacked any knowledge of the German language and culture, he recruited Walter Schoenstedt, a German novelist who had emigrated to the US in 1933, to serve as his second in command. Schoenstedt was once a member of the Communist party in Germany and a fervent anti-Nazi. He was one of the few on the SPD leadership who had a direct and intimate knowledge of the German language and culture. The OPMG envisioned the process of re-education as being carried out through persuasion rather than coercion. The objective of the program was summarized by the OPMG as follows: _"The prisoner would be given facts, objectively presented but so selected and assembled as to correct misinformation and prejudices surviving Nazi conditioning. The facts, rather than being forced upon them, would be made available through such media as literature, motion pictures, newspapers, music, art and educational courses... and upon repatriation to Germany might form the nucleus of a new German ideology which will reject militarism and totalitarian controls and will advocate a democratic system of government."__4_ The responsibility of carrying out the re-education effort in the POW camps was assigned to the Assistant Executive Officers, or AEO's. Each POW camp was assigned an AEO. Given the program's intellectual character, AEO's were expected to meet a high personal standard. A college degree was mandatory as well as good judgment in selecting cooperative prisoners that provided information as to the influence of re-education, were required. Early in the program, the AEO's were required to have a command of the German language, though that requirement with eschewed given that the army's intelligence services had already siphoned the ranks of available German speakers. Instead, AEO's relied on interpreter POWs who were fluent in both English and German. Fear of retaliatory re-education against US troops and doubts whether the program conforms to the Geneva convention ensured that its existence would be kept secret.5 Since its inception, the SPD relied on the German prisoner population to pursue its objectives. Aside from cooperative prisoners in the general camp population, the SPD selected a group of highly literate and educated prisoners whom they took out of the general and housed them in a separate camp. The 'Idea Factory', a secret military camp housing both Americans and cooperative German POWs, was established on October 31, 1944. Originally located in Van Etten, New York, the camp was moved in early 1945 to Fort Phillip Kearney, Rhode Island. The Idea Factory became the epicenter of the SPD's lofty ambitions to re-educate the 380,000 German prisoners interned on US soil. The German Idea Factory staff was carefully selected from the POW population and was made up of about 85 individuals, including professors, artists and writers - all devout anti-Nazis.6 SPD administrators and German 'Idea Factory' staff had a common background as intellectuals and writers. Considering the weakness of literary and intellectual movements in galvanizing anti-Nazi sentiment prior to 1933, a re-education effort delineated by intellectual discourse was an unconventional choice. Re-education took multiple forms. The SPD was tasked with controlling the access prisoners had to reading material and ensured that those materials present the United States and Democracy in general in a positive light. A film branch was responsible for censoring inappropriate films as well as providing educational synopses for them. A more direct approach of re-education was done through the German-language newspaper, Der Ruf. Schoenstedt, Davison's second in command, was charged with overseeing its publication, though the actual writing and editing staff was done by German Idea Factory workers. The last stage of re-education, which began after the program became public, was a series of crash courses in Democracy given to potential German administrators and leaders in the American zone of occupation. Over twenty thousand prisoners, out of a population of around 378,000, participated in these courses. ### Der Ruf The main activity undertaken by the Idea Factory personnel was the writing and publication of 'Der Ruf' (The Call), a German-language POW magazine. The writers and editors of Der Ruf working in the Idea Factory, though still prisoners, were subject to unusually lenient conditions. All inmates in the Factory discarded their military ranks and Inmates' daily life was managed through a "committee of governors" elected from and by the ranks of the inmates.7 The kinds of inmates who housed the Idea Factory mirrored the intellectual nature of Davison and his own staff. Der Ruf reported on a variety of subjects such as Democracy, literature, theater as well as general news from the world and Germany. Two specific POWs capture the spirit of Der Ruf writers and editors - Alfred Andersch and Hans Werner Richter. Both were active communists prior to 1933. Andersch had spent time in the Dachau concentration camp due to his political beliefs. Neither ascribed blindly to American capitalism. As individuals with a strong communist leaning, they had criticized capitalism, both before, during and after their captivity. While both men worked at the Idea Factory in service of American interests, the relationship between captor and captive was not harmonious. The SPD's chief, Davison, at times resented the newspaper's intellectual tone and its treatment of the issue of German 'collective guilt'. On the other side of the equation, Idea Factory workers became resentful of their delayed repatriation and made appeals to army officials for their early release. The tension between Richter and Andersch and other Idea Factory writers and their American overseers illustrates the challenge of using captive labor, no matter how well treated, in service of their captors. The first issue of Der Ruf was released on March 17, 1945. It included an article on the Yalta Agreement, news snippets from Germany and two pages on American culture and economy. The eighth page included excerpts from other camp newspapers.8 The first issue was not well received by Davison, the head of the SPD. In a letter to Schoenstedt9, he wrote that the first issue was "ponderous, over-worded and even a little stilted". Davison was worried that the paper may not attract a broad readership: "we shouldn't let Der Ruf be too literary or philosophic" What was the editorial line of Der Ruf? The publication's name, "The Call", hints at the idealistic nature of the paper. Aside from informative pieces, Der Ruf editorials often called on German POWs to help in the rebuilding of Germany once they are repatriated. In issue #3 (April 15, 1945), the author speculated that rebuilding Germany would require European economic unity: "[T]oday the organizational barriers to European economic unity have been lifted. Only in this manner can Europe's decimated and exhausted productive capacity be utilized without danger, friction, unproductivity, or conflict. ... The united economy will be a vital part of Europe's destiny."10 According to Ron Robin11, the author of a 1995 monograph on the re-education program, the language of Der Ruf editorials was dense and confusing, which perhaps made the paper less accessible to the laymen readership which constituted the majority of POWs. A contemporary witness, a former AEO named John Fahey who served in Camp White, Oregon, wrote on Der Ruf: _"The general opinion among prisoners at Camp White was that Der Ruf was an example of 'not very skilled' propaganda... Several of the pows inquired about what we Americans thought of Der Ruf giving their own view that it 'aimed too high intellectually.' (According to reports from other camps, that was a general opinion.) My own reaction, as I passed it on to the provost marshal general's office, was that "the magazine's obvious sponsorship by the United States government has provided some astute prisoners ... with an insight into the [re-education] program ... not only its purpose, which they can deduce from Der Ruf's tone but its scope, which is clearly national."__12_ Fahey's testimony provides a unique view of the program. Clearly, even as a member of the SPD, he did not consider Der Ruf an important piece of the re-education effort. Fahey mentions a local camp paper published by POWs, called Heimat. Heimat, similarly to Der Ruf, operated in relative freedom from American control. While not being an ostensible pro-American propaganda paper, Fahey felt that providing non-Nazis to express their political thoughts helped moderate and even weaken Nazi influence in the camp. It is perhaps telling that in a journalistic story for the Oregonian, it is _Heimat,_ rather than _Der Ruf,_ that is described as making an impact on the minds of inmates: _"Heimat has been one of the greatest forces in getting the prisoners of war to face reality. Heimat's editor appears a convincing example of the anti-Nazi trend of thought forward. His editorials undoubtedly have a marked effect on the readers of Heimat. At first a majority refused to read the paper because they thought it gave them only American propaganda. Now it is said to be read universally."__13_ ##### Figure #2: Circulation figures for Der Ruf from the beginning of the magazine to its final publication` 29:T2675,md`### Democracy schools and other aspects of re-education Other than Der Ruf, the SPD had a variety of other tools under their belt to pursue re-education. In the first phase of re-education, prior to V-E day, AEO's and their SPD commanders dealt primarily with monitoring and choosing relevant reading materials for POWs. These materials - books and magazines, were available to POWs in camp libraries. The SPD did not itself procure books and magazines. This task was left to camp administrators and outside. Additionally, the SPD had a film branch tasked with choosing films that would accentuate American technical and ideological superiority. Since these two aspects of the re-education program have left only a minor mark in the testimonies of POW's and appear to have made a small impact, I do not intend to delve deeply into them. After Germany surrendered and the re-education program was declassified, a new requirement emerged - training and educating POW's to participate in the administration of the American occupation and later on, to fill leadership roles in a new Democratic Germany. To facilitate this, the SPD established schools which were modeled after the American college. The SPD established four 'Special Projects Schools'. Three schools, in Fort Kearney, Fort Getty and Fort Wetherill held courses that lasted eight weeks. Students attended class five days a week. Students at Kearney and Getty were trained for administrative jobs whereas the students at Wetherill were trained for police work. The vast majority of students, however, attended Democracy school in Fort Eustis. The program at Eustis was made up six-day crash courses on Democracy. About 23,142 prisoners graduated from Eustis, whereas the other schools had a graduate population of about a thousand inmates. Contrary to Der Ruf and the book and film efforts, the re-education courses targeted only POWs who had no significant Nazi affiliation. The college-like environment emphasized discussion, openness and critical thinking. The re-educators hoped that their students would adopt these tools and forge their own path for Germany Democracy. Henry W. Ehrmann, a professor who taught German history at the Democracy schools and a leading figure of the program, emphasized that he was not 'Americanizing' his students, but rather nurturing in them a pattern of independent thinking that they will use to rebuild a Democratic Germany: _"Whatever may be contributed from the outside in the way of supervision and suggestions, the shaping and changing of national character and institutions can be effected permanently only by the Germans themselves."__14_ Discussions on German history and current events were common. Ehrmann reports15 that both "Hitler's children" and those who were only enough to have grown during the Weimar Republic, lacked the skills to carry out a thoughtful, orderly discussion. Once the reservedness caused by hierarchical differences between students dissolved, discussions tended to turn into anarchy. As time went by, however, Ehrmann's students improved their ability to accept opposing opinions and carry out discussions on controversial topics. The students' discovery of these new skills further encouraged them. Another task the instructors faced was correcting typical historical misperceptions that the students had acquired under Nazi rule. For example, entry polls to the schools revealed that many inmates (30 percent)16 held the belief that Germany's defeat in the war was the result of internal treachery. Weeding out this new "stab in the back" myth, prevalent even amongst non-Nazis, was a prerequisite to facilitate the success of a more complete education in Democracy. According to Ehrman, a cornerstone in dispelling notions of personal and collective victimhood required instilling the inmates with a sense of personal responsibility towards Germany, both for its past and its future. The teaching staff took care so to not personally condemn the POWs for the sins of Hitler and the Nazi apparatus. Applying collective guilt, the instructors believed, would have made the inmates defensive and less likely to assume responsibility for Germany's political future. This approach was apparently effective. By combining positive aspects of German culture and history and contrasting them with the horrors of the Nazi government, tutors disarmed the students' defensive instincts. What Ehrmann and other instructors did, was to provide an alternative vision of Germany, one that celebrated its culture and humane values rather than its Nazi legacy. In other words, Democracy schools allowed their students to imagine a Germany that exists and thrives without Nazism, yet still retains a legacy rooted in history. Feelings of dejection and hopelessness for the future were circumvented through the depiction of a Germany that has a rich humanistic and Democratic legacy and by undoing of the myth that Democracy is alien to Germany. A majority of students indicated their overall encouragement after undergoing the re-education programs.17 American studies were a central subject taught at Eustis. According to Ehrmann, who was born and raised in Germany, these teaching were used as a platform to develop in the students a 'Democratic personality', rather than propagandize the United States. The issue of race in America, as well as other contentious aspects of American society, were ignored. Ehrman praised the re-education program in which he participated: _Without hesitation the instructors at the schools concentrated on untiring efforts to develop the moral and intellectual skills of these men. They did so out of the conviction that here the reorientation program offered the greatest, though at times almost frightening, opportunities.__18_ Whether or not Ehrman's sentimental approval of the program was shared by his students is explored in a separate section. ### Camp Life The success of re-education rested not only with the SPD. Davison could produce anti-Nazi materials, but their reception depended on the situation in the POW camps scattered across the US. As in the United Kingdom, officers and enlisted men were detained in separate living quarters, though enlisted men still had access to their officers. In terms of material comfort, POW camps provided access to generous portions of food, which at later stages of the war, exceeded the rations given in Germany to soldiers and citizens.19 Physical accommodations were kept at a high standard as well. In large camps, for instance, prisoners were housed in spacious barracks and had access to separate facilities for dining, medical and administrative purposes. Kramer indicates that many communities residing near POW camps began to grudgingly refer to them as "The Fritz Ritz". 20 The Geneva Conventions mandated that captured soldiers be paid rates comparable to their wartime salary, a requirement which the US army adhered to. In exchange for pay, enlisted POWs carried out various duties in the camp or outside of it. Prisoners were contracted out to private businesses, often in agriculture and manufacturing. Instead of hard currency, prisoners received portions of their salary in coupons which could be redeemed at camp canteens. Canteens merchandise ranged from candy bars, shaving cream, smoking pipes. Beers were often sold at canteens, though occasionally their sale would be limited due to instances of excessive drunkenness.21 German prisoners had ample opportunity to participate in cultural and recreational activities. Most camps had a band, several kinds of available sporting activities and even a theatrical group. Aside from SPD re-education courses, many camps allowed POW to enroll to accredited college courses that were recognized by German universities. With the Swiss serving as intermediaries, US authorities had come to an arrangement with the Nazi government allowing German POW's to pursue and attain high school as well as teaching diplomas.22 Available courses offered a diverse curriculum, including English, French, Hebrew, Persian, world history, engineering, biology and many more. While American colleges offered courses through correspondence, much of the frontal teaching was done by qualified German prisoners. Radio, mail, newspapers, magazines and films allowed prisoners to maintain contact with the outer world. In summary, a typical German POW carried a comfortable living in the camps, with access to diverse forms of entertainment, education and even diversionary labor (nearly all POWs found their work edifying, or at the very least, non-strenuous). Neither OPMG nor SPD officials planned on carrying out re-education through total control of the various forms of creative expression, culture and education prisoners had available to them. Instead, SPD re-education was done in the existing framework described above. SPD officials, using the AEO's, worked together with camp officials, but their coordination never led to a monolithic policy. In other words, the SPD could only control a small part of camp life. Therefore, 're-education', or rather the ideological core the SPD was trying to instill in the inmates, was constantly competing with the organic experiences camp life tends to create.23 ## Assessing the impact of re-education I have examined two branches of the SPD's re-education program - the Der Ruf newspaper, and the Democracy schools. The impact of these branches requires a separate investigation. ##### Figure #3: Different aspects of German-US interaction: Red bubbles indicate areas that were directly influenced by SPD reeduccation, and grey bubbles indicate areas in which the SPD had no or lesser influence ` 2a:T652b,md`### Der Ruf Assessing the impact of Der Ruf is difficult. Several types of sources exist that may aid in the assessment: post-repatriation polls, personal accounts of German POWs and circulation figures for Der Ruf. Based on a non-exhaustive review of German POW testimonies found in Lewis H. Carlson's _We Were Each Other's Prisoners,_ a fairly consistent pattern emerges. Many former German prisoners, interviewed by Carlson, report they've had a change of heart regarding the USA, not as a result of formal re-education efforts, but rather as a result of fraternizing with American farmers and guards. For the prisoners, these spontaneous interactions tended to reveal the American mode of thought and behavior better than any magazine or newspaper. The soldier Elmer Beck, reports that fraternization had dramatically changed his outlook on both American and German societies. He had worked on a farm outside his camp, and reported on the interaction with his overseers: _"Fraternization with outside civilians was strictly forbidden, but this allowed me to see something of normal American life, and I liked what I saw... I could see that the American society was much more open [compared to the German society, Y.R.], and I like that."__24_ The contrast of the above account with Elmer's treatment of Der Ruf is stark. In a rare reference to the elitist newspaper, Beck says: _"Toward the end, the Americans also wanted us to think a certain way... But no one likes to be propagandized. The Americans should have realized they would have gained more by introducing us to normal, everyday life than by telling us how much better things were in the U.S. than in Germany. That's why I disliked Der Ruf. It was a very disturbing paper for many of us. I know it was written by Germans, but it was filled with lots of propaganda."__25_ From the testimony, it becomes clear that Beck treated Der Ruf as American propaganda, even though its writers had a broad editorial freedom that often led to clashes with their American captors. Beck's characterization of the paper as "propaganda", illustrates how prisoners not only saw through the SPD's effort to disguise Der Ruf as a newspaper with no American affiliation but also how prisoners, befuddled by the publication's complicated writing, did not bother reading it. But despite such criticism, Beck also remarks that Der Ruf was also their primary source of information for of outside events, a fact which lent the newspaper significant importance. In the early phases of Der Ruf, the SPD attempted to discern POW reaction to it. Based on the SPD's own research, reaction to the newspaper was mixed. Right after the release of the first issue, inmates from camp McCain, Mississippi reacted with "distrust in the paper". A second report from camp McCain, dated March 28, indicated that POW company leaders purchased all copies of Der Ruf and burned them. 26 Circulation numbers suggest that demand for the newspaper was high and rose consistently with each subsequent issue. For the second issue, some camps only requested 50 or fewer additional copies, but others, including Fort Devens, Massachusetts (from 300 to 1,000), Camp Hearne, Texas (from 150 to 800), and Camp Perry, Ohio27 (from 110 to 320). Nazi-dominated camps such as Camp McCain and Ellis, did not request additional copies, indicating that the increase in circulation in other camps stems from actual consumer demand. By July 1945, circulation had increased by 24,093 copies compared to the first issue. SPD reports indicate that initial mistrust towards the newspaper has been "removed".28 Readers' comment sent to the newspaper show that prisoners particularly appreciated the newspaper providing information about events in Germany and Europe. This kind of positive assessment, which focuses more on the informational, rather than the ideological aspects of Der Ruf, is consistent with the testimony of Beck. Additional reader responses reveal a broad gamut of reactions. In the May 1945 SPD response report, Pvt. Herbert Diedler claimed that he: _"Read Der Ruf from the first issue with satisfaction and great sympathy... I welcome in Der Ruf is the objective, reasonable... [and] the frank description of the present situation, the wise preparation for the things which the physical and spiritual reconstruction of our homeland will demand of us and last, not least, the clearness and beauty of the German language, which characterizes most articles."__29_ While an isolated testimony from a POW whose intellectual background is unknown, Pvt. Diedler appreciated in Der Ruf particularly the attributes that Davison specifically disliked, namely the high German and the focus on German reconstruction which produced a vague ideological messaging. Another reader, Capt. Ernst Harnau, shared a similar positive critique of the newspaper, emphasizing the importance of the call to rebuild Germany based on "cooperation with all nations": _"I read [Der Ruf] since the publication started and welcome its ideas—as many other fellow-prisoners do. . . . Der Ruf intercedes in favor of our obligation and aim: The reconstruction of a really free Germany, willing to co-operate peacefully with all nations. Therefore Der Ruf is on the right track, since it is the medium of speech of all reasonable, intelligent, and decent fellow-prisoners in the camps of America. It is the only newspaper of that size to reach everybody beyond the sphere of individual camps."__30_ I could not find any testimonies that complain against the paper's intellectual tone. Readers who responded negatively to the newspaper objected to its pro-American, pro-democracy ideology, not its style. For example, Sgt. Gustav von der Heyde took offense at a caption of a photo depicting the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor that said: "Hitler also declared war on the United States". In his response to the newspaper, Sgt. Heyde wrote: _"I wonder if you can't lie any better. What about lend-lease, the troop contingent of the U.S.A. on the British Isles and finally the commencement of hostilities by America. Nothing but atrocious distortion of facts, continuous lies, scrawling of a gang of mud-slingers, that is my judgement [sic] of the newspaper of German prisoners of war in the U.S.A"__31_ As 1945 progressed, fewer negative responses could be found in official SPD reports. Since such reports were curated by the SPD, who had an obvious interest in presenting their project in the most successful light possible, the absence of negative remarks in SPD reports should not be interpreted as acceptance of Der Ruf by the POW population. Judging by the evidence above, I surmise that Der Ruf's underwhelming response was a result of it being treated as an organ of propaganda of the US army, rather than an authentic publication written by and for Germans. In this regard, Der Ruf stands in contrast to Heimat and other camp papers.32 These newspapers were not blemished by the appearance of collaboration with the enemy. I believe that Der Ruf's stain of collusion with the Americans, rather than its overly-intellectual tone, was the main cause of its lack of influence. ### Democracy schools Similarly to Der Ruf, the success of Democracy schools is a controversial issue. Contemporary studies and testimonies released by those who were involved in the program portray a positive picture of it33. Earlier scholarship on the subject34, written mostly in the 1970's, perceives them as a successful enterprise as well. More recent scholarship, however, provides a starkly negative view of the program.35 As previously stated, Democracy school were created for the purpose of providing both intellectual and practical training for non-Nazi inmates who were expected to participate in the new occupation administration. This particular goal was not achieved. Army administration in Germany ignored the reeducated returnees. General Clay, the American officer entrusted with the administration of Germany's American occupation zone, refused to grant special treatment to the graduates of the Democracy schools.36 While the SPD took steps to assist repatriated prisoners, the return home was mostly a negative experience. The harsh economic conditions in Germany meant returnees were focused on survival rather than the rebuilding of Democracy. A variety of studies and polls were conducted shortly after repatriation, and their results did not clearly indicate that the project was successful from the perspective of US authorities. In April 1947, the War Department sent William G. Moulton, an English teacher at the Democracy schools, to visit and interview 106 former reeducated POWs. His mission was _"to study the present activities of German nationals who were trained in democracy while POWs in [the] US."__37_Most of his interviewees were critical of the American occupation and felt dispirited. The conclusion of the Moulton study, however, was concerned more with the attitudes of the graduates towards the American occupation than their personal political beliefs. Other negative appraisals of the project are indicated by studies conducted by the US military shortly before shipping off graduates to either Germany or interim labor camps in France. Both polls indicate that many POWs, including those who have graduated from the Democracy schools, have not totally shed their allegiance to Nazi ideas and presuppositions. In one study, 23.5 percent of the inmate population was considered "unsafe".38 This indicates that either the screening process or the re-education process was not entirely effective. Additionally, there was concern that the program was too narrow in scope, and that an effective re-education of the prisoner population would require re-educating all German POWs. The evidence provided by these early studies is somewhat anecdotal and limited to the American perspective. A fuller assessment of the schools must take a longer-term view on the fate of the graduates, their integration into Germany society, their proclivities towards the program, and their overall participation in the rebuilding of West German Democracy. A partial treatment to that effect was given in a 2013 article39 by Christina Morina. Morina examined letter correspondence between Ehrmann and his former students. Contrary to many of the studies conducted on German soil, which tended to equate contentedness with the occupation with a successful re-education, Ehrmann's personal letters reveal a deeper aspect of the significance of the re-education experience in the Democracy schools. Morina reveals that returnees wholeheartedly embraced democratic ideals and that they attributed their attitude to their experience in the Democracy schools. Granted, these prisoners were selected based on their non-Nazi affiliance, making Ehrmann's students exceptional rather than typical. The importance of a given social group, however, is not necessarily tied to its quantitative features, but rather to qualitative ones. In other words, Democracy school graduates may have been influential regardless of their minor proportion in the overall population. Many graduates wrote to Ehrmann about their putting to use the new skills of debate and discussion they have acquired under Ehrmann's tutelage. One such student is Friedrich Boecker, who wrote in October 1946 to Ehrmann about his commitment to the development of a new enlightened Germany: _"Wherever I can find a possibility to discuss political, economic and educational problems, I do it. In America I have learned about the high value of discussion. You know that the Germans are not good in discussing problems. Most of them have still to learn this art ... I am very thankful that I had the possibility to lead so many discussions at Forts Getty and Eustis"__40_ As suggested by the American studies and supported by the letters, many returnees experienced disillusionment upon their return to Germany. However, two-thirds of the correspondents (30 out of the examined 45), showed great optimism in the face of adversity and all correspondents expressed a desire to utilize the knowledge they have acquired for the rebuilding of Germany. According to many returnees, this desire was the direct result of Ehrmann's teaching. One returnee wrote: "I still think of the admonition you gave me in Getty, not to neglect the political sector"41. Another returnee promised Ehrmann that he was working under the 'spirit of Getty': _"I am still convinced that you and all the other teachers, who have proven to be genuine cosmopolitans and real humanists, will continue struggling for the solutions of Germany's most urgent problems, and I promise never to tire in my work for a better and more peaceful world despite all the discouraging external conditions."__42_ The impending cold war may have dampened the idealism of some of the returnees. Andersch, of Der Ruf and also a graduate of Democracy school, lamented in an article that the struggle between the US and the Soviet-Union diminishes the likelihood of German unity.43 Out of the examined 45 correspondents, all of them invested themselves in some form of political activity, whether as a party member, editor of a newspaper or journal, lecturer on political issues or as a journalist. Some joined the 'Democratic Society', founded by former graduates. Its purpose was the creation of a platform for political education and discussion.44 Overall, it seems that the American authorities hoped the Democracy schools would create a core of tightly integrated administrators serving the US occupation. This did not occur. The reluctance of the American occupation administration to recruit Democracy school graduates en-masse, combined with the harsh economic realities in Germany, did not win the hearts of the returnees. Despite this, according to Morina's research and even some results from the studies conducted after the war45, the returnees showed a high degree of political activism. The concrete impact of their activism is beyond the scope of this essay, yet the fact that many returnees became active citizens, is a strong indication of the quality and effectiveness of Democracy schools. ## Conclusions I have examined the two main aspects of the Special Projects Division's re-education program - the publication of Der Ruf and the Democracy schools. These branches represent different strategies to the question of re-education. The first, the publication of Der Ruf, was designed to impact the entire prison population. The physical and intellectual detachment of its writers, coupled with the paper's suspicious status as a propaganda newspaper, ensured its relegation to a minor role in the reshaping of inmates' minds. Local camp newspapers, on the other hand, appear to have achieved a higher measure of popularity, particularly because they were not perceived as organs of the American military. The other aspect of re-education, the so-called Democracy schools, represents an altogether different approach. Instead of concealing the objectives of the program, SPD administrators were quite overt about their goals. The leaders of this program, Ehrmann, Howard Mumford Jones46 and others, both according to their own testimony and the testimonies of their students, regarded education not only as a mean of conveying facts and knowledge but also as a medium through which Democratic principles were practiced and expressed. By encouraging discussion, diminishing class differences between students and teachers, the Democracy schools were able to affect a genuine internal shift in their students. The impact of the re-education program cannot be accurately measured. Due to the program's relatively small scale, its effects cannot be assessed on a national scale. Nor can we infer that extending the Democracy schools to include all POWs would have scaled well. We should bear in mind that the students participating in the Democracy schools were carefully selected from a large pool of inmates, and did not represent the 'typical' POW. From an individual perspective, however, the experiences inmates had in the Democracy schools, seem to have had a lasting impact. Further research may explore similar forms of voluntary education-in-captivity. Additionally, examining essays and exams written by students during their time in the schools, if such documents exist, will provide additional insight as to how students gradually became to believe in Democracy and thereby rejecting totalitarian dogmas. When examining the SPD's and other re-education programs, one must take into account the unique factors that may have assisted or impeded the programs' success. How did military cohesion affect the effectiveness of re-education? For example, during the initial publication of Der Ruf, the SPD received reports that Nazi inmates were preventing access to the paper, either through intimidation or through the burning of Der Ruf copies. The situation improved only when Nazi elements were segregated from the general population. More subtle influences may be related to the unit structure. NCO's retained command authority on the enlisted men, which perhaps made unfettered discussion in the context of a given unit less likely to occur. Further examination of POW memoirs is required to understand to what extent did prisoners discuss ideological issues between themselves. A consistent and repeated finding of my research is that re-education is at its most effective when the inmate does not feel coerced to engage in the program or accept its messaging. In that respect, the US military's decision to present re-education as a precondition to repatriation negatively affected the sincerity of its inmates and their willingness to engage meaningfully with the curriculum. While this was an impediment to the program, it did not prove to be a terminal flaw. Little attention has been given to the actual influence of re-education programs to the development of both East and West Germany. Since other allied countries had their own re-education programs, one should examine their accumulated impact as a whole. Additionally, one must take into account the efforts of the victorious powers to denazify occupied Germany. The effects of denazification complement and perhaps overwrite the impact of the various re-education programs. Another major caveat to further research is the abundance of significant events in German history immediately following World War II. These events, i.e.., the reconstruction of Germany, the beginning of the cold war and the rivalry between West Germany and East Germany, are likely to have played a much larger role in the shaping of Germans' political beliefs than the re-education program. ## Bibliography [Carlson, Lewis H.](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/Z5Fk)[_We Were Each Other's Prisoners: An Oral History of World War II American and German Prisoners of War_](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/Z5Fk)[. Basic Books, 1997.](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/Z5Fk) [Gansberg, Judith M.](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/TfcS)[_Stalag, USA: The Remarkable Story of German POWs in America_](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/TfcS)[. Crowell, 1977.](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/TfcS) [Horton, Aaron D.](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/oCPS)[_German POWs, Der Ruf, and the Genesis of Group 47: The Political Journey of Alfred Andersch and Hans Werner Richter_](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/oCPS)[. Rowman & Littlefield, 2013.](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/oCPS) [Krammer, Arnold.](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/zN1G)[_Nazi Prisoners of War in America_](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/zN1G)[. Scarborough House Publishers, 1996.](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/zN1G) [Morina, Christina. "'An Experiment in Political Education': Henry W. Ehrmann, German POWs in US Reeducation Programs, and the Democratisation of Germany after the Second World War."](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/BCQS)[_War & Society_](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/BCQS)[, vol. 27, no. 1, Taylor & Francis, 2008, pp. 79–103.](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/BCQS) [Reiss, Matthias. "The Nucleus of a New German Ideology? The Re-Education of German Prisoners of War in the United States During World War II."](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/Y893)[_Prisoners of War, Prisoners of Peace: Captivity, Homecoming and Memory in World War II. Vol. Oxford. New York: Berg_](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/Y893)[, 2005.](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/Y893) [Robin, Ron Theodore.](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/2YD8)[_The Barbed-Wire College: Reeducating German POWs in the United States During World War II_](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/2YD8)[. Princeton University Press, 1995.](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/2YD8) [Smith, Arthur L., Jr.](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/iOxT)[_The War for the German Mind: Re-Educating Hitler's Soldiers_](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/iOxT)[. Berghahn Books, 1996.](http://paperpile.com/b/58gf0K/iOxT) 1 # Overmans, Rüdiger. Soldaten hinter Stacheldraht: deutsche Kriegsgefangene des Zweiten Weltkriegs. 2002, pp. 246 2 # The OPMG - Office of the Provost Marshal General, oversaw enemy war prisoner matters 3 # Robin, Ron Theodore. The Barbed-Wire College: Reeducating German POWs in the United States During World War II. Princeton University Press, 1995, pp 8-10 4 # Krammer, Arnold. Nazi Prisoners of War in America. Scarborough House Publishers, 1996, pp.197 5 # Ibid, pp.200 6 # Ibid 7 # Robin, pp.79 8 # Horton, Aaron D. German POWs, Der Ruf, and the Genesis of Group 47: The Political Journey of Alfred Andersch and Hans Werner Richter. Rowman & Littlefield, 2013, [(Horton 57)](https://paperpile.com/c/58gf0K/oCPS/?locator=57) 9 # Ibid 10 # Ibid, pp. 58 11 # [Robin, pp.79](https://paperpile.com/c/58gf0K/2YD8/?locator=79) 12 # Reminiscence: John Fahey on 'Reeducating' German Prisoners during World War II." Oregon Historical Quarterly, vol. 93, no. 4, 1992, pp. 384 13 # Ibid 14 # Ehrmann, Henry W. "An Experiment in Political Education: The Prisoner-of-War Schools in the United States." Social Research, vol. 14, no. 3, 1947, pp. 305. 15 # Ibid, pp. 310 16 # Ibid, pp. 307 17 # Ibid. pp.315 18 # Ibid, pp.320 19 # Horton, pp.6 20 # [Krammer, pp.28](https://paperpile.com/c/58gf0K/zN1G/?locator=28) 21 # [Gansberg, pp.2](https://paperpile.com/c/58gf0K/TfcS/?locator=2) 22 # Gansberg, pp.24 23 # Numerous examples illustrate this point: Political struggles between non-Nazis and ardent Nazis in the camps, unauthorized films that were screened despite the SPD's objections, camp newspapers that espoused anti-American messaging, etc' 24 # Carlson, Lewis H. We Were Each Other's Prisoners: An Oral History of World War II American and German Prisoners of War. Basic Books, 1997, pp.114 25 # Ibid 26 # [Horton, pp.59](https://paperpile.com/c/58gf0K/oCPS/?locator=59) 27 # Ibid, pp.60 28 # Ibid 29 # Ibid, p.61 30 # Ibid, p.62 31 # Ibid, pp.63 32 # See for example, _The German POW Newspapers at Camp Algona, Iowa, 1944-1946, edited by Michael Luick-Thrams. Mason City: TRACES, 2003_. The book's editor maintains that POW's who regularly read the papers "underwent pivotal changes as individuals and as a group—thus fundamentally influencing postwar German values and institutions" 33 # Based on polls and studies carried out by the SPD as well as personal testimonies of SPD administrators 34 # See Kramer and Gansberg cited in this essay 35 # Ron Robin and Mathias Reiss in "The Nucleus of a New German Ideology? The Re-Education of German Prisoners of War in the United States During World War II." Prisoners of War, Prisoners of Peace: Captivity, Homecoming and Memory in World War II. Vol. Oxford. New York: Berg, 2005. 36 # [(Smith 146–148)](https://paperpile.com/c/58gf0K/iOxT/?locator=146-148) 37 # Hately-Broad, Barbara. Prisoners of War, Prisoners of Peace: Captivity, Homecoming and Memory in World War II. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005, pp.96 38 # [Reiss, p](https://paperpile.com/c/58gf0K/Y893/?locator=80)[p.](https://paperpile.com/c/58gf0K/Y893/?locator=80)[80](https://paperpile.com/c/58gf0K/Y893/?locator=80) 39 # Morina, Christina. "'An Experiment in Political Education': Henry W. Ehrmann, German POWs in US Reeducation Programs, and the Democratisation of Germany after the Second World War." War & Society, vol. 27, no. 1, Taylor & Francis, 2008, pp. 79–103. 40 # Ibid, pp.90 41 # Ibid, pp. 81 42 # Ibid 43 # Andersch, Alfred. "Getty Oder Die Umerziehung in Der Retorte." Frankfurter Hefte, vol. 2, no. 11, 1947, pp. 96. 44 # [Morina, pp.92](https://paperpile.com/c/58gf0K/BCQS/?locator=92) 45 # Cited from Morina: "Summarising a survey conducted by the War Department's Information Control Division among 150 returning graduates in Baden-Wurttemberg, Moulton reported that 87.3 percent of the interviewees claimed that they were actively or passively interested in politics; only 12.4 percent claimed little or no interest. In contrast, among the general population of Baden-Wurttemberg at that time more than half disclaimed interest in politics. 46 # Howard Mumford Jones was an American intellectual historian and professor of English at the University of Michigan and later at Harvard University. 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