PRISONERS OF WAR—COLD WAR ALLIES

415 Pages·2009·6.94 MB·English

PRISONERS OF WAR—COLD WAR ALLIES: THE ANGLO-AMERICAN
RELATIONSHIP WITH WEHRMACHT GENERALS
A Dissertation
by
DEREK RAY MALLETT
Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of
Texas A&M University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
August 2009
Major Subject: History
PRISONERS OF WAR—COLD WAR ALLIES: THE ANGLO-AMERICAN
RELATIONSHIP WITH WEHRMACHT GENERALS
A Dissertation
by
DEREK RAY MALLETT
Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of
Texas A&M University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Approved by:
Chair of Committee, Arnold P. Krammer
Committee Members, Joseph G. Dawson III
David Vaught
Adam R. Seipp
James Hannah
Head of Department, Walter Buenger
August 2009
Major Subject: History
iii
ABSTRACT
Prisoners of War—Cold War Allies: The Anglo-American Relationship with Wehrmacht
Generals. (August 2009)
Derek Ray Mallett, B.A., Culver-Stockton College;
M.A.; M.A., Truman State University
Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Arnold P. Krammer
This study examines the relationship between British and American officials and
the fifty-five Wehrmacht general officers who were held as prisoners of war in the
United States during World War II. Thisrelationship transformed as the war developed
and new national security concerns emerged in the immediate postwar era. As largely
evidenced by the records of the United States War Department and the British War
Office, the transformation of this relationship illustrates two important points.
First, despite some similarities, the respective priorities of British and American
authorities regarding their POW general officers differed significantly. British officials
consistently interrogated and eavesdropped on all of their senior officer prisoners,
primarily seeking operational and tactical intelligence to aid the Allied war effort. By
contrast, American officials initially had little regard for the value of Wehrmacht general
officer POWs.
Second, by the end of the war, admiration for the prowess of German officers
and the German military tradition in particular, coupled with anxiety about Soviet
iv
intentions and the strength of the Red Army, drove Washington into a collaborative
relationship with many of the Wehrmacht general officers in its custody. The evolution
of America’s national security concerns in the years immediately following the end of
World War II impacted its policy governing the treatment of high-ranking prisoners of
war.
v
DEDICATION
For Lula, Mildred, Matthew, Malcom, and most of all,for Susan.
vi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my committee chair, Dr. Krammer, and my committee
members, Dr. Dawson, Dr. Vaught, Dr. Seipp, and Prof. Hannah, for their guidance,
critical analysis, advice, suggestions and support throughout the completion of this
project.
Thanks also go to my students and colleagues and the department faculty and
staff for making my time at Texas A&M University an enjoyable and rewarding
experience. I also want to extend my gratitude to the History Department, the Melbern
G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, and the German Historical Institute for
their generous financial support.
Finally, thanks to my family and friends for their invaluable love and support.
My mother and father; Doug, Brenda and Drew; Jimi, Lenae, Alex, Wade, and Leah;
Chad; and the Feistel family all contributed a great deal to my work. And last, but most
certainly not least, to Adrienne, who meant more to this project than she knows.
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................. iii
DEDICATION.......................................................................................................... v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......................................................................................... vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS.......................................................................................... vii
CHAPTER
I INTRODUCTION................................................................................ 1
II FROM NORTH AFRICA TO NORTH LONDON............................. 32
III HITLER’S GENERALS IN AMERICA.............................................. 77
IV “GUESTS” OF THE BRITISH............................................................ 121
V THE CAROUSEL AT CAMP NO. 11................................................. 166
VI THE SEEDS OF THE AMERICAN TRANSFORMATION.............. 218
VII RE-EDUCATING HITLER’S GENERALS?...................................... 267
VIII COLD WAR ALLIES.......................................................................... 312
IX CONCLUSIONS.................................................................................. 364

REFERENCES.......................................................................................................... 394
APPENDIX A........................................................................................................... 402
APPENDIX B........................................................................................................... 404
APPENDIX C........................................................................................................... 405
APPENDIX D........................................................................................................... 406
VITA......................................................................................................................... 408
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Any discussion of German generals in the Second World War usually brings to
mind names like Erwin Rommel or Heinz Guderian. Undoubtedly, these men and
commanders like them played significant roles in the conduct of the war. Less attention
has been paid to the fates of hundreds of senior German officers taken prisoner by the
Allies, unless perhaps it is the fate of Wehrmacht officers in Soviet hands, those issuing
anti-Nazi propaganda from Russian prisoner of war camps being of particular note.
What seems to have been of least interest are the general officers captured by the
Western Allies and who spent anywhere from a few months to a few years in England or
North America. Indeed, little has been written about the fifty-five German general
officers who were held as prisoners of war in the United States during World War II.1
Yet, the collective story of these men’s experiences as prisoners of war reveals a great
deal about the different American and British perceptions of these men, and even more
about the different national security concerns of the America that first brought
Wehrmacht generals officers to the United States in the summer of 1943 and that which
repatriated the last of them in the summer of 1946.
__________
This dissertation follows the style of The Journal of Military History.
2
From the earliest stages of the war, providing for captured enemy soldiers
became an increasingly burdensome issue. When General Hans Jürgen von Arnim
surrendered the Axis’s North African forces in May 1943, 250,000 German and Italian
soldiers became the responsibility of the British and American governments. This
represented the first massive influx of POWs into Allied custody. These prisoners
included not only the usual German and Italian enlisted men and lower-ranking officers
but seventeen German general officers as well, including General von Arnim himself.
Washington and London engaged in a great deal of discussion regarding who should
take responsibility for these select prisoners. The two allies agreed that Britain’s
Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC), the agency charged with
interrogating important prisoners of war in England, “should act as advanced echelon”
for their collaborative effort. But the ultimate question of “ownership” of these
prisoners was immaterial as transfers of some of the generals to the United States could
be easily effected. As if to demonstrate this, CSDIC sent four generals and a colonel
awaiting promotion to the United States on the first of June, a little more than two weeks
after their capture in North Africa, with more to follow as the war progressed.2
The U.S. War Department most likely deferred to the British in dealing with the
general officer prisoners because London had far more experience handling prisoners of
war. During the First World War, the British learned a great deal about caring for war
prisoners that laid the groundwork for an efficient and well-managed treatment of POWs
during World War II. Britain graduated from temporarily housing the Kaiser’s men
aboard ships in the winter of 1914-1915 to the establishment of land-based camps both
3
in the British Isles and in France the following year. Prisoners of the British enjoyed a
bountiful food allotment of 4600 calories a day through most of the war, and even when
Britons themselves struggled with food shortages in the spring of 1917, POWs still
consumed 3000 calories a day.3
Other staples of World War II British POW policy developed during the trials
and errors of the Great War as well. The use of prisoner labor, while not utilized at all
until the spring of 1916, quickly expanded until almost one-third of the German
prisoners in Britain were working at various agriculture jobs by war’s end. And, not
unlike their successors in the Second World War, World War I German officer prisoners
found themselves in stately mansions like Donington Hall in Derby, enjoyed the use of
adjacent acres of landfor regular walks and were aided by enlisted prisoners who acted
as servants and orderlies.4
Historian Richard Speed contends that “British camps [during the Great War]
more nearly matched the prewar ideal of captivitythan did those of any other European
belligerent.” The British government heavily weighed the often vague requirements of
the Hague Conventions that governed the treatment of war prisoners during World War I
and sought to incorporate the spirit of this existing international law to provide humane
treatment for all POWs. At the onset of the Second World War, twenty years later, the
British simply had to reincarnate the system for accommodating prisoners of war that
they had worked out during World War I.5
The American experience with prisoners, like their experience with the First
World War in general, was unique. Where the other belligerents began dealing with