Robertson County Texas TXGenWeb

By Heino R. Erichsen
©2001 By Heino R. Erichsen

A copy of this book has been donated to the Genealogy Collection of the Carnegie Center Of Brazos Valley History, 111 North Main Street, Bryan, TX, 979.209.5630. Offered by Eakin Press.

This book's table of contents appears below; references to Camp Hearne occur on pages 12, 55 - 66, & 207; the book's description of this POW's experiences at Camp Hearne appears on pages 55 - 66 (excerpted below).

	Foreword by Dr. Alvin H. Franzmeier	v
	Preface	vii
	Acknowledgements	ix
Chapter I	The Reluctant Soldier 1. Safari Of The Afrika Korps - 3	3
Chapter II	Captivity Far From Home 2. Barbed Wire Sickness - 43 3. Ship On A Ship To Scotland - 84	43
Chapter III	A Lost Generation Of Hansels & Gretels 4. Childhood Under The Nazis - 107 5. Repatriation Amidst Devastation - 136	107
Chapter IV	A Leitmotif Of Love 6. Back To "Can-Do" America - 159 7. Wars & Threats Of Wars - 180 8. Orphan-Saving Expeditions - 198	159
Postscript		215
Maps		216
Bibliography		219
Glossary		221
Index		231

Passages Referencing Camp Hearne

On pages 55 through 66, under "Section 2: Barbed Wire Sickness" of "Chapter II: Captivity Far From Home," former Camp Hearne POW Heino R. Erichsen writes:

". . . Our long train ride clattered to a halt on a hot fall day in 1943 in the small town of Hearne, Texas."

"We clambered off the train and marched to a new compound of barracks. The Americans warmly welcomed us."

"'Howdy, y'all, come on in.'"

"They ushered us toward the bathrooms for hot showers before they served us an American meal of potato salad, bread, hot dogs, carrots, celery sticks, and ice cream in the mess hall. When we finished our food, the U.S. Army sergeant said, 'Now you're going to be processed.'"

"I quickly translated this for the guys around me, 'They want us to line up.'"

"I had been dreading this. Surely, if we were to be caught, this would be the time. But, the American procedure was far more casual than I could have imagined. By the time we got to the United States, the U.S. Army had processed over 100,000 Axis POWs, more than their prewar total of American soldiers. I didn't have any identification - would the Americans think I was trying to hide something? Should I tell them that British soldiers stole my German soldier's book? I decided that the truth might make matters worse."

"The Americans' idea of processing looked like the perfect place for a European criminal to create a new identity. I worried that they would not try to sort the Nazis out from the rest of us. Heated political arguments I overheard on the ship convinced me that the Nazis still felt powerful, not only in Germany but in our midst. I could only hope the Americans understood that German POWs had major political differences. As I moved down the line, I got ever more worried. I could tell that German-English interpreters were few and far between. The Americans didn't know whom they were dealing with. I saw that they left the German military branches intact; army, navy, and air force. They followed the rules of the Geneva Convention and segregated the officers from the enlisted men. Thus, rabid Nazis slipped by unnoticed until they maimed or killed fellow POWs whom they considered anti-Nazi or disloyal to the party."

"All I could do was wait and see what happened next. First, a typical army medical examination. Then, the assignment of a serial number for the rest of my 'internment.' When I told the Americans that I was German and a veteran of Rommel's Afrika Korps captured in North Africa, they gave me the designation of 81G-28500."

"My processors supplied me with a three-page 'Basic Personnel Record' to fill out with the same information as my stolen German one. Later on, I heard that copies of the numbers and forms were forwarded to the International Red Cross in Switzerland so that our families would be notified if anything worse happened to us."

"Next came fingerprint cards and photographs. An inventory of personal effects came after that. All I had left were pictures of my family, which were worth more to me than gold. The personal effects page stayed blank. The last step in the processing was the best. I was motioned to a supply window to pick up a new uniform."

"I could hardly believe that the full duffel bag tossed over the counter was just for me. Four pairs of trousers, two in cotton and two in wood; a belt; five short-sleeve and long-sleeve shirts in khaki, denim, and wool; and socks, underwear, gloves, a jacket, a coat, a raincoat, a camp, and new shoes."

"Albert was as happy as I was to get new clothes and couldn't wait to get to our barracks to put them on. A supply sergeant said in bad German, 'In your barracks, you will find white paint and a stencil of the letters 'P.W.' Paint the letters 'P.W.' on your uniforms, the backs of your shirts and jackets, the fronts of your trousers, and on the sides of your shirts and pants.'"

"'I wish I didn't have to put paint on them,' Albert said. 'Everything is so clean and fresh.'"

"'Think of it this way, Albert. These are way better than the ragged, torn-up uniforms we left behind on our last retreat.'"

"'Yah,' a guy behind me said, 'and the white paint makes a perfect target for the American guards, too.'"

"'Your Teutonic mind is overworked,'" I told him. The idiot, I thought, why would the Americans bring us all this way just to shoot us? In my naivete, I couldn't foresee how the interplay between ordinary POWs like us and the Nazis would clash with our young guards. They probably thought all of us were Nazis."

"We were allowed to keep our German uniforms to wear inside the camp on holidays according to the regulations of the Geneva Convention. As I washed mine and put it in the bottom of my duffel bag, I thought that I never wanted to see it again. Little did I know that I would put it on one more time for a show of respect at the a funeral in an American POW camp for two of my closest buddies."

"During the slack time in processing, I listened to my fellow prisoners tell their stories. The men ranged in age from nineteen to forty and had been trained in vocational schools and technical colleges. Skilled schoolteachers, stonemasons, electricians, and every other profession were represented. The Third Reich had abruptly terminated the civilian jobs in which they had taken pride. They knew they were lucky to have survived the Africa Campaign, yet they did not feel completely relieved. All of their physical and mental energy had been spent fighting. Now that they were idle, they were worried, homesick, anxious, depressed, and angry by turn. Many had left wives and children behind in Germany and despaired over their fate. The men suffered from 'barbed wire sickness.'"

"They felt powerless to help themselves, let alone their loved ones. Some of the older men tried to pull themselves together in order to comfort others. Feeling more homesick than ever before, we tired to find friends who came from the same home areas. Those who spoke the same dialect would know the same towns, heroes, folklore, and songs. I listened for the pronunciation familiar to my area and found my group. We would be able to stay in the same barracks, I learned in a lecture at the end of our 'processing' day."

"The camp commander said to us through an interpreter, 'We must all make the best of the situation.' He explained the rules, medical and dental services, and how to write and send letters home. He ended by explaining the punishment that would be enforced for escapes or intended escapes; isolation in the stockade for a length of time that would be determined by the type of offense. The he dismissed us to find our 'new homes.'"

"A man named Rolf came from Hamburg, a city close to my hometown. He was a quiet, older man who had been a teacher. We headed out toward our new barracks, located somewhere in the group of drab, black, tarpaper barracks."

"The camp was divided into three compounds. Each compound consisted of twenty barracks, as well as mess halls, a workshop, a canteen, an infirmary, an administrative building, and a recreation hall."

"A barrack was 20 feet by 100 feet and consisted of a concrete slab floor and structure of wood two-by-fours covered with tar-paper. The Army Corps of Engineers used this same plan in all 155 POW camps constructed."

"Rolf scanned our barrack. 'It's not the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, but since we're in a small town, we can't expect much. Even so, I think we should reserve rooms.' What a joker, that Rolf, New York's most famous hotel was owned by a German immigrant named Waldorf."

"'Do you think they have room service?' I couldn't resist."

"We soon found out that the locals who lived near such camps didn't think we had anything to joke about. They thought we had it too good. They called POW camps 'the Fritz Ritz.'"

"Inside each barrack were about a hundred cots in rows with hooks for hanging up our issued clothes and our duffel bags. A potbellied stove squatted in the center aisle."

"Rolf and I found two empty cots next to each other. After the few minutes it took to stow our gear, we flopped down on the cots. I stared up at the ceiling. Now, reality set it. Here I was - a teenage and a prisoner of war, complete with serial number. I thought about what my parents would be expecting of me in such circumstances. They were practical people who had lived through two wars. They never panicked. I, as well as my sister, had learned to cope with wartime conditions from following their examples, but neither parent could have predicted this outcome and prepared me for captivity. I could not shake off my feelings of foreboding. I sat up on the edge of my bunk and stared into space."

"'Let's check this place out.' This came from Rolf. He was really old, about thirty-five, but he always surprised me with his energy, which was catching."

"He went outside, I followed him. Walkways, gravel roads, and a wide, flat area led beyond our compound. We could see two other compounds, of about twenty barracks each. The compound held a washroom and an open field for inspections and sports. Beyond the fences, we could see the hospital, chapel, U.S. post office, and what looked like a warehouse."

"The camp looked like any other army camp, but it had one major difference - we were surrounded by a double set of barbed-wire fences ten feet high. We were observed from watchtowers with power searchlights. To keep even better tabs on us, a single barbed-wire fence isolated the individual compounds."

"We could see the young GI guards scowling at us and wondered how well trained they were for the job. We joked back and forth about the fact that they looked like kids . . . had never left their mommies. I saw fear in their eyes. When they looked at us they saw dangerous fighters - soldiers who would stop at nothing to kill or escape."

"In reality, the only thing Rolf and I were fighting was depression. We were prisoners of the enemy - in the enemy's country - a situation never covered in our army training manual. I resolved to keep my wits about me. I wanted to go home, to see my family again. I found it hard to understand or trust the fact that the Americans were so generous with food, clothing, and shelter. I asked Rolf what he thought about it."

"He pulled his pipe and tobacco out of his pocket. 'I think they're practicing 'The Golden Rule.' Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' He lit his pipe before he continued, 'You know there are American POWs in Germany?'"

"'You mean that the Americans hope that if they treat us well that Germany will hear about it and do the same?' I asked."

"'Yes, I'm sure of it.'"

"It boggled the mind. Obviously, they knew little about the SS - Hitler's private army, which controlled the entire war effort. I was certain that the godless SS didn't even know the 'Golden Rule' They made their own rules."

"That aside, we had other problems. The worst was the heat and the humidity of Hearne, Texas. As enlisted men, Rolf and I got strenuous job assignments. We had both grown up in the cool northern coastal climate of Germany and Denmark. I had never become accustomed to the hot days and cold nights of North Africa. It astonished me that this new POW camp in Texas was even hotter than North Africa. Hard labor in the Texas sun was grueling."

"But, if I didn't work, I didn't get paid. The stuff I could buy with the little bit of money I earned each day meant a lot to me: a coke, a candy bar, and cigarettes. I enjoyed them as I read news of the outside world - free of charge via The New York Times."

"My daily ordeal began at 5:30 - reveille. 6:00 - breakfast of bread and jam and a strange food called corn flakes. In Germany, only animals ate corn. 6:30 - shave, shower, clean the barracks. 7:30 - roll call and work assignments. Hard physical work under the broiling sun. Moving, raking, and weeding the enormous grounds. 12:00 - brown bag lunch out in the field. A sample menu was typically potato salad, roast pork, carrot sticks, and ice water. 1:00 - more hard work under the sun until quitting time at 4:30. A lot of men collapsed from heat stroke and heat exhaustion. Those of us still mobile at supper at 6:00. A typical menu was meat loaf, scrambled eggs, milk, and bread. Not exactly my mother's cooking, but at least I filled my stomach completely for the first time in years."

"The scourge of the heat and the strong sun created a cottage industry. Since the caps the U.S. Army supplied didn't keep the sun out of our eyes, some of the men in my labor group set up a little business of making broad-billed caps out of heavy cotton mattress covers. Their design was original and practical. Hard-working enlisted men placed orders and bought them with their own money. The caps gave us identity. I put mine on my head at a cocky angle. We were a hardy and resourceful bunch."

"I adjusted to the heat; often, I was one of the few men left standing at the end of the day. One day, I was rewarded with duty outside the camp fences, hacking weeds with a big, sharp, scythe along the main road. I slashed my way down to a crossroads when a car cam toward me and stopped. I looked back at my group spread out on both sides of the road some distance back. The guard had his back to me."

"From the interior of the car, an old mean leaned out the window and called to me. 'Howdy! Which way's the POW camp?'"

"'Right down the road behind me,' I said politely in my best English. 'And, you might like to know - I'm one of 'em.'"

"He gave me a startled look and sped off in a shower of gravel. I looked down at my clothes, with POW stenciled in white in every conspicuous spot, and had to chuckle. That was my only light moment at work on those hot, early days in camp."

"NCOs, noncommissioned officers from sergeant up to lieutenant, were treated differently from us enlisted men. NCOs were given the job of running the camp internally. They did not have to do any other work unless they wanted more pay than their weekly dole of three dollars. The NCOs put their minds to all kinds of projects. To this day, photographs can be found in military archives that testify to their ingenuity. At the camp in Hearne, the NCOs designed and erected a perfect scale model of one of King Ludwig's Bavarian castles, complete with stairs and a working moat. They mixed and poured tons of donated cement and converted everyday objects into doors, windows, and embellishments. Germans and Americans alike admired the workmanship of these inventive men, who used their skills to keep mentally alert and physically active."

"Not all activity in the camp was as benign or straightforward. The majority of Germans held captive were battle-hardened veterans of the Africa Campaign. Although Germany was taking heavy losses on the Eastern front and the air war over Germany had intensified, there was still a strong allegiance toward our homeland and our government, and a belief in victory."

"I had quietly discarded my belief in a German victory after seeing the overwhelming amount of war material owned by the Allies in North Africa. My observations on our train ride from New York to Texas, as we passed cities industrious by day and fully lit at night, added to my skepticism. No blackouts here. The Americans didn't worry about getting bombed. In Germany, they worried about it day and night."

"It had become common knowledge that the camp in Hearne was one of more than 150 such camps where POWs were sent. In addition, we heard that there were about 500 branch camps. If the abundance of supplies in a small camp like Hearne was typical, Germany was doomed. I often told myself I was probably in the best place I could be under the circumstances. I could be starved or tortured or fighting in God knew what conditions. Then I'd see the barbed-wire fences surrounding me, and I wasn't sure. How I hated that barbed wire."

"However, it never occurred to me to escape, although I spoke English. Where could I go? I certainly couldn't get back to Germany. Someone else tried to escape, though, probably from a sense of duty. A tough diehard, he wore civilian clothing over his German uniform. His military training did him in, however, because as he walked along a country road, he sang German marching songs to keep up his courage. A farm woman heard him and turned him in. Some people deserve their fate."

"According to reports, fewer than one percent of the 360,000 German POWs escaped. Most of the escapees were apprehended within twenty-four hours. Large camps experienced no more than three to four escapes during the war. Top military brass in Washington, D.C., were pleased to find that they were not faced with the chaos of hundreds of thousands of uncontrollable individuals, but rather with a tight obedient military unit in which each rank was responsible to its direct superior for its actions. This disciplinary tactic seemed sound to our captors, but it led to a disastrous strengthening of German militarism and Nazism inside the camps."

"News of the war was accessible to us in The New York Times, which published the communiques of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Japanese, the Germans, and the Soviets. Over time, I began to get closer to the truth. Exaggerations of successes and the downplaying of losses and setbacks occurred on both sides."

"I remembered my Uncle Hanni listening to the radio in Germany and telling me, 'There's an old saying, 'The first casualty of war is truth.''"

"On the days we didn't get the newspaper, Rolf and I speculated on the reason for its absence."

"'The Allies must have had a setback,' Rolf would say. Or, 'Our side must have won a battle for a change.'"

"The only worthwhile news came from my family, now that we were allowed to send letters through the International Red Cross. I wrote to my parents in Kiel on airmail forms, which were similar to the light paper airmail forms of today. My mother wrote back immediately since she knew that letters took months to be delivered. Both sides censored the mail. One side blacked out words, and the other side cut them out. All that was usually left were greetings and personal information. Mother's letters were always cheerful and supportive."

"I tried to respond in kind. I feared that she suffered more than I did. Kiel was under daily bombardment from the Allies, and I knew that she had to be hungry all the time because of wartime rationing. By contrast, I might have been worked like a slave, but I was fed, sheltered, and did not have to worry about any more bombs dropped on my head."

"By that fall, the Americans gave me the worst work detail imaginable. Field work. I was not cut out for it any more than I had been for soldiering. In Germany, I had been trained at a commercial college for a desk job in accounting and purchasing. Now, I was planting onions over vast acres with Mexican migrant laborers under the hot Texas sun. The most gardening I had ever done was to help my mother plant a few tomatoes in her little garden."

"The Mexicans heading up the rows planted quickly and efficiently, one tiny onion plant at a time, all day long. Their planted rows were as straight and as even as gridwork. The only way I could keep up was to throw whole bunches of baby onions in fewer holes. I hoped no one would be able to remember which rows were mine when the green shoots came up."

"But, I pressed on, because I would get eighty cents a day in canteen coupons. After trying to keep up with the Mexicans for a week and suffering from nausea and headaches every night, I looked for easier work."

"Once again, God was with me. My chance arrived - an opening as a temporary translator for an American, Sergeant Ruthrock. He was an overweight guy, with eyes that almost disappeared in his puffy face. Ruthrock wore a big, brown hat that I learned was worn by drill instructor in the U.S. Army. Ruthrock was in charge of the work assignments for the POWs. He took roll call and sent the POWs off to their daily work assignments. While he talked, he chewed snuff and spat. His drawled Texas vowels, interspersed with juicy hacks, sounded a lot different than my British English pronunciation. We could barely understand each other. In order to make sure he understood me, I tried to drop my British English and to speak 'American,' without realizing I also picked up his colloquialisms. I said 'thisaway' and 'thataway' and every other catchy word I heard him use."

"Up to this point, I had considered my knowledge of English an asset in surviving as a POW in America. Then, a serious incident occurred regarding one of my barracks mates, twenty-four-year-old Cpl. Hugo Krauss. Hugo also spoke English, and he occasionally translated for the camp commander. Hugo had lived in New York with him immigrant parents from 1928 to 1939. Then, he returned to Germany, where he had felt more at home. He went to school to become a tailor and worked at that craft until he was drafted."

"Strange as it might seem, while Hugo was in the Afrika Korps fighting the Allies, his parents became citizens of the United States. When Mr. and Mrs. Krauss learned Hugo had arrived in Hearne, they were ecstatic. Since Hugo was a German citizen and soldier, he was not given any special privileges, but his parents were allowed to visit him in camp. They brought him smiles, hugs - and a sewing machine. My friend Hugo was thrilled with his gift and set himself up in business. Word quickly got around that Hugo could custom tailor uniforms, shirts, and hats with his new American sewing machine. Our barrack soon had a steady stream of visitors who wanted their baggy army clothes transformed into sleekly fitted outfits."

"Then, one night after lights out, we awoke to a loud commotion."

"'What's going on?' I asked. I jumped out of bed and rushed over to the crowd around Hugo's bunk. He was bleeding and unconscious."

"'What happened?' I asked a man in a bunk near Hugo."

"'Some guys threw a blanket over his head and beat him up with floorboards. It was over in minutes.'"

"I couldn't believe I had slept through all of that. 'Who were they? What did they look like?' I asked."

"'It was dark.' He pointed to the door. 'They ran out that way and disappeared. I don't know who they were,' the man said, shaking his head and averting his eyes. He went back to hit cot and pulled his blanket over his head."

"Medics came running and took Hugo away on a stretcher. I never saw him again. The next morning, they told us Hugo died in the hospital. Rumor had it that Hugo's death was reported as 'a murder by persons unknown.' Rolf figured Hugo's 'American connections' had looked treasonous to the Nazis. I was shocked to the marrow of my bones. His poor parents. They must have been devastated. A fanatic German paratrooper in the next barrack seemed the most likely suspect to me, but it was dangerous to even poke my nose into such matters. After the end of the war, I read that several German POWs were found guilt in Hugo's murder and hanged at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas."

"Hugo's murder made it clear that ardent Nazis were among us. It brought home the fact that I was in far more danger from my fellow Germans than from my American captors."

"Nights were the most dangerous, because the Americans did not guard our barracks. After Hugo's murder, I felt even more vulnerable, especially in bed. I could never relax. As i I were still in Africa, I slept lightly, alert to the faintest noise. So did my closest buddies."

"Since I had been a friend of Hugo's, I was terrified that the murderers would target me for that reason, or else because of my job as interpreter for the American military staff. I found Rolf the next morning and told him, 'I'm getting out of here.'"

"'What! You're escaping?'"

"'No, you idiot, I'm going to another camp.'"

"'This I've to see with my own eyes.'"

"I managed a transfer to a POW camp in Mexia, Texas, with a few other POWs from Hearne. . . ."

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