German POWs Thought a Full American Meal Was Their Execution Dinner.

On a British transport ship in June 1944, German prisoners of war lined up for sausage, mashed potatoes, white bread and a cup of coffee. Many of them had gone days without a proper meal, and some kept going back for more. According to one of them, the American mess officer finally shouted that the ship carried eight hundred prisoners but had already served eight thousand plates. That prisoner was Paul Golz, a nineteen-year-old farmer's son captured in Normandy three days after D-Day. For years, Nazi Germany had described America as a weak, divided and decadent country. What Golz found, first on that ship and then in an Army camp in Virginia, was a different picture. Chapters 0:00 The Mess Line 1:28 From Farm Boy to Prisoner 4:30 What Germans Were Told About America 5:13 The Grey Ghost to Virginia 6:16 Camp Patrick Henry 8:41 The Film, the Road Home and One Question SOURCES Jennifer H. Svan, "German POW asks: 'Why did America give their young men to save us?'," Stars and Stripes, June 2, 2019. Paul Golz's capture in Normandy, the first meal aboard the British transport, the Queen Mary crossing, life at Camp Patrick Henry, the film and the week of bread and water, Scotland in 1946, his career in the German foreign service, and his closing question. Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva, July 27, 1929, Articles 11 and 12 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School). Prisoner rations equal to those of base troops, work in camp kitchens, and prisoner canteens. Ronald H. Bailey, "German POWs: Coming Soon to a Town Near You," HistoryNet, August 10, 2012. Camp rations and pay, the "Fritz Ritz" nickname, and press headlines about "pampered" prisoners. J. Malcolm Garcia, "German POWs on the American Homefront," Smithsonian Magazine, September 15, 2009. Prisoner pay of 80 cents a day, canteen spending, and the scale of the camp system. Pam Croley, "American Reeducation of German POWs, 1943-1946," M.A. thesis, East Tennessee State University, 2006. Number of Axis prisoners held in the United States (more than 425,000, about 371,000 of them German), camp numbers, and the Army's reasons for strict compliance with the Geneva Convention. William Reginald Wheeler, ed., The Road to Victory: A History of Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation During World War II (1946), as cited by the Mariners' Museum, "A Look Inside Camp Patrick Henry." Camp Patrick Henry's activation on December 2, 1942, as a troop staging area. Camp Patrick Henry historical marker, Newport News, Virginia (erected 1979 by the Corporation of Newport News). Camp Patrick Henry as a staging area of the Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation. "Hampton Roads Area," North American Forts (Fort Wiki). Use of Camp Patrick Henry as a German prisoner of war camp from September 1944 to April 1946. "Queens at War," Naval Historical Society of Australia. The Queen Mary's wartime service as the "Grey Ghost" troopship. Michael H. Kater, Different Drummers: Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Germany (Oxford University Press, 1992). Nazi condemnation and restriction of jazz. Rachel Williams, "German Prisoners of War in Leesburg, Florida," The History Center (Lake County, Florida). Reduction of prisoner rations after V-E Day and their restoration in the fall of 1945. Bonafilia, "Hospitality Is the Best Form of Propaganda," The Historical Journal of Massachusetts, Winter 2016. New canteen restrictions for German prisoners after V-E Day. Sources & Archives U.S. National Archives Internet Archive Wikimedia Commons Periscope Film Archival Footage Archival footage: U.S. National Archives, Prelinger Archives, Ford Motor Company collection, Die Deutsche Wochenschau; some scenes use illustrative footage of the period not the people named. How This Episode Was Made Original research and script by WWII Desk. Archival film, photographs, documents and other historical material from the U.S. National Archives, Prelinger Archives and other collections are re-edited to match the narration and combined with our own maps, document reconstructions and graphics. Some scenes use illustrative footage of the period to represent locations, events, equipment and environments described in the narration and are not necessarily footage of the specific people named. Sources are listed above.