The Army Tried to Teach German POWs Democracy in Six Days

In early 1946, at Fort Eustis, Virginia, the US Army tried to teach German POWs in America how a democracy works. Each class got six days. Three years earlier, the general in charge of America's prisoner camps had turned the idea down: the prisoners who could be changed, he said, were probably not worth the effort. This is the story of the secret program that followed: a cover name lifted from the Geneva Convention, a camp of anti-Nazi writers at Fort Kearney, Rhode Island, a five-cent newspaper called Der Ruf, the schools at Fort Getty, Fort Wetherill and Fort Eustis, and the two prisoner writers whose magazine the Americans banned in 1947. The Army filmed its own school at Fort Getty in December 1945, and that film is in this video. 00:00 Six days 00:58 Not worth the effort 03:28 The Idea Factory 05:45 Five cents a copy 08:17 School behind the wire 10:57 Six days of democracy 13:13 What they learned 15:46 The Call READ THE DOCUMENTS YOURSELF The Army's films of the Fort Getty school, December 1945 (National Archives): https://catalog.archives.gov/id/23705 and https://catalog.archives.gov/id/23706 Geneva Convention of 1929, Article 17: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_cent... Fort Kearney and Der Ruf: http://smallstatebighistory.com/the-t... Forts Getty and Wetherill: https://smallstatebighistory.com/the-... Ronald H. Bailey, World War II magazine (HistoryNet): https://www.historynet.com/the-secret... SOURCES McBurney and Wallin, Small State Big History (2015) Alexander Gallus, "Der Ruf," Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (2007) Jan Bridgeford Smith, "Camp Van Etten," Life in the Finger Lakes Library of Virginia, on Fort Eustis; Dartmouth College archives, on Henry W. Ehrmann BOOKS BEHIND THIS EPISODE Paid links: we earn a commission if you buy through the Amazon links below. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Arnold Krammer, Nazi Prisoners of War in America (1979; paperback 1996): https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812885619?... Ron Robin, The Barbed-Wire College (Princeton, 1995; Kindle): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EM2SJZU?... Judith M. Gansberg, Stalag: U.S.A. (1977): https://www.amazon.com/dp/0690012233?... FOOTAGE AND PHOTO CREDITS Film: POW School, Fort Getty, US Army Signal Corps 111-ADC-9940 and 9941 (December 1945), National Archives (NARA) Film: German prisoners and the USS Wakefield, US Navy 428-NPC-20661 (1945), NARA Film: German prisoners shipped from North Africa, US Army Signal Corps 111-ADC-140 (1943), NARA Film: United News 182, Office of War Information (1945), NARA Film: A Defeated People, Crown Film Unit (1946), NARA Photos: Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation and Fort Eustis, 1943-44, US Army, NARA 336-H series Photos: Camp Polk, Camp Perry, Hoopeston and a Michigan side camp, US Army Signal Corps, NARA 111-SC series; Camp Wallace, SC 184885 Photo: side camp at Greenville, Miss., Office of War Information, NARA 208-AA-310E-1 Photo: POW camp from the air, Dade City, Fla., 1944: Army Air Forces, NARA 23936579 Photo: prisoners boarding a ship, US Coast Guard, NARA 26-G-2572 Der Ruf, 15 November 1945: NARA RG 389, via Wikimedia Commons Eleanor Roosevelt, 16 March 1944: US Navy 80-G-220683 Henry L. Stimson, 1943: National Museum of the US Navy Allen W. Gullion and Archer L. Lerch: US Army Dorothy Thompson, 1940, and T. V. Smith, 1939: Harris & Ewing, Library of Congress Robert L. Kunzig, 1969: National Archives 64-NA-3883 Walter Hallstein at the Pentagon, 1964: US Navy, NARA 330-CFD War Department files in storage, 1935: National Archives 64-NAD-47 Fort Kearney (Army drawings spell it Kearny) and Fort Getty plans: Army engineers, NARA RG 77 Fort Wetherill, about 1918: NARA 165-WW-29A-9 War Department Building: FSA/OWI, Library of Congress Lower Manhattan, 1941: Jack Delano, FSA/OWI, Library of Congress Lie detector test, about 1945: Ed Westcott, US Army German prisoners at Cherbourg, 1944: US Navy Surrender at Orciano, Italy, 1944: US Army Signal Corps SC 192069-S Munich, August 1946: Library of Congress Mission to Germany Maps: prisoner of war camps, June 1944, US Army; Narragansett Bay, USGS (1888); Fussen, US Army Map Service (NARA RG 77); route maps from Natural Earth (public domain) Geneva Convention of 1929: Swiss Federal Archives, via Wikimedia Commons Footage and photos from other camps or years carry a caption with the true place and date. All government archival material is in the public domain. Found an error? Tell us in the comments. Corrections get pinned. The Muster Roll: military history from the primary record. Subscribe:    / @themusterroll