German POWs in Wisconsin Got Donuts at Midnight. One Cried When America Sent Him Home.

German prisoners of war were working the midnight shift at a Wisconsin cannery when the coffee came in. With it came chocolate donuts, with sprinkles, from Weber's Bakery in Lodi. One of those prisoners was Kurt Pechmann, a German private captured in Italy in November 1943. This is his own account, recorded in 1996 for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum: the white bread that tasted like cake, the lights of Norfolk, Virginia, Camp Ellis in Illinois, the canneries around Lodi, a ballroom camp in Hartford, the tears at the Statue of Liberty, the years of forced labor in France, and what he did after he came back to Wisconsin in 1952. Did German prisoners of war work near your town during the war, at a cannery or on a farm in Lodi, Waunakee, Arlington, Hartford, Juneau, Barron or Hoopeston? If your family remembers, tell us in the comments. CHAPTERS 0:00 Donuts at Midnight 1:19 No War Here 3:09 Eighty Cents a Day 3:52 Not in the Convention 4:56 The Statue of Liberty 6:02 We Don't Want You Here 6:48 Free of Charge 7:42 Thirty Feet of Granite SOURCES Wisconsin Veterans Museum, Oral History Interview with Kurt G. Pechmann, OH 345 (1996; interviewer Mark Van Ells) — https://wisvetsmuseum.com/wp-content/... S. Razner and S. Roznik, "German POWs left lasting impact in Wisconsin," USA TODAY Network-Wisconsin (May 2019) — https://eu.wisfarmer.com/story/news/2... "German prisoners of war in the United States" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_... Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva, 27 July 1929 War Memorial Center, Milwaukee: Southeastern Wisconsin Vietnam Veterans Memorial Much of this story is Kurt Pechmann's own recollection; the narration says so where it is. PHOTOGRAPHS AND MAPS U.S. Army Signal Corps and U.S. Navy photographs (National Archives), Royal Air Force (Imperial War Museum C 2644), Milwaukee VA Medical Center, Carol M. Highsmith (Library of Congress), Boston Public Library: public domain. Schwartz Ballroom, Hartford: Shadowe, CC BY-SA 3.0. Soldiers' Lot, Forest Hill Cemetery: TheCatalyst31, CC0. Southeastern Wisconsin Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Veterans Park, Milwaukee: Michael Barera, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped). Lodi, Wisconsin: Corey Coyle, CC BY 3.0. The Geneva Conventions of 1929: Archives New Zealand, CC BY-SA 2.0. All via Wikimedia Commons. Thumbnail: a German prisoner of war taken at Aachen, 1944 (Signal Corps SC 195682) and Red Cross doughnuts at a U.S. Army rest camp in Belgium, October 1944 (SC 195679), public domain. Maps drawn from Natural Earth data. No photograph of Kurt Pechmann appears in this video. Footage marked "Illustrative footage" shows comparable scenes, not the exact events described; the Memorial Day photographs are from Wood National Cemetery, Milwaukee. ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE (Internet Archive) U.S. Army: German Prisoners, Cherbourg (1944); Interrogation of Prisoners of War, Florence (1945); Combat Bulletin 62 (1945); The Battle of Russia (1943); Memphis Belle (1944). U.S. Navy: German Prisoners Evacuated to Naples (1943). Office of War Information: The Town (1945); Tuesday in November (1945); Food for Fighters (1943). National Archives: World Celebrates Peace, V-J Day (1945); Last Liberty Ship Launched (1944); Farm Work Is War Work. Universal Newsreel: Sea Queen Home with 15,000 Vets (1945); Funeral Pyres of Nazidom (1945). Prelinger Archives: Pick of the Pod (c. 1939); A Great Railroad at Work (1942); The Dairy Industry (1942); Postwar Germany: 28 Months After V-E Day (1947); home movie 000580. Public domain. MUSIC "Long Note Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Echoes of Time v2" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Dreamer" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Floating Cities" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Heartbreaking" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Clean Soul" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Reawakening" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Lasting Hope" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... More forgotten WWII stories from the archive: subscribe to @TheWWArchive #WW2 #POW #Wisconsin