My first exposure to a prisoner of war camp came through the television and "Hogan's Heroes". It made war and POW life look easy and amusing. The hapless Germans, the brave and clever Allies - who you knew could escape if they really wanted. After exposure to movies like "The Great Escape" and "Bridge Over the River Kwai" (you know you are whistling), they didn't seem like such great, fun places. I was sure that a POW camp must be a horrid place after reading what would now be called a graphic novel in 1975/6 about Jeremiah Denton's captivity in the "Hanoi Hilton" during the Vietnamese War.
I was a bit surprised on a visit to Fort Robinson in Nebraska with Nadienne and the boys to find out that during WWII, the fort hosted a POW camp for German prisoners. It would surprise most people, as it did me, that there were 435,788 POWs hosted in the US and Alaska during the war. Most of those POWs were German prisoners. There were 155 area (main) POW camps and 511 satellite branch camps throughout the US, with the exception of Nevada, North Dakota, Vermont, and the territory of Hawaii. Kansas had 2 area camps, 14 branch camps and 1 prison; Missouri had 4 area camps and 36 branch camps; Iowa: 2 area camps, 12 branch camps; Nebraska: 6 area camps and 25 branch camps.
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| The POW museum in T-9, opened in 2015 |
One of the Kansas area camps was Camp Concordia in Cloud County, KS. Little remains of the camp today, but a POW museum has been established on the site inside of T-9, an original warehouse on the POW camp grounds. The position of some of the buildings are still marked by concrete pads and concrete markers. An original guardhouse, a rebuilt guard tower, the base for the camp water tower and the original officer's club remain on grounds. Several of the barracks were sold following closure of the camp and remain in Concordia as houses.
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| View of the camp looking south from the water tower |
In its heyday, Camp Concordia had 304 buildings, 880 US soldiers, 179 civilian employees and 4,027 German prisoners, the first arriving from Rommel's Afrika Corps. POW labor was used to replace the manpower lost to the US war effort, and enlisted men did much work on area farms, railroads or the local ice factory. In addition to the $0.10 credit they earned in camp, workers on the outside could earn $0.80 a day credit (about the same as a newly recruited US soldier) to spend as they wished. The camps in the US were designed to exceed the minimum conditions laid out by the Geneva Convention. German prisoners were often given minimal supervision, with some given firearms to hunt by farmers for whom they worked. Prisoners had their own bands and newspaper. Those that could paint, draw or sculpt were able to sell their work to the locals. The University of Kansas provided college courses to prisoners that wanted to take them.
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| Rebuilt guard tower on Union Road, with water tower base in background |
The fair treatment of prisoners rubbed several locals and politicians the wrong way, with several congressmen referring to them as "our coddled prisoners". Military authorities were intent on making existence in the camps as comfortable as possible out of a sense of honor, to minimize escape attempts and hopefully encourage German soldiers to surrender with less fight should word of their treatment make it back to Germany in the letters written home. In all, there were only about 2,000 escape attempts nationwide. Most of the men that attempted escape did so because they were bored or had received a "Dear John" letter from home. This rate was lower than that of the civilian prison population. Few of the escapes were successful, although a handful of escapees were recaptured in the 1950s and the last holdout, Georg Gärtner gave up in 1985, after living in the United States as Dennis Whiles since his 21 September 1945 escape from a New Mexico POW camp. I could find no records of escapes from Concordia. Two executions took place at Concordia, both conducted by prisoners, and reported as suicides. When crimes were committed in the camp, suspects were tried and those convicted sent to prison at Fort Leavenworth.
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| T-60 original guardhouse |
Owing to the large population of fairly recently immigrated German families in Kansas, many people found that they had relatives imprisoned in the camps. Many long-term friendships developed between Americans and German POWs during this time, as well. Years of economic difficulty in Germany following WWI meant that most of the POWs were fed and clothed better during imprisonment than they had been at home. The scene that they returned to was one of utter devastation, but their fair treatment by US forces meant that most harbored no animosity towards the United States and helped create a strong alliance between the countries following WWII.
Getting There
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| Base for the 100,000 gallon water tank |
Your approach will be from US-81. Two miles north of Concordia, turn east (right from northbound US-81, left from southbound US-81) onto Union Rd for 1.5 miles. The camp grounds will be on the north (left) side of the road. The first part of the camp that you will see is the rebuilt guard tower. To the north of the guard tower, you will see the water tower base in a field. The museum and other buildings are just a few blocks further east. Follow the signs that are present on site.
The sights are fairly sparse, although you can pick out many of the building foundations. Building T-9 hosts a POW camp museum. It is not open on a regular basis, but appointments can be made by calling the Camp Concordia Preservation Society at (785) 243-1710.
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| Foundation for building T-10 directly north of the new museum |
Waypoint: Latitude: 39.611204 N, Longitude: 97.640219 W
Street Address: 1555 Ft. Kearney Rd., Concordia, KS 66901
Further Reading
German POWs coming soon to a town near you
Stalag Sunflower: German Prisoners of War in Kansas
Camp Concordia WW2 POW Camp
POW Camp Concordia
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