German POWs Were Invited to a Thanksgiving Feast. They Thought It Was a Joke.

On a Wednesday morning in November 1944, a German prisoner at Camp Hearne, Texas heard that the Americans were planning something called Thanksgiving. Turkey. Mashed potatoes. Pie. The Nazis who controlled the barracks had an answer ready before the meal was served. Do not eat. A German soldier does not take gifts from the enemy. That prisoner was Heino Erichsen, an eighteen-year-old from the 22nd Panzer Grenadiers who had been captured in Tunisia with the rest of the Afrika Korps. He later wrote about what he found in Texas in a memoir called The Reluctant Warrior. What he found was not what the barracks leadership expected him to find. Chapters 0:00 The Announcement 0:31 Camp Hearne, Texas 1:02 The Afrika Korps 1:30 A Reluctant Warrior 2:30 What Germany Was Eating 3:32 The Camp Had Nazis 5:33 The Rule Nobody Told Them 6:48 Before Dawn 7:57 Thursday Noon 9:26 The Letter Home 10:44 The Question Without an Answer 11:55 After the War SOURCES Heino Erichsen, The Reluctant Warrior: My Years as a German POW in the American South, Texas A&M University Press, 2001. Erichsen's capture in Tunisia, arrival at Camp Hearne, description of the camp as "standard," camp food, Nazi internal pressure, and the postwar return to Texas. Arnold Krammer, Nazi Prisoners of War in America, Stein and Day, 1979. Scale of the American POW camp system, transport from Ellis Island, camp conditions, and the organized Nazi pressure on fellow prisoners. Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva, July 27, 1929, Article 11 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School). Equal rations for prisoners and base depot troops. Ronald H. Bailey, "German POWs: Coming Soon to a Town Near You," HistoryNet, August 10, 2012. Army reasoning on Geneva compliance and the link to American prisoner treatment in Germany. Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, Viking, 2006. German civilian food rations in 1944, meat and fat allowances under the rationing system. "Thanksgiving Dinner for the Troops," Stars and Stripes, November 1944. SS Great Republic and the shipment of turkey to troops in Europe, Thanksgiving logistics. Camp Hearne POW Camp, Texas Historical Commission marker. Camp activation, prisoner numbers, and closing date. Pam Croley, "American Reeducation of German POWs, 1943–1946," M.A. thesis, East Tennessee State University, 2006. Total German prisoner numbers, camp distribution, and Army compliance policy. Sources & Archives U.S. National Archives Internet Archive Wikimedia Commons Periscope Film Archival Footage Archival footage: U.S. National Archives, Prelinger Archives, 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.