CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”

-Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight

Bad Kreuznach—Lager Galgenberg und Bretzenheim PWTE—Bad Kreuznach District, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, August 18, 1954

At five o’clock in the morning, American enlisted men rousted four barracks full of POWs and displaced persons without warning and ordered them to stand at attention in the cold morning. The commandant of the camp, Lieutenant General Glen Gabler and his aidede-camp, Major Richard “Rick” Saunders, marched along the line of anxious men and stopped crisply and made a sharp left face.

Seven hundred sleepy-eyed men listened with intensity as Saunders spoke.

“By orders of Commander-in-Chief of SHAEF, General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, you men are to be transferred to a new camp in France where you will be processed for discharge. Take twenty minutes to gather what you can carry in one duffel bag and present yourselves at the west entrance of the camp. It is my pleasure to introduce Lieutenant General Glen Gabler who will accompany you to your new station and will assume command of the base. General Gabler.”

The general was an imposing man physically as well as militarily—showing to full advantage his impressive chest full of campaign ribbons, a silver star, and two purple hearts. He was tall, heavily muscled, but beginning to show his age by a ponch which overlapped his Army issue belt. He had a lined leathery face from long days in the sun with wrinkles around his eyes and mouth from long days spent staring into a bright sunlit horizon. Gen. Gabler had salt-and-pepper, grey-white, short cropped hair in a military brush cut; and his hard face was etched in frown lines from his years of hounding men who did not want to work or to go into battle to face bullets and bayonets; and there were scars which attested to his willingness to lead his men into those battles. His silver-steel blue eyes were as unforgiving as ice and carried a hint of sadness—a remembering of things he had seen which he could never shake.

“Men,” he announced, “your next assignment will be Bad Kreuznach—Lager Galgenberg und Bretzenheim PWTE—Bad Kreuznach District of the Rhineland-Palatinate. That site is designated as a work camp where internees work to pay back for the harm they have done and thereafter to be released back to their homes. You have the opportunity to be among the first groups of internees here at Moschendorf Transit and Release Camp to be moved to this newer and better camp. The army of occupation has constructed nineteen facilities known as the Rheinwiesenlager camps. They are a group of camps built in the Allied-occupied part of Germany. They are designed to hold captured German soldiers from the close of the Second World War until the internees are repatriated. You will learn—if you are not already aware—that I am a fair man, but a stern disciplinarian.”

The Rheinwiesenlager [English: Rhine meadow] camps, were a group of concentration camps built in the allied-occupied part of Germany by the US Army to hold captured German soldiers including POWs repatriated from the United States. The camps were officially named Prisoner of War Temporary Enclosures [PWTE] for an important ulterior motive. They held between one and almost two million surrendered Wehrmacht personnel from April until September 1945. Prisoners held in the camps were designated Disarmed Enemy Forces, not POWs. The decision had been taken in March 1943 by SHAEF Commander-in-chief Dwight D. Eisenhower because of the logistical problems arising from appearing to adhere to the Geneva Convention of 1929. By not classing the hundreds of thousands of captured troops as POWs and substituting the disingenuous appellation “Disarmed Enemy Forces”, the problems associated with accommodating so many prisoners of war according to international treaties governing their treatment was negated, not that many people in the Allied countries cared a whit.

Well after the war, studies indicated that one of the camps with the highest mortality was Bad Kreuznach [Lager Galgenberg und Bretzenheim)], which was occupied by US troops in March 1945 and thus stood under American military authority. The studies revealed that:

•The army lost track of some of the locations where POWs were held.

•The number of prisoners greatly exceeded expectations.

•Organization of the camps was left to prisoners, which too often led to fatal results.

•Food and water supplies were insufficient. The 1200 to 1500 calories ration that the Disarmed Enemy Forces were receiving after August 1945 was inadequate to sustain normal weight in a grown man. The lack of food led in many cases to extensive malnutrition.

Much later legal historians determined that the Allies violated international law regarding the feeding of enemy civilians, and directly and indirectly caused unnecessary suffering and death of large numbers of civilians and prisoners in occupied Germany, often as a spirit of postwar vengeance. For example, the directors of the camp purposefully created circumstances that contributed to the deaths of Bad Kreuznach prisoners. There were strict orders to US military personnel and their wives to destroy or otherwise render inedible their own leftover surplus so as to ensure it could not be eaten by German civilians.

Most estimates of German deaths in these camps range from between 3,000 to 10,000, but some have claimed that up to 1,000,000 prisoners died. Many died from starvation, dehydration, and exposure to the weather elements because no structures were built inside the prison compounds.

Major Saunders developed a quick, unguarded smile and rolled his eyes, a response not lost on Antoine. Antoine was the unquestioned leader of his small band of former French SS soldiers. He was standing beside Serge Rounsavall, Hugues Beauchamp, and Jérôme Christophe Mailhot, the last of his “Gebirgsjägers” still in the camp. He missed Michaele.

“What is the meaning of PWTE?” whispered Serge out of the side of his mouth.

Antoine shrugged. Given the American major’s minimal but telling momentary change in facial expression, Antoine was pretty sure it did not mean anything good for the prisoners.

Gen. Gabler continued, “As such, you can count on two things from me: every man will be treated the same as every other man. I keep my promises; and if you do your work satisfactorily, the day will come when you will be set free to resume your prewar life. I am sure you remember your SS motto for the camps holding the Jews: Arbeit Macht Frei. The same statement applies in your new camp. Do what you are told, as soon as you are told, and everything you are told—and you will be recorded as a model prisoner. The work will be strenuous enough to keep you out of trouble. Should you fail in any of those requirements, disciplinary action will be swift and memorable. Is there anything about what I have said that you do not understand? Speak up now or keep your mouths shut. You do not want to appear before me at the camp. Mark my words. On the other side of that coin is that if you do work, you will go free. You can trust me on that.

“There will be no transfers permitted should you think life is hard at one camp. They are all the same, and I command them all.”

None of the prisoners dared to speak.

Ten minutes later, the prisoners were all in assigned seats on one of the four olive drab US Army buses with one foot chained to a circle screw bolt fixed to the steel floor. They received no food or drink during the long bus ride. Antoine viewed that fact as a harbinger of things to come.

“Call me a pessimist,” he thought.

Antoine could not have been more accurate in his opinion if he had been in charge of the three hundred American soldiers guarding the new camp instead of having a measly three men—his Gebirgsjägers— under his “command.”

That very day, he and the rest of the prisoners privileged to be transferred to Bad Kreuznach learned exactly what PWTE meant: they were in hell. Even if they had known about the heinous maltreatment of the POWs, most victims of the Nazi regime would only have shrugged and said, “They deserve everything they get.” In retaliation for acts of resistance,

French occupation forces expelled more than 25,000 civilians from their homes. Some of these civilians were subsequently forced to clear minefields in Alsace.

Contrary to Section IV of the Hague Convention of 1907—The Laws and Customs of War on Land—the SHAEF counterinsurgency manual included provisions for forced labor and hostage-taking. German prisoners were forced to clear minefields in France and the Low Countries. Allied critics of the practice who visited the camps reported to disinterested readers, listeners, and authorities back home that everywhere in the Allied POW camps there was callous self-interest and a desire for retribution determining the fate of German prisoners. Sick or otherwise unfit prisoners were forcibly used for labor, and in France and the Low countries this also included work such as highly dangerous mine-clearing. As early as September 1945, French authorities estimated that two thousand prisoners were being maimed and killed each month in accidents—largely explosions. The prisoners were the canaries in the mines, and the dogs in the minefields.

Over 740,000 German prisoners transferred in 1945 by the US for forced labor in France came from the Rheinwiesenlager camps. Those forced laborers were already very weak, many weighing slightly over 110 pounds.

The first thing that Antoine and the Gebirgsjägers noticed was that—aside from guard houses, barracks for the US Army military police, and an administration building—there were no buildings. Hugues pointed out to his fellow former SS officers that a bare dirt field in the center of the camp had rows of shallow depressions in the dirt. Running alongside the rows of ground depressions were latrine trenches. No internees were anywhere to be seen at the time the Gebirgsjägers and the other new prisoners were being treated to their first vision of camp life.

“No mess tent or mess hall,” he said unnecessarily.

“Plenty of guards and dogs, though. They must have some sort of facilities. Dogs are valuable, and they have to have plenty to eat to keep them in top form,” Jérôme added.

There was no gallows humor intended in that observation. It was just an objective statement of the obvious. None of the arriving prisoners were at all prone to making jokes.

“At least we aren’t likely to be as cold as we were in the Butugychag Tin Mine,” Serge said in a vain attempt to find at least one feeble bright lining to the black clouds that surrounded them.

Gen. Gabler finished his introductory remarks, “Now, your work will commence under the capable supervision of Sergeant Major Owen Briggs. He will be your foreman, supervisor, police captain, judge, jury, and perhaps executioner if need be. You will address him as Senior Master Sergeant Briggs and all American military personnel by their full titles. You will not address me at all.”

With that cheerful introduction to camp life, the general and the major retired from the dismal landscape and walked into the officers’ club for a lunch of baby back pork ribs, mashed potatoes and gravy, steamed broccoli with melted cheese, Folger’s coffee, and chocolate cake. The prisoners were not given food that day.

When Gen. Gabler said “now” as the time for work to commence, he meant it quite literally. The taciturn and seldom verbal senior master sergeant signaled to his lower-ranked enlisted men who marched forward and separated the two hundred prisoners into twenty-five groups. That activity took ten minutes and required the overworked Americans to club the prisoners who moved with insufficient alacrity. The guards were experts. They inflicted pain but no disabling injuries for the most part. As the club blows struck, even sick and weary men began to hurry.

Antoine Duvalier had a fifteen-minute tutorial on the dismantling of Nazi land mines. Fortunately for him, he was familiar with the devices and how to render them harmless because he had been in charge of burying more than a hundred thousand of them during his career in the SS. The instruction was given by a haggard, ragged, and filthy internee—one all too reminiscent of the POWs at the tin mine. Antoine was certain he was not going to prosper in his new environment. His real concern was whether or not he would survive. Other prisoners were less fortunate than him. They were assigned to the ignoble task of marching as human shields through known minefields at bayonet point to discover and destroy land mines without anyone having proper equipment or knowledge of the whereabouts of the mines.

The death rate was beyond anyone’s worst predictions. The Allied officers and NCOs cared very little. There was an inexhaustible supply of mine-destroying fodder coming in; and, after all, they were hardly humans. Moreover, they deserved whatever they got.

After eight hours of work—the work having to cease because it was too dark to see any longer—the staff sergeant in charge of his detail ordered the men to finish disarming the land mine they were working on then to line up for return to the main “living” area. One of the prisoners—an old man with thick glasses and trembling hands—did not move quickly enough. His NCO kicked him several times in the ribs and lateral thighs, making him even more unsteady. The NCO walked back fifteen yards—the mandatory distance to be maintained by American servicemen from the “dogs” in the mine-disarming work. It was a good thing for him that he did, because the man’s trembling hands jerked a wire he should have cut, and the bomb exploded, blowing him to pieces.

The NCO groaned, knowing that this would make him late for supper.

Antoine had the misfortune to be standing near the NCO at the time.

“You. Get three men and go clean up that mess. The trash bags are over there by the dump. Fill a couple of trash bags—that’s all you’ll need—seal them very well, then carry the bags to the dump. Hurry it up!” the American ordered.

Antoine had seen worse; so, he got right to it. Perhaps his willingness to hurry would be noted; and even if not, at least they would all get back to chow a bit earlier. One of his chosen helpers had not been in combat; so, it was too much for him and he fainted. That brought upon him scorn from the American guards and a series of heavy blows with a club. Antoine was blamed for his choice and took six blows himself as an educational strategy. He swallowed what little pride he had left and his feeling of Vesuvial anger and rushed to do the other man’s share of the work. They arrived too late to the communal pot and found no food. One of the older men gave Antoine and his coworker/human bomb detector a few dirt cookies to fill their stomachs before they went to sleep. Antoine and his handpicked fellow workers each found an unoccupied ground pit and went to sleep famished. It had been an inauspicious first day in his new home.

Allied POW Camp Recipes

Dirt Cookies—Serves 12–15

Ingredients

-2–3 quarts of fine clay dirt, water sufficient to make a smooth, fluid, but not watery consistency; salt, sugar, butter, cream, bacon drippings to taste (as available).

Preparation

-Break up and grind dirt until it is powdery fine. Sift out pebbles, hard pieces of dirt, and extraneous matter.

-Gradually add water (or milk, coffee, tea, beer, or cream as available) to the dirt until a fine smooth batter is created. Avoid excess water since cookies will crumble as they heat.

-Place smooth mud mixture on a flat surface, cut 3 in. cookie shapes and dry in the sun until firm.

-Then carefully slip a pancake turner (or broad bladed knife) under each cookie and transfer to the area of longest and most intense sun through the day and leave until the cookies are almost as hard and brittle as clay pottery.

-Break off bite-size pieces, chew carefully so as not to break teeth or to swallow pieces large enough to catch in the throat.

-It is also a good idea to suck the cookie pieces to soften them—that takes time and allieviates stress as the nutrition-free delicacies work their magic of filling the stomach and damping down the pangs of hunger.

Toasted Rat—3 Rats Constitute 1 Serving

Ingredients

-10–12 large rats, salt, pepper, curry, garlic, cooking oil—as available.

Preparation

-To catch rats, gather several handfuls of dry grass; light it afire to create smoke. Place smoking grass into opening of a rat hole; wait several mins. then retrieve dead rats.

-Skewer rats with hard wood or metal skewers as available.

-Hold rat to open fire until all hair is gone and rat is the consistency of potato chips.

-Break off pieces and eat like crackers (skin, bones, muscles, guts, extremities, and tails) -Add spices as available to improve taste. This manner of preparation of rat is considered to be an acquired taste.

Note: a variation when equipment and materials are available is to deep-fry rats in oil until they are as brittle as wafers; break off pieces, as above, and enjoy. For stew, it is best to skin the rats first as the hair remains annoying.