BAYOU STALAGS: GERMAN PRISON CAMPS IN THE BAYOU STATE

The year is 1943.

A U.S. freighter slides into port, easing through the murky black waters in the misty pre-dawn darkness.

An attention alarm sounds, and several hundred shackled men rise wearily to their feet, facing the day as prisoners of war in a foreign land.

The scene is a German prison camp, run not by - but for - German prisoners. They were formerly members of Rommel’s Afrikan Korps, taken by Allied Forces in the desert of North Africa.

From the battlefields of North Africa, the prisoners were brought to the swamps and bayous of Louisiana. In all, more than 15,000 German prisoners lived and worked in the Bayou State during the waning years of World War II.

 

“Bayou Stalags: German Prisoners of War in Louisiana” traces the existence of these men in the 49 prisoner of war camps in Louisiana, many located in the Acadiana area.

The first groups of German POWs arrived at the U.S. Army Post Livingston near Alexandria in July of 1943. By the time the war ended, Louisiana had more prisoner of war camps than any other state other than Texas or California.

Many of these camps were located in the Acadiana area, such as the camps at St. Martinville, New Iberia, Youngsville, Kaplan, Welsh, Eunice, Rayne, Lake Charles, Gueydan, Jennings, Franklin, and Bell City.

Other camps included Thibodeaux, Houma, Lake Providence, West Monroe, Algiers, Jonesville, Marksville, and Donaldsonville.

A government regulation prohibiting POW camps within 120 miles of the coastline was waived for Louisiana, since the state desperately needed the labor for local crops. A large number of the men worked as field hands bringing in the local rice, sugar, and cotton crops.

In order to compile the exhibit on German POW camps in the state, USL professor of history Dr. Matthew Schott and author Rosalind Foley contacted literally hundreds of persons who had been employers or guards of the prisoners.

The historians’ aim was to determine the real impact the POW situation had on the area, and how the area residents regarded the men from another country in which they were at war.

The anecdotes and artifacts uncovered during the quest varied widely, and included stories of friendships between the prisoners and their captors.

Reports surfaced that one POW in the Thibodeaux camp took a local girl to New Orleans on a date; several prisoners in the Gueydan camp reportedly manned the machine guns in the guard tower, keeping watch over fellow prisoners while the American guards held a Christmas party.

And several grateful landowners in the St. Martinville area was reported to have treated the POWs in their employ to a steak dinner at a St. Marinville nightclub and a seafood fest in a Lake Arthur restaurant.

If the German POWs were treated well in Louisiana, it was with hope that German captors would treat American POWs in the same way.

But after news spread of the 1945 massacre of American soldiers at the hands of the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge, and reports filtered in concerning the poor conditions of American POWs in Germany, rations here at home were severely curtailed for the POWs as sentiment turned against the foreigners.

Dr. Schott and Foley discovered the one serious problem the American government encountered in administering the POW camps was the existence of hardcore Nazi terrorist groups within the camps.

These men inflicted brutal punishment on men suspected of being disloyal to the Nazi cause during nighttime raids known and feared as “walks of the Holy Ghost.” The American government attempted to deal with the problem by segregating the fiercely loyal Gestapo members and instituting a reeducation program to promote democratic ideals.

 

Lafayette Daily Advertiser 11/8/1981.

 

BG