Hitler's Soldiers in the Sunshine State: German POWs in Florida (Florida History and Culture) |
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Hitler's Soldiers in the Sunshine State: German POWs in Florida (Florida History and Culture)
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by JR., ROBERT D. BILLINGER
Sales Rank: 621768
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List Price: $34.95
$15.00
At Amazon
on 6-18-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 288 pages
Published by: University Press of Florida; First edition January 1, 2000
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0813017408
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0813017402
Book Dimensions:
9.4 x 5.9 x 1 inches
Weighs: 1 pounds
Product Description
In the first book-length treatment of the German prisoner of war experience in Florida during World War II, Robert D. Billinger, Jr., tells the story of the 10,000 men who were "guests" of Uncle Sam in a tropical paradise that for some became a tropical hell. Having been captured while serving on U-boats off the Carolinas, with the Afrika Korps in Tunisia, with the paratroops in Italy, or with labor battalions in France, the POWs were among the 378,000 Germans held as prisoners in 45 states. Except for the servicemen who guarded them, the civilian pulp-cutters, citrus growers, and sugarcane foremen who worked them, and the FBI and local police who tracked the escapees among them, most people were--and still are--unaware of the German POWs who inhabited the 27 camps that dotted the Sunshine State. Billinger describes the experiences of the Germans and their captors as both sides came to the realization that, while the Germans' worst enemies were often their own comrades-in-arms, wartime enemies might also become life-long friends. Concentrating especially on the story of Camp Blanding in North Florida, Billinger based his research on both American and German archives. His account mixes rare photographs with interviews with former prisoners; reports by the International Red Cross, the YMCA, and the U.S. military; and local newspaper articles.
Reader Reviews
I admit I'm a fan of this type of book...state university press, obscure topic...but when it comes to WWII POWs in the U.S., it is even more fascinating, because not only are the truths stranger than fiction...your parents and grandparents probably remember some of this. German POWs were held in virtually every state, mixed with civilians, were treated generally better than any kind of prisoner or "minority", and were among us. Some took their memories back to Germany, and some became U.S. citizens. Perhaps nowhere is the story more interesting of compelling than in Florida, where there remain many "denazified" and "nondenazified" Germans. The conditions they lived in were horrendous. Yet, Florida remains a popular destination of Germans on vacation or "Urlaub". How many are visiting places their parents and grandparents told them about? The documentation and book do focus on one particular camp, Camp Blanding, where prototypical problems amongst Nazis from different countries, regions, and classes of origin found themselves frequently mixed (reminiscent of Katzenbach's "Hart's War") where black fliers from Tuskegee were imprisoned in a Luftwaffe POW camp. If you want a primer on the problems presented by housing foreign POWs in a host country, with concomitant social, political, economic, and ecological ramifications, this is a great book to start with!
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Hitler's Soldiers in the Sunshine State: German POWs in Florida (Florida History and Culture)
Available from Amazon
Price: $15.00
Updated on 6-18-2008.
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