Scene from Camp Concordia Museum in Concordia, Kan. Courtesy/LAHS
By Sharon Snyder
Los Alamos Historical Society
When Liz Martineau took over as executive director of the Historical Society last summer, I interviewed her for the Los Alamos Daily Post. In the course of that interview she mentioned that her father was a history buff and had written a book. “I’ll loan you a copy,” she said. The next day the book appeared on my desk—Camp Concordia: German POWs in the Midwest by Lowell A. May.
This week’s history column will no doubt read like a book review because Lowell May reeled me in with his first few pages. The book features in-depth research, and it opened an entirely new area of history for me.
With so many young men serving in the armed forces during World War II, there was a shortage of labor on farms. I had heard of a camp near Lordsburg, New Mexico, where German prisoners of war (POWs) worked on nearby farms, but after reading May’s book and doing further research online, it became clear that what I had learned to that point was only part of something much larger. The story of POW camps in the United States is sometimes referred to as one of the least studied aspects of the history of World War II.
Camp Concordia was one of the largest of eight POW camps in Kansas and was designed to hold 4,000 prisoners. Lowell May became interested in the camp when he retired to Kansas after a career in the U.S. Army, but he lived in Concordia for two years before learning that a POW camp had been located there. He began to read about that camp and others. He visited POW sites, researched in local archives, and traveled to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., for information. He interviewed Concordia residents who had memories of the war years and the community reactions. In the mid-1940s, many Concordians had jobs related to the camp: clerks, drivers, secretaries, nurses, construction workers and more. May used official reports, newspaper accounts and personal memories attained through correspondence with the former POWs. Some of those men still had photos they shared with their letters!
Prisoners in the camp were given the option of working on the surrounding farms. Those who chose to help in the fields were paid $1.60 per day. Commissioned officers were paid the same amount to be supervisors of the field workers. Both were allowed to retain half of their earnings; the U.S. government retained the other half. The money was used to buy items at the post exchange, such as cigarettes, candy bars, Coca Colas, magazines and toiletries.
When the war ended and the POWs returned home, some continued to keep in touch with people in Concordia via letters. A few even emigrated back to the Midwest with their families. The camp not only had a positive effect on the economic condition of that small town but also on the men who spent those months in Camp Concordia.
In July 2015, an official ribbon cutting marked the grand opening of a Camp Concordia Museum, the culmination of efforts by the POW Camp Concordia Preservation Society to save a piece of their town’s history as well as an important part of World War II.
“Difficulties between POWs and local residents were few, and in fact friendships formed,” stated Lowell May, president of the camp’s preservation society. “Only a handful of escape attempts occurred, none successful.”
Life at the camp was easy compared with the war in Europe. Prisoners played outdoor sports, listened to band performances, and took courses offered by the University of Kansas.
One of the POWs, who had been a lieutenant in Rommel’s Afrika Korps when he was captured, began his college education at Camp Concordia. After he returned to Germany, he became a pharmacist. A noted post-war architect took his first course work for that profession while a prisoner at the camp, and there are other similar stories. Though these men and many others came to Concordia during a dreadful time, the way they were treated made a positive difference in their future.
Many of the buildings of Camp Concordia were torn down or relocated after the war. Some were repurposed as homes. Farmers bought structures to use as barns or farm buildings, and one became the Concordia Lutheran Church. In 1947 and 1948 the original landowners were allowed to buy back much of the land they had sold to the government for less than the government paid in 1943. Other tracts were sold to businesses or private citizens for various uses. The original guard house at Camp Concordia remains and has been restored. Today, correspondence continues between former POWs, their relatives, and Concordia residents. Lowell May’s book tells of a short span of history and how it affected a small, Midwest town and beyond.
There are other books about POW camps, but May’s Camp Concordia is a standout. He continues to work with the citizens of the town to preserve that part of their history.
The old POW compound and Cloud County Museum are visited by former POWs, their children, and now grandchildren.