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Nazis
in East Texas
by Bob Bowman
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Slightly
more than sixty years ago, a German prisoner of war, known only as “Rothammer,”
carved his name on the gates of a POW camp beside U.S. Highway 69 north of Lufkin.
In doing so, he left an almost indiscernible link between World War II and East
Texas.
In September, 2005, as America celebrates the 60th anniversary
of the Allied forces’ victory in World War II, the old Lufkin camp will be among
seventy POW facilities to be recognized by the Texas Historical Commission.
The POW camps, along with 65 army airfields, 35 army posts, nine naval installations
and some 136 auxiliary army airfields, will be a part of a Texas tribute to the
750,000 Texans who served in uniform during the war. Of that number, 22,500 lost
their lives while in service.
The
first German prisoners arrived in Lufkin on the afternoon of November, 1943, when
seventy-six POWs and eight guards arrived at the U.S. 69 site and started building
a camp. Until the barracks were completed, the prisoners and guards slept in tents.
The arrival of the prisoners was a closely guarded secret and it wasn’t until
weeks later that Lufkinites knew they had prisoners among them. A few venturesome
families drove to the camp to see the Germans. As time progressed, several hundred
more prisoners arrived and the number of curious visitors increased.
The
prisoners were sent to Lufkin to help keep one of East Texas’ principal industries
operating.
Southland Paper Mills, Inc., began producing newsprint in
1940 and, when the war erupted in Europe, productivity began to decline because
of labor shortages that reduced wood deliveries to the mill.
Southland
officials Ernest Kurth, S.W. Henderson and Arthur Temple soon came up with the
idea of using POWs as laborers. The War Manpower Commission concurred with their
need.
From Camp Lufkin, the prisoners were delivered to the forests where
they harvested pines and hauled them to Lufkin on pulpwood trucks. The work crews
usually consisted of twelve prisoners, a driver provided by Southland, and a single
guard with a submachine gun or Browning automatic rifle.
The prisoners
were so productive that other POW camps were established in the vicinity. A second
Lufkin camp, which eventually housed 500 prisoners, was opened on the present
site of Lufkin Middle School, and another camp was opened beside the Angelina
and Neches River Railroad between Chireno and Etoile in Nacogdoches County.
Other POW camps soon popped up in other East Texas communities, including Alto,
Anahuac, Bannister, China, Liberty, Milam, Patroon, Fort Clark and San Augustine.
Most of the camps reported to Camp Fannin in Tyler and almost all of them were
connected in some way with the wood products industry.
Escapes from the
POW camps were rare, probably because the prisoners were far from their homelands
and unfamiliar with Texas geography.
One incident related in Mark Choate’s
excellent book, “Nazis
in the Pineywoods ,” tells the story of a German prisoner who slipped away
from a Chireno work crew. Searchers found the prisoner holding a little girl and
petting calves in a cow pasture. The prisoner said he approached the little girl
because she was standing too close to a passing train, picked her up and carried
her to the safety of the pasture. |
All
Things Historical
January 1, 2005 Column
Published with
permission
(Distributed as a public service by the East Texas Historical Association.
Bob Bowman is a member of the Texas Historical Commission and the author of more
than 30 books about East Texas.) |
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