German prisoners of war in the United States

Members of the German military were interned as prisoners of war in the United States during World War I and World War II. In all, 425,000 German prisoners lived in 700 camps throughout the United States during World War II.

Hostilities ended six months after the United States saw its first action in World War I, and only a relatively small number of German prisoners of war reached the U.S. Many prisoners were German sailors caught in port by U.S. forces far away from the European battlefield. The United States Department of War designated three locations as POW camps during the war: Forts McPherson and Oglethorpe in Georgia and Fort Douglas in Utah. The exact population of German POWs in World War I is difficult to ascertain because they were housed in the same facilities used to detain civilians of German heritage residing in the United States, but there were known to be 406 German POWs at Fort Douglas and 1,373 at Fort McPherson. The prisoners built furniture and worked on local roads. The few dozen who died while incarcerated as POWs were buried at Ft. Douglas, Utah, the Chattanooga National Cemetery, and Fort Lyon, Colorado.

After the United States entered World War II in 1941, the government of the United Kingdom requested American help with housing prisoners of war due to a housing shortage in Britain. The United States agreed to house them, although it was not prepared. Its military had only brief experience with a limited POW population in the last world war, and was unprepared for basic logistical considerations such as food, clothing and housing requirements of the prisoners. Almost all German-speaking Americans were engaged overseas directly in combat efforts, and the American government feared the presence of Germans on U.S. soil would create a security problem and raise fear among civilians.

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