Stark Decency: German Prisoners of War in a New England Village

Relying mainly on interviews because of the lack of records available to researchers, the author discusses the prisoner-of-war camp in Stark, New Hampshire, for German soldiers. Many soldiers placed there were captured in Africa, often willingly surrendering to the Allied Forces. The camp was housed in an abandoned CCC camp, and the soldiers mainly worked in the forest. They got along better with the local people than many did, and they were generally well-treated with a few exceptions, especially when Americans were inclined to treat Germans less kindly. While this is intended as an academic treatment, I think a work of historical fiction or a more popular volume on this topic would serve the public well.

NF read about German POW's in Stark (Berlin) New Hampshire during WWII. I only recently became aware that the US housed such POW's and this is the second book I've read about this situation. Seems there were about 500,000 POW's housed in over 70 camps throughout the U.S. Most of the prisoners to New Hampshire came from Africa and Normandy. It is good to note that at least in NH, the Geneva Convention was strictly observed. There were problems in the camp, but the biggest one was the Germans vs. the Nazi's. To most Americans Germans and Nazi's were the same thing. To the Germans, at least in these camps, they were not. The book was written when in 1985 five of the former POW's came back for a sort of nostalgic tour of the former camp show more with their families. 150 pages show less