HARRY HOBART & THE PRISONERS OF WAR

Allied forces launched the largest amphibious attack in military history on June 6, 1944 – “D-Day” – with nearly 130,000 soldiers swarming the beaches of Normandy, France, at the height of World War II.

On the other side of the world, at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, the Army briefed county sheriffs and highway police on June 6 about security plans for the first German prisoners of war being put to work harvesting crops in central Wisconsin. They would be housed at the former Lawsonia resort, sold by developers in 1943 to the Northern Baptist Convention, about six miles east of Princeton.

“Camp Green Lake” operated from June to October 1944, housed about 850 prisoners and had its share of trouble, including a strike and an escape. It earned a spot in Princeton history, however, because of a bold stance taken by the local newspaper editor.

“Stalag Wisconsin”

The tale of how Nazi prisoners ended up at Lawsonia began as U.S. and Great Britain battled German forces commanded by General Erwin Rommel, “the Desert Fox,” in North Africa.

England was already housing thousands of German prisoners, so the U.S. agreed to take custody of all prisoners captured by Great Britain after November 1942. Military leaders decided to ship the prisoners to the states rather than hold them overseas.

“To imprison these captives overseas would require tying up thousands of troops and supply ships,” noted Betty Cowley, who compiled a history of Wisconsin’s “PW” camps in “Stalag Wisconsin: Inside WW II prisoner-of-war camps,” published in 2002 by Badger Books Inc. of Oregon, Wisconsin. “All the necessities of life – housing, food, water, medical units and supplies – would have to be transported to Europe, perhaps North Africa. Guarding them would require major installations and troops enough not only to prevent escapes but also to defend against nearby enemy armies attempting to overrun the prison camps to free their comrades.”

The prisoners were transported stateside on returning empty Liberty cargo ships and housed first at military bases. The abandoned Civilian Conservation Corps camp at Camp McCoy in Monroe County was selected in September 1942 as one of the sites to house prisoners for the duration of the war.

Thirty-eight temporary or “branch camps” were also established around the state in 1944-1945, from as far north as Bayfield to as far south as Janesville, to bring the PW’s closer to the farms and canning factories desperate for help as the nation’s young farmers and hired hands marched off to war.

According to Cowley, from the approximate 10,000 soldiers of Rommel’s Afrika Korps assigned to help in the harvesting and processing of canning crops in the Midwest, 3,959 worked in Wisconsin during the 1944 harvest.

During the pea harvest, the PW’s cut and loaded pea vines onto trucks sent to the viners, where the peas were removed and shipped to the local cannery. They worked 12-hour days excluding travel time to and from the fields and canning factories. They received eighty cents per day for their labor and 10 cents per day for personal needs. The money was distributed in scrip negotiable only at the camp canteen.

“In many areas of the state the PW’s literally saved the crops,” Cowley found. “… The PW’s filled vital labor shortages, working primarily in agriculture, lumber, and some industry. In Wisconsin they were contracted to the canning companies to help harvest and process crops that would have gone to waste, to bale hemp, and to work in nurseries, tanneries, dairies, and some industrial factories. Even as the war in Europe ended, local farmers and factories pleaded with the government to keep the prisoners for the entire 1945 harvest season.”

Despite efforts to keep the prisoners away from the residents of nearby communities, Cowley found numerous examples of Wisconsin residents reaching out to the PW’s with desserts and delicacies, pets, musical instruments, and other gifts. About one-third of the state’s population traced their roots to Germany, and many residents still had relatives there.

“While rules against fraternizing clearly existed, many work situations offered much opportunity for interaction and conversation,” Cowley found.

Civilians and PW’s worked side by side in canneries and the fields, she noted. Farm families invited the prisoners into their homes to eat with other hired help, according to her research, and guards took PW work crews to nearby cafes for lunch in several communities.

In Columbus, a truck brought a keg of beer from a nearby brewery to the camp each week. A brewery reportedly delivered 25 cases of beer shortly after prisoners arrived at Fond du Lac and provided daily deliveries thereafter. Another POW missing from a camp was located at a downtown bar drinking beer with the locals.

Camp Green Lake

The Army assured the sheriffs at the meeting at Camp McCoy in June 1944 that it would provide adequate guard protection for the prisoners.

Harry Hobart, editor and publisher of the Princeton Times-Republic, relayed the news to his readers.

Princeton Times-Republic, June 8, 1944 – “German prisoners of war who will be employed in the hemp mill at Ripon and local pea and corn canning plants will be housed at Lawsonia. We understand the big luxurious dairy barn at beautiful Lawsonia will be used as a barracks for the prisoners. This will be quite a contrast to the manner in which our boys are treated by the Germans and Japs.”

Two-hundred and fifty-five German prisoners arrived at the Green Lake depot of the Chicago and North Western Railroad on June 19. The Germans were veterans of Rommel’s vaunted Afrika Korps. They arrived in Green Lake in a mix of uniforms; some wore shorts. Army trucks transported them to their new home where they received new work uniforms with PW stenciled in large letters on the shirts and trousers.

The Army rented some cottages and converted a large dairy barn built in 1916 into the enlisted prisoners’ bunkhouse and a chicken house into the officers’ quarters. Some prisoners slept in tents. The orderly tent and canteen tent had electricity, but candles illuminated most of the tents. The Army erected a flood lighting system that lit up the entire compound, approximately 15 acres, at night.

The barn on the north end of the Green Lake Conference Center property today is known as William Carey Hall. It was a signature building of Victor and Jessie Lawson’s Lone Tree Farm Estate before it became Lawsonia.

According to the Wisconsin Historical Society website, the barn was designed by William Merigold, the estate’s general manager and construction superintendent. Its architectural highlights included its original T-shape, walls clad in drop siding, a wood shingle-clad gambrel roof, and twin silos incorporating ceramic tiles.

Merigold drew on ideas being promoted by the young Agricultural Experimental Station at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. “To guarantee good ventilation and plenty of sunshine, he placed hipped dormers along the sides of the barns roof and lined the roof ridge with large ventilators, and he rhythmically pierced the clapboard side walls with pairs of small rectangular windows, marking the cattle stalls inside,” according to the WHS. “The gambrel roof, which allowed for greater hayloft capacity than a gabled roof did, also adhered to university advice. Merigold, however, added unusually fashionable detail. He filled the dormers with diamond-pane sashes, and to provide access to the haymow, he installed an elegant pair of French doors with a fanlight in an arched surround.”

Coincidentally, the Afrikan Korps prisoners arrived at Green Lake three days before Princeton’s first veteran of the North African campaign returned home on furlough. Harry “Mossback” Novak, son of Anna (Polus) and Frank Novak Sr., was my great-uncle and our neighbor on Wisconsin Street in my youth.

Princeton Times-Republic, June 29, 1944 – “Wearing three ribbons, one for good conduct, one for crossing the Atlantic and another for taking part in the African campaign, and with two stars indicating he was in two major engagements, Pvt. Harry Novak returned home last Thursday evening for a 21-day furlough. … He took part in the invasion at Casablanca when our forces landed at Fidela, east of Casablanca, and encircled that city forcing the surrender of the Vichy French forces by which it was held. He was at Rabat when our forces were reviewed by President Roosevelt and later at Monteganem and Algiers when that territory was wrested from the Germans. … Harry says that there are many beautiful women in Algiers. He saw the sultan of Morocco and his six favorite wives. The sultan has a hundred wives. Harry thinks he is quite a man. Harry developed quite a liking for Arabian bread. He also experimented with some of the favorite beverages of that country.”

After the war, Uncle Harry worked as a school bus driver, custodian for St. John’s Catholic school and church, and later at Kopplin-Kinas. I remember him also as a very convincing Santa Claus at the Forester Christmas parties, faithful member of the St. John’s choir, and an affable bartender at the beer stand during the annual Polish picnic.

A photo featuring Harry and other GI’s was published in Life magazine in March 1943 and reprinted in the Milwaukee Sentinel. Captioned “mail from home,” the photo taken during the battle of Sened showed soldiers on the Tunisian front opening Christmas mail that had just caught up with them.

The first chapter of the story of the German prisoners of war at Lawsonia was written before Harry Novak completed his 21-day furlough.

Hobart’s war

Hobart dutifully described the prisoners’ arrival at their new quarters rented from the Northern Baptist Assembly in June: “We are told that they are exceptionally well-built men, and contrary to the general impression are for the most part polite and well behaved. The big dairy barn at Lawsonia has been turned into a barracks to house the men. The barn is equipped with an automatic air conditioning plant that holds the temperature at 68 degrees regardless of outdoor temperature. Other modern conveniences make the place very desirable, and we hope that it meets with the approval of our unwilling guests.”

Hobart had worked at newspapers in New York and Wisconsin before he founded the Redgranite Times in 1927. He started the Princeton Times in 1935 and purchased the carcass of the bankrupt Princeton Republic in 1937 to form the Princeton Times-Republic. His plans to operate the newspapers with his two sons were interrupted, however, when the boys enlisted on the eve of World War II.

Thanks to Hobart, who did not take a vacation from 1939-1945, the Times-Republic did an admirable job – like many community newspapers of the era – covering the war from the home front, in my opinion. He worked with the Service Club to provide free subscriptions to the fighting men, promoted the various fundraising drives, relayed the assignments and promotions of local servicemen in the “Under the Flag” column, and shared additional insights and news in his popular “Seen and Heard About Town” column.

Numerous servicemen wrote letters telling Hobart how much they appreciated receiving the Times-Republic, and even the most mundane local news, though it could take weeks for the mail to catch up to the front.

Prisoners at Camp Green Lake were allowed to listen to the radio, tuned only to local stations, and could subscribe to American newspapers but none printed in Germany. German communiques printed in the New York Times were posted on bulletin boards. Books had to be approved by the camp censor.

“Most German prisoners were confident of a Nazi victory, and they look upon American newspaper accounts of Allied victories either as propaganda or temporary setbacks,” Hobart reported after they arrived in Green Lake.

The Army thanked area residents and the county Red Cross for providing tables and chairs, lamps, books, and magazines for the U.S. soldiers manning the camp but also cautioned against fraternization between area residents and PW’s. Parents were warned to keep their daughters away from the camps.

Despite the warnings, people gathered at the camp fences to talk to prisoners, whom Cowley described as “goose-stepping, arrogant, Nazi types, blended with conscripts caught up in the times,” and to give them gifts.

Two incidents convinced Hobart and others that some people had gone too far.

Treason?

First Lieutenant John W. Scott served as commander of the Green Lake camp. Second Lieutenant Erwin Behrendt was the camp’s executive officer and second in command.

Complaints surfaced within two weeks that Behrendt, 32, a German-born naturalized American citizen, treated the prisoners much too kindly. For example, one day as he was escorting a group of prisoners back to camp from a canning factory, he ordered the truck driver to stop at the Nautical Inn, a tavern operated by Fred Hoth in connection with the Village Inn hotel in Green Lake. When Behrendt ordered beers for the group, Hoth refused to serve the prisoners. He and Behrendt exchanged words and the group left.

A few days later, on July 2, a large group of area residents gathered along the road outside the prison fence as the prisoners conducted a Sunday song service. When some of the people demanded to be let inside, the guards refused, citing international rules regarding prisoners of war. But Behrendt overruled the guard and allowed the crowd onto the grounds.

Hobart let his neighbors and Behrendt know what he thought of their actions under the headline “Treason?” on July 6:

“We have been told that about 200 people from Princeton and vicinity attended a song service Sunday evening at the Lawsonia prisoner of war camp. We are also told that a number of German patriotic songs were sung and drew a large amount of applause from the audience. The whole procedure is so out of line with our line of patriotism and our understanding of the manner in which prisoners of war should be treated that we cannot help but express our contempt for those who would violate all the accepted rules of decency by associating with a people who confessedly are opposed to everything that makes America a great country.

“Certainly, it is not necessary to go to such an extent to live up to our reputation for hospitality. If it was a Jap prison camp you may be sure there would not be such an incident. You can also be sure that none of our boys in Jap or German prison camps are applauded when they sing the patriotic songs of their homeland, if they are permitted to sing.

“However, we are informed that the portion of Lawsonia devoted to the prison camp has been posted with signs closing it to the general public. Church services properly conducted are one thing, but an open entertainment program is another. Those who like the Nazi brand of philosophy should be willing to hold themselves in restraint until it is possible for them to go to Naziland. It won’t be long.”

The Milwaukee Journal reported the song service and Behrendt’s visit to the Nautical Inn in its July 6 edition.

The Army responded swiftly. Behrendt was replaced by Second Lieutenant Francis Walsh and transferred to another post two days after the song service. (He later rose to the rank of captain and served during the Korean War.)

The prisoners went on strike.

“A one-day strike of German prisoners of war occurred here Wednesday, presumably because of the transfer of an American army officer who had treated the prisoners so well that some people termed him ‘pro-German,’” the Milwaukee Journal reported. “The strike brought to light a split attitude on the part of Green Lake townspeople toward the 250 prisoners who are stationed temporarily at a camp at near-by Lawsonia, now owned by the Northern Baptist church. …

“It is known that Behrendt’s attitude toward the prisoners occasioned disgruntlement among some of the 40 enlisted American soldiers who are guards at the camp. Some of the guards said, ‘Those Nazis are nothing but murderers. Why should they be treated well, either by one of our officers or by the townspeople?’ …

“Some Green Lake people said Thursday that the townspeople have been split in their attitude toward the prisoners since they arrived three weeks ago. ‘About 60 percent of the people in this town are of German extraction,’ one said. ‘A good many of them are distinctly friendly to the Germans. They have been sending cakes, pies, and other delicacies out to the prisoners and have been doing other things to show their friendliness. The rest of us don’t like it. I guess Fred Hoth is on our side.’”

The strike ended after one day and had little effect as some of the canneries were shut down for a few days waiting for the late crop to ripen.

Hobart reported the following week that hymn books from the song service and German Bibles were found partially burned in the incinerator.

“Nazis have nothing in common with religion,” Hobart wrote. “They are taught that it is right to lie, steal and to murder. Their record proves it. The guards, good Americans serving our country, were completely forgotten in this outburst of generosity. They got no pies or cakes or other treats, but they did hear their fellow citizens cheer the Germans when they sang their German victory songs. Shame!”

Scott met with local American Legion representatives and assured them that guards had been given additional training on handling prisoners and fraternization between civilians and prisoners.

(Adding to the community’s uneasiness, two prisoners escaped from the camp about a week later. They found a local boy and asked for directions to the beach near Hattie Sherwood Park. They were captured and returned without a fight. Authorities said the pair “were not attempting to ‘escape’ but really were just looking for a cool relaxing swim,” Cowley noted.)

Longtime Princeton attorney and mayor Philip Lehner Sr. met some of the prisoners in late July 1944.

“He conversed with them in high German and got a pretty good idea of their viewpoint toward the war, the causes leading up to it and their concern over their fate and the future of their country after the war is over,” the Times-Republic reported. “They blamed the Jews for starting the war … said that after they had drove most of the Jews out of Germany and a large part of Europe, the Jews had induced England and America to start the war. They said that the Jews had controlled a large part of the wealth in their country and had become very oppressive before the war.”

Lehner learned most of the PW’s had been captured about 14 months earlier, had also fought on the Eastern front, and hated Russians as much as Jews. They were surprised the U.S. got involved in a European war.

“They were all fairly well educated, even though the most of them were hard-bitten Nazis still harboring the hope that Germany will win the war,” the newspaper said. “They derided the idea that the war might end soon. Their concern over their own fate as prisoners was no doubt prompted by their knowledge of what happened to Russian prisoners when their army was overrunning Russia. Those horrors are probably indelibly impressed on their minds, and it is that nightmare that makes them wonder if they may not be doomed to share the same fate.”

The Army shipped the entire group of troublesome prisoners and guards from Lawsonia to another state to harvest fruit on August 1. More tents went up at Lawsonia before a much larger group of prisoners arrived about two weeks later.

Princeton Times-Republic, Aug. 17, 1944 – “Nearly 400 German war prisoners have arrived at Lawsonia and will help in the corn pack. We are told that many of them were captured in Normandy and are bringing more first-hand news to their Nazi brothers of disasters to Hitler’s forces in Europe.”

About 600 prisoners stayed at Camp Green Lake at the height of the corn pack in September, making it the largest camp in Wisconsin.

The last word

The second camp at Lawsonia reported no major incidents. It closed with little fanfare in October 1944, about the same time Hobart began receiving letters from local servicemen overseas who praised his coverage of the prisoners’ treatment.

Oct. 5, 1944 – Edmund “Bishop” Piasecke: “I cannot help but say a few words to the ladies who baked the cakes and pies for the prisoners of war at Lawsonia. I don’t think any of them stopped a minute to realize that while they were serving dessert to the PW’s, a lot of their own relatives or friends were eating dust and K rations. Many of them gave their lives facing a God fearless country of Nazis. I myself have witnessed a mass burial and it makes one stop and think what war really is. Remember all of us won’t return, however, a lot shall, and I wonder if those ladies will have a few hours’ time to spare and bake the boy and girls a few pies and cakes?”

Oct. 12, 1944 – Francis Mashock: “The piece you had in the paper a while ago about the good treatment some of the loons were giving the German prisoners. I wish they would be over here and see what a country looks like after war has passed through it, where people have no homes to go back to. Listen, you German-loving rats, instead of giving those prisoners cakes, why don’t you send it to our boys overseas or to our prisoners of war? Wake up if you want to keep America the wonderful country it is.”

Oct. 26, 1944 – Vic Brown: “I was very disturbed about the demonstration some of our local people gave for the German prisoners. I am certain plenty of the fellows from home felt the same way I did. A good citizen wouldn’t think of entertaining criminals. Much less war criminals with their records. These same men, beyond a doubt, have killed plenty of American boys. Let’s hope that demonstration on the part of the townspeople didn’t represent their attitude toward the crimes these men committed.”

Nov. 30, 1944 – Wilmer Gorske: “Many other men here read your paper and were interested in your prisoner of war articles. It caused lively discussion among us. The coddling of war prisoners is indeed a problem at present. We appreciated the fact that you faced the issue even though you have only a small-town newspaper.”

Dec. 7, 1944 – Edwin “Happy” Schultz: “Say what the he__ is going on there at home? What kind of people will I come home to? People who bake pies and cookies for Kraut PWs, listen to them sing war songs and cheer those b____ … I have been right where you take and give and have seen plenty of action. The old artillery sings me to sleep. Many a night when a person is so darn tired that no matter how much noise there is you still go to sleep in a fox hole, rain, mud and cold. Maybe that is what those people cheer about. But there had better not be any PW cheering when we boys come home, and we are coming.”

No prisoners were housed on the former Lawsonia grounds in 1945 as local servicemen returned home, but camps were set up in Markesan (Grand River Canning Company) and Ripon (Central Wisconsin Canning Company) for 637 and 555 prisoners, respectively, from June to October.

Russell Clark, of Princeton, shared his childhood memories of the PW’s on his father’s farm five miles north of Markesan with Cowley in 2002. The canning company provided raincoats to the PWs as they harvested the sweet corn in the rain on the Clarence Clark farm, Russell said. He also remembered the guards with guns in the field and at the viner, and he recalled food trucks bringing lunch to the prisoners out in the field.

A Ripon journalist noted that the 1945 PW’s “lacked the cockiness and arrogance of the group housed at Green Lake the previous year. Captured in recent campaigns in France and Germany, the PW’s interned this year knew the Allies had the upper hand in the war.”

Hobart departs

Both of Hobart’s sons survived the war, and William joined his father in the publishing/printing business. They sold the Times-Republic and Green Lake Reporter, which they founded in 1945, to Phil Norman in October 1949 and moved to California.

“We are so firmly attached to this community and have so many friends here that, regardless or wherever we may be, we shall always consider Princeton our hometown,” Hobart wrote in his farewell. “We have spent the most interesting years of our life in Princeton and right here we want to say thanks to all of you for making those years very pleasant for the writer and his family.”

Harry Hamilton Hobart died of cancer in October 1958 at age 75.

“Harry Hobart will be remembered in this community as one who was vitally interested in promoting Princeton’s advantages,” the Times-Republic reported. “He was president of the Service Club for many years and was keenly interested in baseball. In 1937 he was instrumental in our local team being the champions of the Central State League.”

Thank you for reading and caring about local history. Thank you, too, to Susan Hobart for the photo of her grandfather.

If you spot any errors or have additional information, please let me know.