POWs in the Media

German POWs during World War II had a lasting impact on Louisiana and the United States. These stories live on through books, films and plays.

Books about Louisiana

Fish Out of Water

A book about Nazi submariners as prisoners in North Louisiana during World War II.

WWII in the Gulf of Mexico

C.J. Christ’s research into the German U-boat menace in the Gulf of Mexico during World War II.

German POWS in Books

The Barbed-Wire College: Reeducating German POWs in the United States During World War II

Ron Robin

The Faustball Tunnel: German POWs in America and Their Great Escape

John Hammond Moore

The Fifteen: Murder, Retribution, and the Forgotten Story of Nazi POWs in America

William Geroux

German POWs, Der Ruf, and the Genesis of Group 47: The Political Journey of Alfred Andersch and Hans Werner Richter

Aaron D. Horton

Guests Behind the Barbed Wire

Ruth Beaumont Cook

My Journey of Captivity: The Story of a German POW

Helga McKee

Nazi POWs in the Tar Heel State

Robert D. Billinger Jr.

Nazi Prisoners of War in America

Arnold Krammer

Secrets of a German POW: The Capture and Interrogation of Hauptmann Herbert Clef

Brian Brinkworth

War, Spies & Bobby Sox (The Saga Series)

Libby Fischer Hellmann

German POWS in Film

Fort McCoy

2011 Film: A drama based on a true story when the Stirn family lived next to a Nazi POW camp in Wisconsin during W.W.II.

Camp Confidential: America's Secret Nazis

2021 Animated Short: WWII vets reveal a secret US military camp near Washington where Jewish soldiers hosted and interrogated Nazi POWs.

The Front

2018 Film: By the end of World War II, Frank Aldridge, a war correspondent sent by the United Nations, interviews German prisoners in an allied camp.

Splinters of a Nation

2016 Documentary: The story of German POWs Utah.

Decision Before Dawn

1951 Film: As the US Army approaches Nazi Germany, they recruit German prisoners of war to spy behind German lines.

The Enemy in Our Midst

2004 Documentary: Nazi Prisoner of War Camps in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

History Detectives

2005 Season 3, Episode 2: Investigates a German POW camp in Texas.

Back in Time: Oklahoma's Nazi Prisoners

2025 Season 14, Episode 3: During World War II, 22,000 captured German soldiers were held captive in Oklahoma.

Beets

Play: Farmers using German POW to help grow crops in Colorado. Original premiere in 2009