WWII POW letters spark nationwide media coverage
Two Lipscomb professors have sparked new national interest in a forgotten chapter of Tennessee's and America's history this summer.
Janel Shoun-Smith |
Click here to see a few samples of Beaman Library’s German POW letters
Click here to go to Beaman Library's Stribling Brock Collection
On Saturday, July 10, Nashville’s newspaper The Tennessean ran a story on a historical project of Lipscomb’s Beaman Library and Professors Charles McVey and Tim Johnson that generated nationwide coverage (re-posting in USA Today, on ABC.com, the Daily Mail in the U.K. and the Military Times) as well as hundreds of online conversations. All about a lesser known nugget of World War II history: German POW camps in America.
During the war, a German POW camp was located in Lawrenceburg, Tenn. The prisoners were contracted out to local farms as day laborers, and many of them got to know the locals quite well. When the war ended and the prisoners went home to Germany, they wrote letters to their American friends.
One Lawrenceburg family, the Brocks, kept the letters, and in the 1980s, one of their descendants found close to 400 letters stuffed in a corn flakes box. Curtis Peters, an in-law in the Brock family and an involved member of the Lawrenceburg Historical Society, kept the letters and made presentations on them for many years.
Then earlier this year, Peters happened to meet Johnson, who was doing his own historical research in the area, in a Lawrence County diner. The two found a deep common interest and Peters decided to donate the letters to Lipscomb.
This summer, McVey has been translating the letters, which are scheduled to be publicly featured at a library event on Sept. 10 celebrating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
See below for a sneak peak of a few of the letters translated into English.
A few letters from the Beaman Library special collection
Eugen Hirth
Eugen Hirth was the artist among the POWS; Curtis Peters has some of HIrth's artworks. In this letter the personal connections are evident several times over between this POW and not only the entire Brock family, but other people he knew and worked with. He recalls the variety of work he did; mentions receiving gifts gratefully; intimates the difficult condition of post-war Germany (such as difficult transfer between occupation zones, bad train connections, etc.), but has hope for the future. He asks for measurements so he can have a gift tablecloth made and sent to the Brocks in appreciation. -- Charles McVey
Malsch, August 29, 1948
Dear Brock family,
We happily received your lovely letter of August 14th. First of all, let me express my thanks for the blade sharpener from Mr. Boll. It is particularly valuable to me because I have to shave every morning and I have to be especially frugal with the few American razor blades I can get. That’s why I am especially thankful to Mr. Boll for it. Please convey to him my deepest thanks.
It’s quite unfortunate that we didn’t really get to know one another two years ago. Now, my dear Mrs. Brock, I would like to tell you about our visit with Mrs. Teichert and her sister. I had invited Mrs. Teichert to come because the possibility arose to make it feasible and she had gotten to know all of my relatives recently; on the other hand, it is also much nicer for a city dweller to get to make a jaunt out into the country every once in a while. For me, the city with her ruins is nothing special because I have to look at it every day. The day and time I left up to Mrs. Teichert and so it was decided that the 15th of August would be our much anticipated meeting. I waited at the train station for the ladies who were taking the early train, but unfortunately I had to return home again disappointed because they did not show up. I thought that quite possibly they failed to catch the connecting train in Karlsruhe. So I waited for them to arrive on the next train which would at any rate not come until 2 p.m. Because we live along the American-French zone border, our train service is not too good. We were, therefore, not very surprised when there came a sudden knock at the door at 10:30 a.m. the next morning and in walked our visitors. I need not write to you about the way Mrs. Teichert and her sister got here and the many detours they had to undergo. We were excited to get to know these people and we were surprised by what manner of people they were despite the horrors of war which they had dealt with, how they still possessed a sense of humor and joie de vivre.
Naturally we were thinking about you all the entire day, and I had so many episodes occur to me which took place while I was with you. First, the time I was cultivating under the peach trees being directed by Mr. Nord, then the time spent piling up compost with Sam. That’s when we got to know you for the first time, my dear Mrs. Brock, during the time spent working in the field and the garden, the repairing of the barns, the castrating of the male boars, bringing in the cows and chopping wood. Of course, I pictured a part of our daily interaction at mealtimes, conversations, and the countryside and people in general. To help them get a better idea of what I was talking about, I had the many photos from you all to show them. Your ears must have been burning the entire day because we spoke the whole time about you all! And the time we spent with them just flew by! Then at 2 p.m. they had to leave us, again, in order to catch a connecting train in Mannheim. You will have already heard all about that from Mrs. Teichert.
My dear Mrs. Brock, you wrote in your letter what the measurement of the table was, however, to us the size was so large as to make the measurements you gave seem unlikely. Please be so good as to write again and let us know how large a tablecloth you would like.
It was with much joy that I learnt through your lines of the horse trade, the wood sale and the news of Heinrich, who would like to marry soon! I wish him every happiness! With me nothing special has been going on. I have but one goal now and that is to strive night and day to obtain my own practice. Now it’s twice as hard to establish one’s own practice. The prices for the equipment have gotten so high that it’s nearly impossible to procure such equipment, let alone having any prospects for the practice itself. When one puts all that in perspective, it makes me really anxious about the future. I ask myself every day whether I can manage it under these circumstances. When bosses with old established practices and lots of life experience have to eke by, how much harder will it be for those of us just starting out?
Well, I have written a rather long letter here and it is already getting very late. Another letter from you has even shown up actually from the 22nd of August in which you write of the visit from Mrs. Teichert. Now I have to draw this to a close because in the meantime midnight has come and gone and for me the night is over by 5:30 a.m. So allow me to take my leave for now with the best of wishes and many warm greetings,
Yours,
Eugen Hirth
P.S. I also send greetings to Mr. Stribling, Ms. Margarete, Mr. Brock’s brother, Mr. Nord, and all the others I knew.
“Anna” Knipp and Johann Vaculik
Johann Vaculik was obviously not one of the inner circle’of POWS that worked for the Brocks, but certainly one of the many other POWs, all of whom benefited from the kindness of the Brock family. He shares his own aspirations, wedding plans (with a very interesting assessment of his bride to be) as well as interesting political views on the Marshall Plan (which really did help Germany revive economically) and on the danger of Russia, etc. The parson, Mr. Boll, was one of the Lawrenceburg residents who translated some German letters from the POWs into English for the Brocks.
Fuerstenberg, 10 April 1948
Dear Brock family,
To begin my correspondence, I, as your unknown friend, Johann Vaculik, send you many warm greetings from Germany. I have waited quite a while for some sign of life from you all, but unfortunately I received none. I hope that nothing unfortunate has happened to you and trust that this letter finds you in healthy circumstances. Excuse me, please, if I am troubling you over this, but I consider it to be understood and my duty for the time being to reciprocate with at least a few lines and the extension of good and loyal friendship for what you have done for me.
I am healthy for now, and from the bottom of my heart, I wish the same for all of you! Winter is finally over and the long-awaited Spring is here again. Things are getting underway on the farm, too. Springtime always brings a lot of work to do, causing people and Nature to have to adapt. We hope and pray to God that this year also our work and efforts will be blest by Him. Because it is upon the soil that all people on this Earth are dependent.
In this region, the farmers are already hard at work. Where you are, they are probably a bit further along, since Winter there has likely been over quite a while by now. Here, though, the crops aren’t looking so good. The wild pigs got into the freshly sown fields and rooted everything up. Where the red deer are concerned, things are also doing poorly. Hunting isn’t exactly permitted here yet, and the gun permit issue hasn’t yet been sorted out. It looks rather bleak.
At Easter I was able to spend a good bit of time with my bride-to-be. I believe that probably in 2 or 3 months, well, certainly by the end of this year, I’ll be taking an important step forward in my life, namely, getting married. The timing isn’t decided yet. But what will I do if I stay a bachelor? With my bride, I won’t come off as a loser, and she is willing to stand by me through everything whether in joy or sorrow. I believe, too, that in whatever I pursue to better my life, she will bring me no hindrance. She is of the mind to be helpful, very diligent and ambitious, and she’s conscientious. Hopefully it will all come together quite well.
Of course, every new beginning is difficult, especially in these times of such a recession where a person can hardly provide for himself and is always having to rely upon strangers. But in the end, there is nothing one can do about it. We hold the view, however, that when the Marshall Plan is pushed through, it will help us some. That keeps bringing us a good ray of hope.
I believe that the European problems are drawing a lot of attention where you are as well. You are also possibly better aware of it as I explained some of what was happening in my former homeland, the Czech Republic, for example. Hopefully these speculations will soon be over. And as a direct result of this Marshall Plan, we’ll see the blocking of any further inroads of Bolshevism and Communism. We’ve become familiar with Russia. God protect us from it! It would be best if the former POWs or those returning home from Russia right now could explain it to you. But we hope the Lord God is with us.
Now I have finally decided to allow myself to be photographed. I am not rightly very happy about it, but to have it done a second time, I really can’t bear! However, the person in this picture is really me. Because you don’t really know me and probably can’t imagine my appearance, I would like to send this to you to remember me by.
Let me add that I would like to wish all of you a very pleasant Whit-Sunday holiday! And the same is wished to our parson, Mr. Boll. My fiancée wants to wish you all fond greetings and a good holiday as well.
Once again, many greetings,
From “Anna” Knipp and Johann Vaculik from Germany
Gottfried and Maria Rest
The strong positive personal connection really comes through in this letter, sharing memories of life in Tennessee working on the Brock’s farm. The wtiers talk of their time in the POW camp as "when we were staying with you all’." The express gratitude for letters and gifts and mention that other Lawrenceburg residents were sending items to members of Gottfried’s famil. It is obvious that once these POWS were scattered back in Europe they turned to the Brocks to learn news about each other. They also express their overwhelming desire to move to America—and not just to get away from Germany, but because of the warm relationship with the people of southern Tennessee. – Charles McVey
Sattendorf 22 November 1947
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Brock,
Your lovely letter from November 2nd was thankfully received with much happiness. We were happy to know that you received our letter also. Dear friends, we must thank you very much for the pictures which you sent us. They are very good – we almost didn’t recognize you, Mrs. Brock! You look so much better and much younger than you actually are! Also, Mr. Brock looks really good on the horse. That is most definitely the same horse he bought at the time when we were staying with you all.
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Brock, we are most thankful to you for the clothing you sent off to us. We are in dire need of such things! It is also very nice of Mr. Locke to be thinking of us in these tough times. I wrote a letter today to Mr. Locke and I hope he will receive it without any trouble. I have never in my life come across such good people as you all, or for that matter, such good people as those in Lawrenceburg. I would return to Lawrenceburg immediately! You even said when we were over there living with you all that we should come back again to America and I would come right away if you were to write to me and invite me to come. My wife also would like very much to come to America. That’s actually her greatest wish. We’d like nothing better than to have just enough to live on.
My sister also intends to write a letter to Mrs. E.V. Russell. She’s very happy, too, to receive something for her small child.
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Brock, how have things been going for you all? How is the weather where you are? Have you had any snowfall yet? Where we are it has snowed twice already, but the snow has already melted away.
Now Heinrich and Erich are able to return home to their parents. Where is Helmut now? Gustav will be happy also once he can drive a car again. He always liked doing that.
Now I’m coming to the end of my letter and I hope you can read it. This is such lousy paper that made the ink run so badly.
Greetings to you many thousand times over and once again thank you very very much!
Yours,
Gottfried and Maria Rest