I live on a former WWII army base in Bastrop Texas called Camp Swift. I have researched the history of the base over the past 20 years that I have lived here. There were about 50,000 US Army troops, 4,500 German POW's, and 300 Russian or Mongolian troops ( depending on the source you read ) You can get some information on Camp Swift by using the search engine Google or use the link
http://198.214.254.200/swift98/pows/pow.html and this shows pictures of the German POW's.
What I would love to find information on is the 300 Mongolians that were here. What became of them, why did they choose the German side, how did they get to Texas ect. ect. I am sure some government agency somewhere has a dusty box of files with this information but I don't have a clue as to how to research this. Could any of you offer some ideas ?
An interisting side fact that I found is the people who lived here before the war started were approched by the government and asked how much they made on their crops last year.(1940) What ever the amount it was, that is what they were paid and then told they had 30 days to get out. They got nothing for their house or land. And they got nothing back after the base closed in 1946.

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When the German Wehrmacht faced a menpower shortage, it began to employ s.c. "Osttruppen", consisting of volunteers from certain Soviet regions (Cossacks, Turkmenians, Georgians, Caucasians, "Volgs-Finns") who thought it would be a better idea to fight with the Wehrmacht for the independence of their respective countries.

However, it was quite impossible for the Germans to control that "zoo": Some units refused to fight against Red Army units which came from the same area, some just tried to gain semi-governmental control in "their" territory, some refused to obey orders from German officers, etc.

So finally most of this "Ost-Battalions" were deployed in France, where they became POWs en masse after D-Day. That's how they arrived in Texas, and I wonder fi they had been ever snet back to the USSR (were they most probably would end in the GUlag-system as traitors)?

Hope this helps, I'm sure Kai-Petri will dig out some www-stuff on this, too

P.S.: If you carefully watch "Saving Private Ryan", you will notice that one of the surrendering "Germans" on D-Day ain't talking German, but some slavic-sounding language.

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"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"
(President Merkin Muffley in "Dr. Strangelove")

Haa, Andy how did you know...??

"On D-Day, one in six German riflemen in France was from an Ost battalion." The allies had interpreters for German, but no one could speak these prisoners language.

Armenische Legion: established by an order of 30 December 1941, but not actually created until 4 July 1942 in the Generalgouvernement, to serve eastern units composed of Armenians. Troops of the legion and the Armenian eastern battalions wore the "Armenien" arm shield.

Aserbeidschanische Legion: created on 22 July 1942 by renaming the original Kaukasisch-Mohammedanische Legion to serve (Muslim) Azerbaijani eastern units. This legion was converted into the staff of Infanterie-Regiment 314 of the 162. Infanterie-Division (turk.) on 1 June 1943. Troops of the legion and the Azerbaijani eastern battalions wore one of the "Aserbeidschan" ("Aserbaidschan") arm shields, of which there were several designs.

Georgische Legion: established by an order from 30 December 1941, but not actually formed until 24 February 1942 in the Generalgouvernement, to serve Georgian eastern units. Troops of the legion and Georgian eastern battalions wore the "Georgien" arm shield.

Kaukasisch-Mohammedanische Legion: formed 24 March 1942 in Jedlnia in the Generalgouvernement from parts of the Turkestanisch-Kaukasisch-Mohammedanische Legion. Renamed Aserbeidschanische Legion on 22 July 1942.

Nordkaukasische Legion: formed 5 August 1942 at Truppenübungsplatz Rembertow in the Generalgouvernement to serve (Orthodox Christian) North Caucasian eastern units. Troops of the legion and North Caucasian eastern battalions wore either the "Nordkaukasien" arm shield, or after 1943, the "Bergkaukasien" design.

Turkestanisch-Kaukasisch-Mohammedanische Legion: formed on 13 January 1942 out of Abwehr-Unternehmen Tiger B, a special forces unit operated by Amt Ausland/Abwehr of the OKW, composed of Germans from Brandenburg-Regiment z.b.V. 800 and Caucasian volunteers from the POW camps. On 24 March 1942 the legion was broken up into three separate elements: verstärkt Turkestanisches Infanterie-Bataillon 450, the Kaukasisch-Mohammedanische Legion, and the Turkestanische Legion.

Turkestanische Legion: formed 24 March 1942 in the Generalgouvernement from parts of the Turkestanisch-Kaukasisch-Mohammedanische Legion, to serve Turkistani eastern units. Troops of the legion and Turkistani eastern units wore one of the three versions of the "Turkistan" arm shield.

Wolgatatarische Legion: formed in January 1942 in the Generalgouvernement to serve Volga-Tartar and Volga-Finn eastern units. Troops of the legion and Volga-Tartar/Finn eastern units wore one of the three versions of the "Idel-Ural" arm shield ("Idel" is the Tartar word for "Volga").

http://axis101.bizland.com/EasternVolunteers1.htm

http://www.softwhale.com/history/D-Day/GermanArmy.htm

http://www.angelraybooks.com/diewehrmacht/heer/ot.htm

[img]smile.gif[/img]

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German POW`s in USAEven today, it is surprising to some that there were prisoners of war in our South Louisiana area during World War II. Starting with the first shipment that arrived in July 1943, over 20,000 prisoners of war were distributed throughout Louisiana during the war with most of them being housed in "side camps". These smaller camps were located near rice, sugar cane and cotton fields.


Treatment of German POSs int he area was good. Here, a soccer team from one of the camps is pictured Courtesy Photo
Were there ever POW’s in South Louisiana? Yes! Donaldsonville, 1,146; Jeannerette, 860; Port Allen, 774; Franklin, 543; Thibodaux, 483; Houma, two camps, one on Woodlawn Ranch Road and one on St. Charles Street for a total of 444; St. Martinville, 372; Reserve, 359; Edgerly, 307; Youngsville, 306; Jennings, 290; Kaplan, 281; Eunice, 280; Rayne, 279; Arabi, 278; Mathews, 272; Lake Charles, 244; Hammond, 226; Bell City, 224; Lockport, 210; Gueydan, 198; Iowa, 178; Hahnville, 116; and Port Sulphur, 100. Algiers, Point a la Hache, Harahan, Simsport and Melville also had side camps.

Were there POW’s in South Louisiana? Yes! Except for 3,000 Italian POW’s at Camp Plauche, up the river from New Orleans in Harahan, all of the prisoners were Germans, mostly from Rommel’s famous Afrika Corps.

One of the most famous groups of POW’s came from the captured-at-sea U-505. Admiral Don Gallery came upon this unfortunate (they already had a "bad luck" reputation in the 2nd U-boat flotilla) submarine off the coast of Africa. He made the first capture at sea of an enemy warship since the War of 1812 The American crew that boarded U-505 managed to capture the now famous Enigma machine, the super secret German military encoding device.

In order to keep this fact secret, the U.S. Army Provost Marshall’s office kept the German crew completely isolated and incommunicado for the remainder of the war-no mail in, no mail out, complete censorship and separate quarters.

The most famous POW escape was at Pago Pago Park near Phoenix, Arizona. For months, the prisoners, mostly submariners, dug a 178-foot tunnel through rock and dirt. The escape group was led by Captain Jurgen Wattenberg of U-162. I tried to interview him in Hamburg when Gerald Adams of Houma, and I were there in 1978 but he said "I don’t speak to journalists!"

That escape ended with all 25 escapees being returned to camp... no place to go!

http://www.crt.state.la.us/crt/touri...icles/pows.htm

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This German LW vet wrote books about his wartime career and his internment and escape from an US POW camp....Or when he was in transit.

http://www.steinhilper.de/steinhilp/Ulrich.html

Recently I saw a book on this very subject (German POW in the US) in my discount bookstore. Will look if it is still there when I go there tomorrow or something.

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(banner by Otto)
www.basher82.nl

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http://www.pjstar.com/services/speci...ikashvili.html

Jun 27, 1999

Shalikashvili: A Peorian in the Pentagon

"If Gen. John Shalikashvili were ever to write his autobiography, the title would be: 'Only in America.'

'Where else could my story have happened?' asked Shalikashvili, who retired from the military and as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1997.

His is the classic immigrant success story: A 16-year-old war refugee leaves Germany with his family to travel across an ocean and half a country to arrive in Peoria in 1952. Here his family would receive help from the community, especially from the late George Luthy, a Peoria banker, and his family.

Here the young man would learn English watching one John Wayne movie after another at the Varsity Theater, then graduate with honors from Peoria High School in 1954.

And four years later, within a three-month span, it was here that Shalikashvili (pronounced sholly-kosh-vee-lee) would become a citizen of the United States, graduate from Bradley University with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and receive his military draft notice in the mail.

Only in America, said the retired four-star general, could a foreign-born young man with a thick accent and almost unpronounceable last name get drafted into the Army as a private, the lowest enlisted rank, and after a career of 39 years leave as the nation's highest-ranking military officer. ...

He was born on this date in 1936 in Warsaw, Poland, to Dimitri and Maria Shalikashvili, who came from prominent families. Dimitri was a cavalry officer who was trained at the military academy in Russia, and Maria was the daughter of a czarist general from St. Petersburg.

His parents were devoted supporters of the czar. After the fall of the czarist army during the Russian Revolution in 1917, Shalikashvili's parents fled their homes and eventually came to Warsaw in the 1920s. There they met, married and had three children: Othar, John and Gale.

The Germans occupied Warsaw from 1939 to 1944. ... To fight the communists, Shalikashvili's father would join the Georgian Legion, an expatriate unit of the German army. ...

'My father believed that a German victory over the Soviet Union would lead to freedom for Georgia (his native land) . . .' the general recalled.

'In the end the Germans didn't trust these expatriates to fight against the communists. And my father's unit ended up fighting on the Western Front (near Normandy in France).'

Dimitri Shalikashvili would be wounded during the Allied invasion and later would be captured by the British. ..."

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http://www.clw.org/coalition/n-testing051100.htm

The New York Times, May 8, 2000

"A Military Man's Soft-Sell Approach on Arms Control"

By ELIZABETH BECKER

"... For Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, a man with an intimate knowledge of war, there is a clear logic to his new assignment to persuade the Senate to reconsider a treaty ending underground nuclear tests.

As a Polish child fleeing the Red Army in Warsaw in 1944, a teenage refugee in Berlin, a young Army major in Vietnam, the supreme commander of NATO forces in the early years of the Bosnian war and then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the retired army general has seen war from nearly every possible vantage point.

'War has never been something theoretical for me or my family,' said General Shalikashvili, who commutes here from his retirement home on Puget Sound to act as the president's special adviser on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the Senate rejected last year.

He even survived the stomach-dropping experience of discovering that his family's war experience was darker than he had realized. In 1993, while he awaited Senate confirmation for the top military job, historical documents were uncovered showing that his deceased father, Dmitri Shalikashvili, had served in a German army unit commanded by the Waffen SS.

'To me, he was a kind and gentle man, and I loved him very much,' the general told the Senate panel on the day of his confirmation hearing. 'I'm deeply saddened that my father had this tragic association.' ..."

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http://www.motherjones.com/mother_jones/ND93/klein.html

Nativist Son

"As we head into the home stretch of 1993, California Governor Pete Wilson is emerging as a dark horse candidate for evil American politician of the year. ... To strip citizenship from the U.S.-born children of illegals (or to deprive them of public schooling, another Wilson suggestion) is not only unconstitutional, it's stupid. The few people discouraged from immigrating would be far outnumbered by those who would come anyway, but once here might feel they had no stake in a society where their families were permanently disenfranchised.

Wilson is attacking the American dream. Consider General Shalikashvili, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who immigrated here with his parents at age sixteen. The general's father served as a major in the German SS Waffen and lied about this when immigrating. A clear, documented violation. Punish the son, Wilson says. He would transform our legal principle of citizenship by soil to citizenship by blood. The German system. ..."

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http://www.mosquitonet.com/~prewett/rose176.html

"... Little know to the American taxpayers is the fact that the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs, Gen. John Shalikashvili visited the land of his father and asked Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze if he could re bury his Nazi father in the Caucasus Mountains, (AP May 24, 1995) along side the other Nazis. He transported that body on an American military aircraft. His father was a member of the brutal Waffen SS who emigrated to the United States in 1946 where he later became an American citizen. ..."

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http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/...4/nns94032.txt

NAVY NEWS SERVICE - 01 JUN 94

President to Attend D-Day Events on USS George Washington

"President Bill Clinton and a group of D-Day veterans will travel with the aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) across the English Channel to participate in the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of D-Day June 6.

Accompanying President Clinton will be ... Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff GEN John M. Shalikashvili. ...

The official ceremonies will begin with a sunrise memorial service on USS George Washington at sea off Omaha Beach and Pointe du Hoc, where Americans landed on D-Day.

The activities mark the June 6, 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy, the largest amphibious assault in history. Allied naval forces landed more than 200,000 troops and their equipment on the Normandy beaches in 48 hours, a feat that led to the liberation of Europe and is regarded as the turning point of World War II. ..."

[ 12. December 2002, 12:47 AM: Message edited by: Crapgame ]

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This information has been posted for non-commercial, educational, and research purposes.
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"The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." - Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 19, 1863
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"The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past." - William Faulkner

Well, what troubles me here is the fact that his father is so easily labeled a nazi. I think he fought for his country not for nazis. Not everyone fighting on the axis side were nazis!If they have other evidence than fighting in troops lead by Waffen-SS then...I believe the father wanted to believe the nazis would free his country but then again that´s not what the nazis thought in the first place!

The General might have "forgotten" to tell about this but I don´t think this is something he should pay for in justice. And by the way, remeber the huge communist trials in the late 1940´s and early 1950 in the USA, wasn´t that quite absurd...??

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Kai-Petri, when I read the posts on the subject of the 'Russians' in Normandy, I was reminded of news articles I had read long ago regarding Dimtri Shalikashvili, who fought against the Allies in Normandy in 1944, and John Shalikashvili, who spent the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, commemorating the Allied troops who had fallen there. I looked for information online, but unfortunately the few items I found left some gaps in the story. The following article provides a more detailed biography of Dmitri Shalikashvili. I found the second item while looking for information online regarding the Georgian Legion.

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New York Times,

08-28-93

General's father fought for Nazis: Family history not expected to block confirmation of Joint Chiefs nominee

"The father of Gen. John Shalikashvili, President Clinton's choice as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, fought in a Nazi organized unit commanded by the Waffen S.S., according to documents on file at Stanford University's Hoover Institute. ...

The background of General Shalikashvili's father, Dmitri Shalikashvili, is recounted in an English translation of his autobiography stored in the archives of the Hoover Institute. ...

In the manuscript, Dmitri Shalikashvili writes of enlisting in the Georgian Legion, a Nazi organized battalion of ethnic Georgians who fought on the German side during the invasion of Normandy. Dmitri Shalikashvili notes that in the latter stages of the war his unit came under the command of the Waffen S.S.

Elements of the S.S. were guilty of war crimes across Europe, but there is no indication that Dmitri Shalikahvili was involved in any of them. After World War II, the United States barred immigration by people who had been in the S.S. but Dmitri Shalikashvili and his family were admitted in 1952, after a relative in Peoria, Ill., George Luthy, swore in an affadavit that the family had no Nazi ties and was physically fit. ...

President Clinton nominated General Shalikashvili on Aug. 11. In presenting his candidate at a Rose Garden ceremony, the President spoke glowingly of the general's rise from immigrant to the nation's highest military post. 'Only in America,' Mr. Clinton had said.

The President gave this account of his background: 'In 1944, when he was 8 years old, his family fled in a cattle car westward to Germany in front of the Soviet advance. He came to the United States at the age of 16, settled in Peoria, Ill., and learned English from John Wayne movies so that he could take a full course load from his first day at school.'

Dmitri Shalikashvili's autobiography, written in Russian, dated 1966 and accompanied by a translation by his wife, Maria, fills in several imoprtant omissions in this story.

Born in Georgia, Dmitri Shalikashvili emigrated to Poland and fought in the Polish Army against German invaders in September 1939. A prisoner of war, he was released after entreaties from his wife, a Pole who had relatives in Germany. He became liasion officer for the Nazi organized Georgian Legion, a group of ethnic Georgians hoping to free their native land from Soviet domination.

His unit of the Georgian Legion never fought in Georgia, according to the manuscript, but was instead transferred to Normandy, where it was part of the German defenses before the Allies invaded in 1944. The manuscript refers to his unit's combat against the Allies after the invasion of Europe that began with D-Day.

After France was retaken, he was transferred back to Germany and attached to a newly organized Georgian battalion. The command was shifted from the regular German Army, or Wehrmacht, to the Waffen S.S. Hitler, he writes, no longer trusted the military after the attempt on his life and wanted the various nationalities firmly under the control of the S.S.

The autobiography speaks in glowing terms of the S.S. 'Everything was done with great efficiency,' he says, noting that the regular army officers did not appreciate the 'young breed of daring, often quite unorthodox officers of the S.S. who were keeping pace with changing times.'"

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http://www.hetopenboek.nl/htm/rebellion.htm

The Georgian rebellion on Texel

Dick van Reeuwijk

Paperback, 72 pag., met kaarten en foto's, 15 x 20,5 cm, € 10,75

Spring 1945. With the end of the Second World War in Europe in sight, nobody suspected that one of the bloodiest battles in the Netherlands had yet to take place. Or that once peaceful Texel would be plunged into misery. A detachment of 800 Georgians was encamped on Texel as auxiliaries in the German Army. They were Red Army soldiers captured on the Eastern Front in 1941 and enlisted by the Germans. In the beginning of April 1945, the Georgians were ordered to go into action against the advancing Allied troops. But before that could happen, they rebelled in operation Day of Birth on the night of April 5/6. Texel became Europe's last battlefield, which claimed the lives of hundreds of Germans, Georgians, and islanders. The fighting continued until May 20, 1945. The Texel tragedy, which was almost forgotten by the rest of the Netherlands, only ended with the arrival of Canadian forces on the island.

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For further information on the mutiny on Texel Island: http://www.ww2forums.com/cgi-bin/ubb...c;f=1;t=000511

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This information has been posted for non-commercial, educational, and research purposes.
- - - -
"The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." - Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 19, 1863
- - - -
"The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past." - William Faulkner