Germans Held in Internment Camps Like Japanese Americans?

Just wondered what the history is on Germans and/or German-Americans being held in internment camps similar to the Japanese-Americans that were rounded up and interred during WWII?

Estimates are that 110,000-120,000 Japanese-Americans were interred in US internment camps across the country prior to and during WWII. I cannot find any information about what was done to Germans and/or German-Americans here in the country in similar situation to the Japanese here.

Heres a Wiki on it:
en.wikipedia.org...

Japanese American Internment was the forced removal of approximately 120,000[1] Japanese and Japanese Americans (62 percent of whom were United States citizens)[2][3] from the West Coast of the United States during World War II. While approximately 10,000 were able to relocate to other parts of the country, the remainder – roughly 110,000 men, women and other people – were sent to hastily constructed camps called "War Relocation Centers" in remote portions of the nation's interior.

President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the internment with Executive Order 9066, which allowed local military commanders to designate "military areas" as "exclusion zones", from which "any or all persons may be excluded." This power was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the entire Pacific coast, including all of California and most of Oregon and Washington, except for those in internment camps.[4] In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the exclusion, removal, and detention, arguing that it is permissible to curtail the civil rights of a racial group when there is a "pressing public necessity."[5]

Some compensation for property losses was paid in 1948, but most internees were unable to fully recover their losses.[3] In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government. The legislation stated that government actions were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership",[6] and beginning in 1990, the government paid reparations to surviving internees.

Now the executive order issued by FDR allowed for the internment of

Nisei (American-born, second-generation Japanese American) or Sansei (third-generation Japanese American) and the rest were Issei (Japanese immigrants and resident aliens, first-generation Japanese American).

as well as any other Japanese that were present in the US.

Can this happen to other ethnic groups in the USA at the present time? What ethnic groups would be interred possibly if a new war were to occur? Or are we in fact in a new war, a WWIII right now?


[edit on 2-5-2007 by greatlakes]

That is a scary thought and I plan to be self sufficent if or when either a manmade or natural disaster strikes. It is wise to keep all of your papers in order to prove who you are and what you own where you live, and above all else do not rely on the gov. for anything. Now most evryone has seen these pictures but there are alot of new people to the information network who have not. I cannot prove or disprove this information but I for one do not want to find out . We learned a great deal from the Tsunami and Katrina, and people are still suffering from severe weather over the winter, but you cannot rely on the gov. I think that the helpless and the unprepared will be the ones put into the next concentration camps. Elderly, disabled, poor, homeless (anyone can lose their home) people in chosen cities or entire neighborhoods,you name it. Here is the link to the FEMA Camps; www.freedomfiles.org...

It's very disturbing, but the Supreme Court did hold in Korematsu v. United States that internments of people who are deemed as a class to have a high chance of being spies because of national origin in the case of war is legal. Unless the Supreme Court changes its mind, such detentions could once again be legally ordered.

en.wikipedia.org...

When I was stationed in Germany, my last days there back in the 80's me and one of my buddies were relaxing a bit from clearing the post, we happened to go to a nearby park and consume some beers while hiding away in uniform killing some time, anyhow while sitting there an old german guy who looked like he was homeless and very poor approached, he looked at us and we looked at him and then he struck up conversation.
He spoke in very broken English he went on to start telling us this story after small talking, which btw cannot be confirmed but he told us that he was once in the the Luftwaffe and he was a paratrooper, he got captured by the United States and spent time in a prison of war camp at Fort Carson Colorado and he gave more details that aren't really relevant so I won't mention, now to me this was interesting because prior to Germany I was once stationed there...I asked a few people either from Colorado or that were older if they knew about a POW camp there, no one could really confirm, but if this were true then yes there is a possibility that there could have been camps for others that might be German or Nazi that were in the U.S.

I post this thread partly because I always knew about the Japanese Americans (J-A) held illegally (now not then) but never heard anything about German-Americans (G-A) being interred. I find this strange, as I'm sure their were millions of G-A people that emigrated from Germany before WWII in the USA. Many more G-A that J-A I would assume.

I would also assume that G-A's people would pose more of a threat in the eyes of the Americans during that period of time, or at least an equal threat.

There were definitely hundreds of thousands of German POWs held in the US during the war, I'm sure it wouldn't take too much to find out if any of the camps were in that area of Colorado. I remember a long time ago seeing a documentary about some German guys who escaped from a camp somewhere in the southwest and plotted their escape route on a map stolen from a jeep... they had somehow gotten a raft and everything set up, only to be disappointed when they got to the "river" they saw on the map was actually a dry riverbed .

But the interrment of the Japanese Americans along the west coast was due to concerns that they were signalling ships/subs from shore if I recall correctly. I'm sure that was at least part of the reasoning. I don't know if there were similar concerns for the east coast and German Americans signalling German vessels (esp. taking into account the population density and amount of activity of the east coast versus west.) However, it's rather clear that the US mainland was very unlikely to be attacked on the east coast. If I recall correctly, the Japanese did manage to attack the west coast of the mainland (explosive-laden balloons or something, we have plenty of folks here who could provide better insight onto that though.)

Another problem, like noted, is that there were many times more German American immigrants than Japanese. Also, you can't satisfactorily discern the difference between a German and any other person of European descent appearance-wise with any real degree of accuracy - as a professor of mine used to say, "It's much harder to fight a war when 'they' look like 'us'." Not to sound insensitive, but it's just much easier to round up all the Asian-looking people, and I know there were numerous lawsuits filed on behalf of immigrants of Korean and Chinese descent who were mistakenly interred.

I do recall seeing a movie based in fact about German POWS at a camp somewhere in the Southern states Mississippi basin area.

I also know that the FBI intercepted communications to Japanese spies on the West coast, but could not identify all members of the ring. That was why the entire Japanese population was interred. Note it did not include Japanese on the East coast.

In times of war there is no room for peace time niceties. What would be an illegal denial of human rights in peace time might be a necessary act of self defence in war. Several of the interred Japanese joined the armed forces and fought in the Pacific. The issue was to prevent spying.

I think that there may be a difference between the two terms, Prisoner of War (POW) and the Interned at Internment camps during WWII.

Not sure what the distinction clearly defined is, but pow's seem to be persons actually found to be in collusion with the enemy, or captured soldiers actually in the German (or Japanese) military. Whereas the internment camps imprisoned peoples that were suspected of POSSIBLY acting with the enemy, never actually any evidence to support the collusion.

There were many German POW's captured in combat and sent to POW camps in the U.S.

They were sent to the U.S. rather than keeping them in Britain and shipping food and supplies for both the prisoners and the allied armies across the ocean.

This is different than internment of American citizens of German ancestry. Think of Roosevelt and Eisenhower -- they both had German ancestry.


German military POWs were very well treated in the U.S. In the latter stages of the war they had better access to medical care and better diets than the still free German citizens at home. And were safer.

Unlike their allied POW counterparts in Europe, escaped prisoners were not punished when caught. The Americans considered it a soldier's honorable duty to try and escape and respected the attempts. After capture they were simply returned to the camp without repercussions or punishment. Several did escape (including one mass escape in Arizona that was similar to the true story of the movie 'The Great Escape'); however, all were caught in a few days.

Yeah I do know the difference between interned citizens and POWs. I have never heard of German internees, however it would be logical that there should have been some.

There was a strong German population with clear sympathies for the Nazis. Indeed though Rockerfeller and Ford were strongly pro Nazi during the war too so where does it begin and end ?

There are equally stories of Americans of German descent who went to Europe and fought on the Allied side. Some went to Germany via Spain to fight for Hitler.

My understanding of the japanese internees was that there was specific reason to suspect spies and sabatouers on the US West coast.

Post Script:

I just googled to get the answer. Of the huge German population in USA, only 11,000 were interned during WW2 and that was bolstered by 4,500 Germans arrested in Latin America.

Of these 2000 were exchanged with Nazi Germany for US citizens interned in Germany (probably via Spain).

[edit on 3-5-2007 by sy.gunson]

What I think may have occurred is that the German-Amer. had ancestral ties within the US, either within business, government or both and this fact setup a double standard in internment practices. The Japanese-Amer. did not have these ties to USA that would have prevented the situation from occurring.

Greatlakes, some info is here
German internment
and here
US Congress

Yes, J-A were rounded up wholesale, whereas G-A were more on an individual basis.

Good thread.

A book worth reading is RONALD NEWTON, The "Nazi" Menace in Argentina,1931-1947, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992.

This details how active German agents were in argentina and mexico during WW2. The Spanish secret service also had an active spy chain working for the Japanese, which General Peron was associated with. The japanese in particular penetrated Los Alamos and knew all about the Manhatten project.

When Paris was liberated, the offices of a Vichy scientific magazine called "cellastic" were captured. In that office they found telphone transcripts of calls made by general Leslie Groves in charge of the Manhatten project. The Nazis also knew all about Manhatten.

I once knew a girl whose grandfather was from Germany and was interned during WW1, along with many other German immigrants. Interestingly, she said some were subject to involuntary medical eperimentation during their confinement, though I've never heard anything to confirm that.

ps
Many Italian-Americans were also interred during WW2.

I don't think German-Americans were considered as big a threat to the US as Japanese-Americans. After Pearl Harbour, it was feared that the Japanese were preparing to launch a full-scale assault on the West Coast of America source. It was deemed necessary to intern Japanese civilians because of the risk of sabotage/espionage. However, Germany was never considered a direct threat to the US and German-Americans had a good history of integration.

[edit on 4-5-2007 by Cthulwho]

[edit on 4-5-2007 by Cthulwho]