Fort Meade Maryland Internment Camp
"Fort Meade is home to more than 90 support organizations from all four armed services, ranging from the National Security Agency to the renowned U.S. Army Field Band. Centrally located between the major metropolitan areas of Baltimore and Washington, D.C., Fort Meade, MD has grown over the years into a military and social destination, serving every possible need of modern military personnel." [http://meade.corviasmilitaryliving.com/]
Fort Meade's forgotten history: Japanese, Germans and Italians interned there during World War II
Capital Gazette - The stone ashtray marked “Seagoville” was a place to throw paper
clips in the family home — and John Heitmann’s first clue his father had
a secret he took to the grave.
Heitmann’s quest for the truth led him to the National Archives, where he discovered Alfred Heitmann’s secret: He spent World War II in internment camps, including one at Fort George G. Meade, and also a family camp in Seagoville, Texas, a suburb of Dallas.
Fort Meade Prisoners of War
Prisoners of war sewing clothing in an internment building on the grounds of Fort George G. Meade.
Many are stories of shame and fear.
Allowed only what they could carry, they ended up inside confined quarters, still professing their loyalty to the United States. File after file at the National Archives reveals their attempts to be reunited with families and their frustration at being branded traitors.
Mueller, who lives in Catonsville, says her father’s last words to her on his deathbed started her search for the truth.
Many of the drawings in his suitcase were of internment camps, such as the one at Fort Meade, Houser says.
Development of Maryland’s POW Program
In the first stage, which lasted from December 1941 to the end of 1943, the provost marshal’s office of the War Department, which was in charge of the national POW program, established that one guard would need to supervise every two or three prisoners. The office was largely concerned with escape attempts and prisoners becoming hostile towards guards and each other.
It was during this stage that the provost marshal’s office established its Maryland installation at Fort George G. Meade, located at the juncture of Anne Arundel, Howard, and Prince George’s counties. Fort Meade received permission to start holding prisoners on September 15, 1942, and initially held Axis-country civilians who were trapped in the U.S. after the war erupted.
POW Camp at Fort George G. Meade
Heitmann’s quest for the truth led him to the National Archives, where he discovered Alfred Heitmann’s secret: He spent World War II in internment camps, including one at Fort George G. Meade, and also a family camp in Seagoville, Texas, a suburb of Dallas.
“When I was at Johns Hopkins University, we even drove past Fort Meade. He never said a thing,” says Heitmann, now a university professor in Dayton, Ohio. Neither did his mother.
Heitmann’s story is a
common one among the descendants of European immigrants labeled threats
to national security after the United States entered World War II.
Fort Meade Prisoners of War
Prisoners of war sewing clothing in an internment building on the grounds of Fort George G. Meade.
Many are stories of shame and fear.
For seven decades Fort
Meade’s internment camp has been kept a secret, both to many of the
families of those imprisoned there and to the public.
The Army post’s website
doesn’t mention the 30-acre facility that housed hundreds of Japanese,
Germans and Italians, most of whom had built successful lives in this
country but had not yet become citizens.
The National Archives,
however, records the stories of men pulled from their families at
gunpoint and denied due process by local Alien Hearing Boards that
sentenced them to prison camps.
They were not given a
trial, informed about their accusers, presented with the evidence
against them or afforded legal representation. When the hearing boards
met, the FBI unveiled often-preposterous claims originating from
disgruntled business partners, angry neighbors and jilted lovers.
It didn’t take much to
convince these local boards that 120,000 Japanese, 11,000 Germans and
3,000 Italians were a threat to the country they called home. Some —
more than 2,700 Germans alone — were returned to their native countries
against their will in exchange for Americans imprisoned abroad.
Others were sent to camps like the one at Fort Meade.
Fort Meade Prisoners of War
A sketch of the grounds drawn by German internee Paul Lameyer during his confinement at Fort George G. Meade. The water tower is still standing.
Fort Meade Prisoners of War
A sketch of the grounds drawn by German internee Paul Lameyer during his confinement at Fort George G. Meade. The water tower is still standing.
Allowed only what they could carry, they ended up inside confined quarters, still professing their loyalty to the United States. File after file at the National Archives reveals their attempts to be reunited with families and their frustration at being branded traitors.
One such story is told in
memos by Iwajiro Noda, who immigrated from Japan to New York City in
1917 and married an American woman. He owned a profitable business,
Japan Cotton and Silk Trading Co., and had fathered a daughter who was
attending Goucher College in Baltimore when the United States joined the
war.
He was handcuffed and
taken to Ellis Island — the East Coast processing center for internees,
and, ironically, the place where many of the same immigrants had gotten
their first taste of democracy.
Noda ended up at Fort
Meade, where he wrote of his “loyalty to the United States of America, I
being a firm believer in American way of life, and also because I owe a
great deal to this country ...
“I have been a strictly law-abiding resident of this country, always having never engaged in any activity whatsoever inimical to the interest of USA, and further it is my earnest desire to remain so all through the future.”
He begged to be released
because “the present state is undermining the health of my wife, who has
been forced to receive constant medical care.”
His plea fell on deaf ears. In April 1942, Noda was forced to liquidate his trading company after his bank account was frozen.
Nonetheless, he initially
declined repatriation to Japan. But one year later he gave up his dream
of living in America and sought to return to his native Japan without
his family.
The attention given to
the plight of Japanese-Americans during the war has overshadowed the
similar plight of German and Italian immigrants, something Randy Houser
and Cornelia Mueller are beginning to understand.
Their families kept
secret the story of relatives who were in the internment camps — a story
they are uncovering only now, through extensive research. They and
others are pooling their resources to finally share the story with the
public.
Courtesy of Randy Houser
Fort Meade Prisoners of War
A line of tents that housed internees or prisoners of war at Fort George G. Meade during World War II.
Courtesy of Randy Houser
Fort Meade Prisoners of War
A line of tents that housed internees or prisoners of war at Fort George G. Meade during World War II.
Mueller, who lives in Catonsville, says her father’s last words to her on his deathbed started her search for the truth.
At the National Archives,
she discovered that he was drafted into the U.S. Army at the start of
the war, but declared an enemy alien when he said he couldn’t fight the
Germans.
“He had family there,” Mueller says. “But it was the wrong answer.”
The files, she says, show
he was threatened by government authorities who told him to never speak
of his experience in the internment camps — a promise he and others
kept to their deaths, out of fear of being re-imprisoned.
Mueller thinks the
threats were intended to keep the information from reaching the enemy,
who held American prisoners. But former internees refused to talk about
their experience even long after the war ended.
Houser’s grandfather, Paul Lameyer, who immigrated to the United States in 1925, had been disowned by his family.
A successful architect,
he had lost his job during the Great Depression and split up from his
wife. When the FBI began to round up immigrants, his family, according
to what Houser dug up at the National Archives, eagerly provided false
information.
Houser, a former
Annapolis businessman who now lives in Charleston, S.C., says his mother
remembers that when she was 13, her father returned to their house
after the war ended. “He had a suitcase full of drawings, but she (her
mother) wouldn’t take him in,” Houser says.
Lameyer returned alone to Germany, where he died at age 61.
Courtesy of Randy Houser
Fort Meade Prisoners of War
A sketch of the internee dining hall drawn by internee Paul Lameyer during his confinement at Fort George G. Meade during World War II.
Courtesy of Randy Houser
Fort Meade Prisoners of War
A sketch of the internee dining hall drawn by internee Paul Lameyer during his confinement at Fort George G. Meade during World War II.
Many of the drawings in his suitcase were of internment camps, such as the one at Fort Meade, Houser says.
Bob Johnson, Fort Meade’s
historian, thinks the internees were treated worse than prisoners of
war because they knew the language and were more of a threat if they
escaped. Most of the POWs couldn’t speak English and couldn’t easily
blend in with the civilian population.
The Japanese internees
were allowed to wear civilian clothes, but the Germans and Italians were
issued tea-green khakis with “P.W.” on the back.
Many of these internees
had been affluent. Now they had to make do with one winter coat and two
pairs of military boots. They were assigned to five-men tents — or
“hutments” — reinforced with wooden walls. A Sibley stove in the center
was the only source of heat; a 40-watt bulb the only source of light.
The camp was guarded by
soldiers on 30-foot towers who were armed with shotguns and Thompson
submachine guns. An internal memo raised concerns that any gunfire could
easily hit the well-traveled road on the west side of the fort, but the
soldiers won the argument and got even more firepower.
One document in the
archives reveals that an internee was wounded by a stray bullet fired by
an American soldier on a nearby firing range.
Internees were allowed to
send two letters a week to five people they designated. All letters
were censored and had to be “clear in meaning” and not of “inordinate
length.” Censors arbitrarily edited “ambiguous” language and delayed
delivery for weeks.
If visitors could afford
the long train ride to Fort Meade, they were allowed 25-minute meetings
twice a week. They had to speak in English. Few came.
Doctors found that nine arriving Japanese internees had syphilis, but there was no isolated infirmary in which to treat them.
The internees were
incarcerated until the end of the war. It wasn’t until 1948 that the
last ones — Germans — were released from a camp on Ellis Island. Even
then they were on probation for a year and prohibited from owning radios
and weapons.
Homes and businesses were
lost and families separated. Some of the former internees died as
paupers or returned empty-handed to their native countries.
Only the Japanese were given reparations: $20,000 each.
In 1988, Congress and
President Ronald Reagan formally apologized for how the Japanese had
been treated. Nothing, however, was said about Germans and Italians who
had suffered the same injustice.
More photos
In Maryland, the POW camp program was initially developed in three overlapping phases: planning for security and escape prevention, how to benefit from the work of the POWS, and later, developing a program of political rehabilitation.
More photos
Maryland's World War II POW Labor System
In Maryland, the POW camp program was initially developed in three overlapping phases: planning for security and escape prevention, how to benefit from the work of the POWS, and later, developing a program of political rehabilitation.
Development of Maryland’s POW Program
In the first stage, which lasted from December 1941 to the end of 1943, the provost marshal’s office of the War Department, which was in charge of the national POW program, established that one guard would need to supervise every two or three prisoners. The office was largely concerned with escape attempts and prisoners becoming hostile towards guards and each other.
It was during this stage that the provost marshal’s office established its Maryland installation at Fort George G. Meade, located at the juncture of Anne Arundel, Howard, and Prince George’s counties. Fort Meade received permission to start holding prisoners on September 15, 1942, and initially held Axis-country civilians who were trapped in the U.S. after the war erupted.
POW Camp at Fort George G. Meade
Starting
in September 1943 until July 1946, Fort Meade served as the main POW
camp in Maryland with a capacity of 1,680 prisoners. When it officially
began holding prisoners in 1943, Fort Meade held mostly Italians and a
few German POWs, until May 1944 when it officially became a German POW
camp. Most of the POWs captured and brought to Maryland were Wehrmacht
(army) personnel, though there were also some soldiers from the
Luftwaffe (air force) and the navy.
Around 1943, pressure began to build on the War Department to loosen up some of its POW security policies. Local farmers, businesses, and manufacturers—due to extreme labor shortages—began to suggest that the POWs be allowed outside of Fort Meade to work for them.
Maryland POWs as Local Laborers
Around 1943, pressure began to build on the War Department to loosen up some of its POW security policies. Local farmers, businesses, and manufacturers—due to extreme labor shortages—began to suggest that the POWs be allowed outside of Fort Meade to work for them.
Maryland POWs as Local Laborers
As
a result, in June 1943 authorization was given to Fort Meade for
limited agricultural employment, but the War Department was unwilling to
allow the soldiers outside of the camp. Five months later, as
desperation for workers continued to grow, approval was given for the
establishment of new German POW camps in Maryland.
In February 1944, at a military-civilian conference held in Dallas, Texas, the War Department formalized the change in its security policy and the construction of 18 additional POW camps began. These camps would employ workers in various agricultural and industrial activities in Maryland under the terms of the Geneva Convention, which according to Richard E. Holl in “Axis Prisoners of War in the Free State, 1943-1946,” stated that “captured enemy officers could not be compelled to work and that non-commissioned officers could only supervise," and that enlisted men could work any job except one “demeaning, degrading, or directly related to the war effort.”
According to Charles P. Wales—who served as a guard at Camp Frederick in Frederick, Maryland from September 1945 to spring 1946—in “P.W. Branch Camp #6: A Photo Essay,” many of the prisoners who decided to work outside the camp were prompted by boredom.
By August of 1945, over 4,000 POWs in Maryland were laboring for the army or navy, and 6,000 for civilian contractors. Most prisoners worked within the camps at camp bakeries, canteens, hospitals, or laundries. Others dug ditches, built roads, and managed lawns. Farmers could apply for extra prisoners through the Department of Agriculture’s War Food Administration, while manufacturers had to go through the War Manpower Commission to receive prisoner labor.
Benefits of POW Labor in Maryland
In February 1944, at a military-civilian conference held in Dallas, Texas, the War Department formalized the change in its security policy and the construction of 18 additional POW camps began. These camps would employ workers in various agricultural and industrial activities in Maryland under the terms of the Geneva Convention, which according to Richard E. Holl in “Axis Prisoners of War in the Free State, 1943-1946,” stated that “captured enemy officers could not be compelled to work and that non-commissioned officers could only supervise," and that enlisted men could work any job except one “demeaning, degrading, or directly related to the war effort.”
According to Charles P. Wales—who served as a guard at Camp Frederick in Frederick, Maryland from September 1945 to spring 1946—in “P.W. Branch Camp #6: A Photo Essay,” many of the prisoners who decided to work outside the camp were prompted by boredom.
By August of 1945, over 4,000 POWs in Maryland were laboring for the army or navy, and 6,000 for civilian contractors. Most prisoners worked within the camps at camp bakeries, canteens, hospitals, or laundries. Others dug ditches, built roads, and managed lawns. Farmers could apply for extra prisoners through the Department of Agriculture’s War Food Administration, while manufacturers had to go through the War Manpower Commission to receive prisoner labor.
Benefits of POW Labor in Maryland
Not
only did the Maryland treasury benefit from POW labor, but prisoner
labor created a 35 percent increase in Maryland’s tomato crop in 1945
alone. A 40 percent increase in Maryland’s overall agricultural
productivity during the war years was also attributed to the work of
German POWs. From June to December 1945, German and Italian POWs in
Maryland saved the U.S government about five million dollars.
•Edgewood Arsenal (Chemical Warfare Center), Gunpowder, Baltimore County, MD (base camp)
•Holabird Signal Depot, Baltimore, Baltimore County, MD (base camp)
•Hunt (Fort), Sheridan Point, Calvert County, MD (base camp)
•Meade (Fort George G.), near Odenton, Anne Arundel County, MD (base camp)
•Somerset (Camp), Westover, Somerset County, MD (base camp)
Enemy alien internment camp:
•Howard (Fort), Baltimore County, MD (German, Italian)
•Meade (Fort George G.), near Odenton, Anne Arundel County, MD (held German, Italian, Japanese and Misc. from June 1942 to December 1943)
Cemeteries:
•Fort George G. Meade Post Cemetery, Ft. Geo. G. Meade, MD, active military installation.
There were 5 base camps, 15 branch camps, 2 internment locations, and 1 cemetery in MD. More details in my latest book titled Prisoner of War Camps Across America. It is available in Kindle format on Amazon and in .epub and .mobi formats at the GenTracer Shopping Cart.
POW Camps in Maryland during World War II
Kathy Kirkpatrick, Gentracer.org - The POW Camps in Maryland during World War II included:•Edgewood Arsenal (Chemical Warfare Center), Gunpowder, Baltimore County, MD (base camp)
•Holabird Signal Depot, Baltimore, Baltimore County, MD (base camp)
•Hunt (Fort), Sheridan Point, Calvert County, MD (base camp)
•Meade (Fort George G.), near Odenton, Anne Arundel County, MD (base camp)
•Somerset (Camp), Westover, Somerset County, MD (base camp)
Enemy alien internment camp:
•Howard (Fort), Baltimore County, MD (German, Italian)
•Meade (Fort George G.), near Odenton, Anne Arundel County, MD (held German, Italian, Japanese and Misc. from June 1942 to December 1943)
Cemeteries:
•Fort George G. Meade Post Cemetery, Ft. Geo. G. Meade, MD, active military installation.
There were 5 base camps, 15 branch camps, 2 internment locations, and 1 cemetery in MD. More details in my latest book titled Prisoner of War Camps Across America. It is available in Kindle format on Amazon and in .epub and .mobi formats at the GenTracer Shopping Cart.
Stories from Camp Frederick: German World War II POWs in Frederick, Maryland (Part 1)
This is the first of a five part series that will be appearing on German Pulse over the next five weeks. Many of the primary sources in this work come directly from the archives at The Frederick County Historical Society in Frederick, Marlyand.February 23, 2012
GermanPulse - During World War II, the United States established its largest prisoner of war (POW) program in its history. By May of 1945, over 425,871 Axis prisoners were being held in POW camps across the country. Of these, 372,000 were German.
There were two POW camps located in Frederick County—both exclusively holding Germans—Camp Ritchie and Camp Frederick. Camp Ritchie was located in the northern part of the county and no more than 200 prisoners were held there at any given time, having little contact with county residents. There is little information printed in the media about that camp, but there are plenty of newspaper and magazine articles, personal letters, and firsthand accounts concerning the men who lived and worked at Camp Frederick, officially PW Branch Camp #6, which was located just outside of the city.
It is known that prisoners at Camp Ritchie were mostly employed by the military as carpenters, shoemakers, firemen, medics, orderlies, and cooks. At Camp Frederick, prisoners were primarily employed in agriculture, on privately owned farms, mostly as apple pickers. Some were also contracted out to commercial companies, such as the Oxford Fibre Brush Company, where they loaded and unloaded lumber. In essence, the POWs performed the tasks that no one else could do, due to the severe labor shortages as a result of the war.
This series of posts will focus primarily on the lives and experiences of the men at Camp Frederick, and although the information available is mostly one-sided, and most of the viewpoints are American, the idea that Camp Frederick was not an unpleasant place for a POW to be, and ran relatively smoothly with little unrest or injustice, is accepted here. Perhaps not all German POWs across the Unites States had a similar experience, but Camp Frederick truly appears to have been a humane and relatively agreeable place for a POW to be held captive during World War II.
The stories and experiences of both the prisoners and members of the Frederick community are varied and surprising. It appears from their descriptions that several of the POWs in Frederick left the country having had a positive experience and even some good memories.
The citizens of Frederick felt undoubtedly afraid of and ambivalent towards their enemy guests, but nevertheless, many of them found friendship and even lifelong relationships with some of the prisoners. Meticulously collected and continually revisited by the media over the decades, the articles, letters, and firsthand accounts of the prisoners and those that lived in Frederick reveal a very real, human, and personal side of the war, in many cases breaking down both German stereotypes and misconceptions about American nationalism.
Fort George G. Meade and the Maryland POW Camp System
In Maryland, the POW camp program was initially developed in three overlapping phases: planning for security and escape prevention, how to benefit from the work of the POWS, and developing a program of political rehabilitation. In the first stage, which lasted from December 1941 to the end of 1943, the provost marshal’s office of the War Department—which was in charge of the national POW program—established that one guard would need to supervise every two or three prisoners. The office was largely concerned with escape attempts and prisoners becoming hostile towards guards and each other. This explains why it spent so much time deliberating on this phase and creating a tight security policy.It was during this stage that the provost marshal’s office of the War Department established its Maryland installation at Fort George G. Meade, located in the juncture of Anne Arundel, Howard, and Prince George’s counties. Fort Meade received permission to start holding prisoners on September 15, 1942, and initially held Axis-country civilians who were trapped in the U.S. after the war erupted.
Starting in September 1943 to July 1946, Fort Meade served as the main POW camp in Maryland with a capacity of 1,680 prisoners. When it officially became a POW camp in 1943, Fort Meade held mostly Italians and only a few German POWs, until May 1944 when it officially became a German POW camp. Most of the POWs captured and brought to Maryland were Wehrmacht (army) personnel, though there were also some soldiers from the Luftwaffe (air force) and the navy.
Around 1943, pressure began to build on the War Department to loosen up its harsh POW security policies. Local farmers, businesses, and manufacturers—due to extreme labor shortages—began to suggest that the POWs be allowed outside of Fort Meade to work for them.
As a result, in June 1943 authorization was given to Fort Meade for limited agricultural employment, but the War Department was unwilling to allow the soldiers outside of the camp. Five months later, as desperation for workers continued to grow, approval was given for the establishment of new German POW camps in Maryland. In February 1944, at a military-civilian conference held in Dallas, Texas, the War Department formalized the change in its security policy and the construction of 18 additional POW camps began.
These camps would employ workers in various agricultural and industrial activities in Maryland under the terms of the Geneva Convention, which stated that “captured enemy officers could not be compelled to work and that non-commissioned officers could only supervise.” Enlisted men could work any job except one “demeaning, degrading, or directly related to the war effort.”
Not only did the Geneva Convention not allow forced labor, but prisoners at Camp Frederick were considered Class A prisoners, meaning all work was voluntary. According to Charles P. Wales, who served as a guard at Camp Frederick from September 1945 to Spring 1946, many of the prisoners who decided to work outside the camp were prompted by boredom.
By August of 1945, over 4,000 POWs in Maryland were laboring for the army or navy, and 6,000 for civilian contractors. Most prisoners worked within the camps at camp bakeries, canteens, hospitals, or laundries. Others dug ditches, built roads, and managed lawns. Farmers could apply for the extra prisoners through the Department of Agriculture’s War Food Administration, while manufacturers had to go through the War Manpower Commission to receive prisoner labor. In Frederick, the Frederick County Agricultural Cooperative Association was formed in 1944 to “tap into the pool of available prisoner labor.”
Read more from this 5 part series:
Part 1 (current) | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Related:
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- List of World War II prisoner-of-war camps in the United States
- Major German Prisoner of War Internment Camps in the United States
- Internment of German American Civilians in the us during World War Ii
- Japanese American Incarceration Facts
- Japanese American 'Citizen Isolation Centers' and 'Immigration Detention Stations'
- Justice Department and U.S. Army Internment Camps and Detention Stations in the U.S. during World War II
- FEMA Concentration Camps: Locations and Executive Orders
- Imprisoned in Paradise: Japanese Internee Road Workers at the World War II Kooskia Internment Camp
- Find the FEMA Camp Nearest You
- FEMA QUESTION Unusual warehouse at FT Meade MD
I have been posting this on numerous websites in hopes of getting an answer. I work for a construction contractor at FT Meade MD. We have been installing metro shelving units in a huge underground warehouse at FT Meade.I was curious about the work for the selves are used to hold bikes and the large doors we enter say FEMA. I always thought they did something with hurricanes. We are almost done and now army officers are loading the the shelves with bikes. So far I would guess that number at 10,000 - the selves when finished will hold close to 100,000 bikes. What do they need with all these bikes. Another odd things - the different sections are labeled with months starting with July 07. Anyone have any idea what this means?
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