Buried at Fort Sheridan National Cemetery, in Lake Forest, Illinois, are over 2,300 veterans. Their presence represents more than 150 years of American military history, from the Civil War to the present day. A walk among the tombstones, however, reveals that not all buried there served the United States. Hidden in plain sight are the graves of nine German prisoners of war who once swore allegiance to Nazi Germany.
Fort Sheridan’s German prisoners of war
During World War II approximately 420,000 German prisoners of war (PoWs) were brought to the United States. Dispersed to camps all throughout the country, they worked in canneries, mills, on farms, and other low-security places. The Chicago region was no different and in May 1944, a PoW camp opened at Fort Sheridan on Lake Michigan. Another major PoW facility existed 65 miles to the west at Camp Grant.
At first, several hundred German prisoners were assigned to the fort, tasked with working on the base. Their duties included painting, general maintenance, warehousing, and controlling soil erosion.1 These tasks would have otherwise been assigned to army recruits or civilian contractors. For any work outside of the PoW compound the men received 80 cents a day in canteen coupons, redeemable at their exchange. With these wages the prisoners could buy basic necessities and luxury goods like beer, cigarettes, and candy.
Overall, the relationship between the PoWs and their captors at Fort Sheridan was positive with few difficulties. An exception, however, occurred on 12 December 1944, when over 1,300 prisoners went on a sit-down strike. This was in response to the Americans relieving one of the prisoners’ leaders from his position, after refusing to obey an order. Subsequently, the army placed the prisoners on a 14-day bread and water diet. The prisoners returned to work on December 18 with full rations restored. As for the ringleaders they were transferred elsewhere, having to complete their punishment.2
Eventually many of the PoWs were moved to smaller branch camps in Illinois and Wisconsin where they performed various jobs. These locations included Camp Des Plaines, Camp Skokie Valley, and Camp Thornton, all within Cook County, Illinois. The fort also supervised many thousands of prisoners in Illinois and Wisconsin brought in to help with seasonal farm work.
Click here to read about Camp Pine, a PoW branch camp in Des Plaines.
Click here to read about Camp Skokie Valley, a PoW branch camp in Glenview.
At the fort itself a major activity which occupied the Germans by early 1945 was salvaging military equipment. This type of work saved American taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. According to a contemporary Chicago Daily Tribune article:3
They [the PoWs] sort and repair anything from worn-out G.I. clothing to dented spades… [Canteens] come to Fort Sheridan by the thousands, dented, nicked, bent, smashed. A water pressure machine developed by Maj. Schuelke bulges them into original shape. If junked, they would bring only 10 cents apiece for their aluminum. New, they cost 90 cents. But the reclamation cost is less than 6 cents. Thus the saving is 74 cents each- and the monthly total ranges from $40,000 to $100,000.
Frank Cipriani, Chicago Daily Tribune, January 6, 1945
Ultimately the army closed the PoW camp at Fort Sheridan in 1946. The United States government repatriated its German prisoners but not all returned to Europe. Some managed to successfully escape from their camps. Reinhold Pabel, for instance, made his way to Chicago and opened a bookstore, evading authorities until 1953. More numerous, in the hundreds, were those who died while in captivity.4
Burying those who did not return
Fort Sheridan National Cemetery came to be the final resting place of nine German PoWs. Buried in Section 13, row J, the prisoners lay side-by-side as comrades. Their headstones are no different than those of the American veterans, except for the inscription ‘German’. No special barrier separates the German graves from the rest. Incidentally, at the entrance to the cemetery stands the monument of Major Edward J. Vattman, who is buried underneath. Maj. Vattman emigrated from Prussia and served as a chaplain in the US Army until his death in 1919.
Basic details of the PoWs are known thanks to the prisoner personnel records maintained by the army. The records contain biographical information, such as a birthdate, rank, unit, and date and place of capture, along with a headshot. They are now in the possession of the National Archives and can be accessed by the general public.
The prisoners’ backgrounds varied as much as the circumstances of their deaths. Captured in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and France, the men’s ages ranged from 20 to 46. Some had families of their own; others were single. Four had been prisoners at Camp Ellis, near Peoria, Illinois, and originally buried there, later reinterred at Fort Sheridan on November 2, 1945. Regardless of where, all were buried with full military honors in accordance with the Geneva Convention. This included a US Army honor guard detail with the government furnishing a flag of Nazi Germany.5
Each year a German Volkstrauertag ceremony is held in the section, attended by the German consul in Chicago. The ‘people’s day of mourning’, Volkstrauertag commemorates members of the armed forces of all nations and civilians who died in armed conflicts. Included are victims of violent oppression. At one time a flag stand existed behind the grave of Emil Krauss, which at some point was removed.
Despite them having been the enemy, the nine PoWs buried at Fort Sheridan, along with their comrades who survived and returned to Europe, made a significant contribution to the Home Front in Wisconsin and Illinois. The fruits of their labor helped to put food on kitchen tables, freed American soldiers from menial duties to focus more on training, and in the long run, saved the American government millions of dollars.
The American people owe a debt of gratitude to the PoWs. A silent partner, the Germans were a cog in a fighting machine which achieved final victory. Their contributions to that struggle should not be forgotten.
Note: Copies of the prisoners’ records and photos, along with other information regarding Fort Sheridan during WWII, are kept at the Bess Bower Dunn Museum of Lake County in Libertyville, IL. The museum’s collections comprise nearly 20,000 artifacts and 1,000 linear feet of archival materials. Researchers may access the archives by appointment only.
Egon Kranz
Egon Kranz, born July 11, 1923, captured on Cape Bon, Tunisia, on May 2, 1943. Rank: gefreiter. Died of pneumonia while a prisoner at Camp Ellis on October 26, 1943. Originally buried at Camp Ellis and reinterred at Fort Sheridan on November 2, 1945.
Richard Barthel
Richard Barthel, born January 2, 1924, captured in Sicily on July 23, 1943. Rank: soldat. Died of pneumonia while a prisoner at Camp Ellis on April 16, 1945. Originally buried at Camp Ellis and reinterred at Fort Sheridan on November 2, 1945.
Kurt Roessger
Kurt Roessger, born April 8, 1912, captured two weeks after the Normandy Invasion at Pont Labbe, France, on June 16, 1944. Rank: obergefreiter. Died of internal bleeding through intestinal and stomach inflammation while a prisoner at Camp Ellis on August 6, 1944. Originally buried at Camp Ellis and reinterred at Fort Sheridan on November 2, 1945.
Heinz Braune
Heinz Braune, born June 29, 1912, captured on Cape Bon, Tunisia, on November 5, 1943. Rank: obergefreiter in the Luftwaffe. Died of multi-organ failure on November 16, 1944, and buried at Fort Sheridan three days later.
Rudolf Loehr
Rudolf Loehr, born April 27, 1915, captured in Cherbourg, France, during the Normandy Campaign, on June 26, 1944. Rank: stabsgefreiter. Died of a traffic accident on November 25, 1944, and buried at Fort Sheridan three days later.
Willy Paap
Willy Paap, born on March 30, 1912, captured in Palermo, Italy, on July 22, 1943. Rank: gefreiter. Died of a traffic accident on November 25, 1944, and buried at Fort Sheridan three days later.
Kurt Meyer
Kurt Meyer, born April 3, 1920, captured in Volturno, Italy, on October 22, 1943. Rank: obergefreiter. Died of a traffic accident on November 25, 1944, and buried at Fort Sheridan three days later.
Emil Krauss
Emil Krauss, born April 15, 1899, captured in France on August 25, 1944. Rank: unteroffizier. Committed suicide on August 3, 1945, and buried at Fort Sheridan two days later.
Heinrich Bauer
Heinrich Bauer, born November 5, 1913, captured in Cherbourg, France, on July 1, 1944. Rank: soldat. Died of a brain tumor while a prisoner at Camp Ellis on August 15, 1945. Originally buried at Camp Ellis and reinterred at Fort Sheridan on November 2, 1945.
Sources
- ‘Nazi Prisoners Arrive to Work at Ft. Sheridan’, Chicago Daily Tribune, May 17, 1944, pg.3. Retrieved from ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune. https://www.proquest.com/hnpchicagotribune/docview/176909226/ (accessed January 14, 2024)
- ‘Nazi Prisoners Strike at Fort’, Chicago Daily Tribune, December 13, 1944, pg.5. Retrieved from ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune. https://www.proquest.com/hnpchicagotribune/docview/176969286/ (accessed January 14, 2024)
- Frank Cipriani, ‘Fort Sheridan’s Nazis Eat Well and Work Well’, Chicago Daily Tribune, January 6, 1945, pg.7. Retrieved from ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune. https://www.proquest.com/hnpchicagotribune/docview/177090148/ (accessed January 14, 2024)
- For more information on German PoWs at Fort Sheridan, and in the Illinois and Wisconsin areas, read Betty Cowley, Stalag Wisconsin: Inside WWII prisoner-of-war camps (Oregon, WI: Badger Books Inc., 2002).
- Robert O. Burton, The Story of Camp Ellis (Camp Ellis, IL: United States Army, 1945), pg.37. Available online: https://archive.org/details/storyofcampellis00camp/page/36/mode/2up?q=prisoners (accessed January 16, 2024).