The Enemy Arrives At Our Home:
My Experience with German War Prisoners Of World War II

By Marian C. Franz

German soldiers were at our door. They came not as combatants, but as prisoners of war. Housed in a small nearby town, they were available to work on local farms during the day. I had no fear of these enemy soldiers. What scared me were the U.S. guards who accompanied them. They were the ones with the guns. In total terror as a child, I watched as one demonstrated how to attach his bayonet to the end of a gun barrel. Prior to that demonstration, no gun intended to kill people or spear stomachs had ever before been near our home.

The guards were tense, and the prisoners were wary. At noontime on the first day, after washing up out of doors with the rest of the harvesters, prisoners and their assigned guard waited outside to be served. Perhaps they expected to be served out of doors from tin cans? Not at our home. As graciously as she would have for any other guests, my mother stepped out on the porch and in perfect German invited them in to eat at our table. Overcome by the unexpected kindness, several prisoners wept.

As time passed, the tension between the German and U.S. soldiers was eroded on both sides by the hospitality that our Mennonite home and community extended equally to friend and foe. Guards no longer brought their dreaded guns to the table (to my enormous relief), but left them out on the porch. These enemies, who in other circumstances would have been visiting unspeakable horrors on each other, swapped photos and stories of their families back home. To facilitate communication, my father translated for them.

One afternoon, to escape the broiling Kansas sun, the single guard for that day had gone to nap under the shady trees along the creek, leaving the prisoners alone with the farmers. Suddenly excited chatter erupted amid a frantic flurry of activity. The prisoners had spied a fast-approaching army jeep with its load of military superiors coming to inspect the situation, especially the guard on duty. Several prisoners rushed to the creek to awaken the guard, who hastily rubbed the sleep from his eye and regained his watchful post. There were stiff salutes, the clatter of weapons inspection, and some intense conversation. Satisfied that the prisoners would not escape under such vigilant watch, the officers boarded their jeep and disappeared as quickly as they had arrived. The silent tension of the field broke into laughter as the guard and our ‘enemy prisoners’ alike enjoyed the success of that close call.

What was a little girl to think? If the German and U.S. soldiers were not each other’s enemies, who was the enemy in the war that was killing and maiming so many? Had the soldiers of these warring countries not made common cause against the real enemy-- the system of war? War is the enemy, I thought. People are not.