When President Truman Met German POWs for the First Time — His Reaction Surprised the Army

1) The President’s Unexpected Visit (Missouri, July 1945)

The Missouri summer pressed down on Camp Crowder, the air thick and unmoving. As the presidential motorcade rolled past the gates, 200 German prisoners stood at attention in the recreation yard, uncertain and uneasy. No American president had ever come to see enemy prisoners face to face. Harry Truman, a compact man in wire-rimmed glasses and a summer suit, stepped from his vehicle and walked toward the prisoners—alone, with no security detail between them.

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The visit was not planned. Truman was touring his home state, inspecting military facilities and revisiting sites from his own service in the First World War. Camp Crowder, a signal corps training center housing 3,000 German POWs, was supposed to be a routine stop. The camp commander, Colonel James Morrison, had prepared a standard inspection: troops in dress uniform, buildings spotless, schedules arranged to showcase efficiency. The German prisoners, housed in their own compound, were not part of the tour.

But Truman was not a typical president. He’d inherited the office only months earlier, after Roosevelt’s sudden death. The war in Europe was over; Japan still fought on, but rumors of a powerful new weapon suggested the end was near. Truman carried the weight of decisions no vice president expected to make—questions about occupation, about how to treat former enemies, about what peace would look like after total war.

After the official tour, Truman paused, looking toward the western compound. “What’s over there?” he asked. Morrison hesitated—“That’s the PW section, Mr. President. German prisoners.” Truman studied the distant fence, then said, “I’d like to see them.”

The request created tension among the staff. No security preparation, no protocol for a president among enemy prisoners. Morrison suggested another time. But Truman was insistent. “These men were soldiers like I was a soldier. They fought for their country, same as I fought for mine. War’s over now. I’d like to see how we’re treating them. Maybe speak to a few.”

2) Meeting the Defeated

Truman walked toward the compound, the entire presidential party trailing behind—Secret Service agents nervous, military brass unsure. The German POW camp was functional, not harsh: rows of tar-paper barracks, a mess hall, recreation areas, chain-link fence with guard towers more for form than necessity. Most prisoners knew captivity in America was preferable to combat anywhere else.

Inside, the prisoners emerged from barracks and work details, assembling in the yard without being ordered. They wore uniforms marked “PW,” faces showing curiosity, concern, and studied indifference. Most had been captured in France or Italy, transported to America, and had spent months adapting to abundant food and fair treatment that contradicted all the propaganda they’d been taught.

Truman approached alone, waving back the Secret Service. For a long moment, he simply observed the prisoners—young men, some barely twenty, others in their thirties, all carrying the weathered look of soldiers who had fought, lost, and adjusted to captivity.

He began to speak, Morrison translating. “I’m told you men have been working hard here, helping with necessary labor while we sort out this postwar situation. I wanted to come see how you’re being treated, make sure everything is according to proper standards.”

The prisoners listened in silence. Truman continued, “I was a soldier in the last war. France, 1918. I saw combat, lost friends, came home grateful I survived. I know what it’s like to fight because your country tells you to fight, not because you personally chose this war.”

“The war is over now,” Truman said. “You lost. We won. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re still men, still human beings entitled to decent treatment while we work out repatriation. I want to make sure that’s happening. I want you to tell me directly. Are you being treated fairly here?”

3) The Power of Decency

The silence stretched. Finally, a former sergeant named Walter Kesler stepped forward and spoke in heavily accented English. “Yes, Mr. President, we are treated fairly. Good food, fair work, no cruelty, better than we expected.”

Truman nodded. “Good. That’s what I want to hear. Not because I’m soft on former enemies, but because that’s how civilized nations behave. We follow rules even when rules are inconvenient. Especially then.”

He paused, choosing his words. “Germany is occupied now, destroyed in many places. You’ll go home eventually to a country that needs rebuilding. That’s going to be hard. Maybe harder than the war was. But I believe—have to believe—that Germans can rebuild, can create something better than what led to this war. You’re going to be part of that. The men standing here in this yard, you’ll go home and help build whatever Germany becomes next.”

Truman gestured toward the compound. “Can I look around? Talk to a few of you individually?” Morrison nodded, and Truman walked among the prisoners, asking questions: Where were you captured? What did you do before the war? Do you have family back home? Simple questions, the kind one veteran might ask another.

He stopped in front of a young prisoner. “How old are you, son?”

“Nineteen,” the prisoner replied. “Captured in France. April.”

“You look younger than nineteen,” Truman said, studying him with grandfatherly concern. “What did you do before the war?”

“School. Wanted to be teacher. Then…” He gestured, encompassing conscription, combat, capture, the entire trajectory that had brought him to a Missouri POW camp.

4) The Ripple Effect

The visit’s impact rippled beyond Camp Crowder. Other camp commanders received inquiries about conditions and Geneva Convention standards. The army brass became more conscious of how prisoner treatment might affect post-war relations. The State Department began considering how POW policies connected to larger reconstruction planning.

Truman himself mentioned the visit in his diary, briefly: “Stopped at Camp Crowder today. Talked with some German prisoners, young men mostly, far from home, waiting to go back to a destroyed country. Wanted to make sure they’re being treated right. Seems they are. Strange to think these men were trying to defeat us a few months ago. War makes enemies, but peace requires something different.”

The philosophical implications occupied Truman as summer progressed. The powerful new weapon being developed at Los Alamos was almost ready. Truman had been briefed on its destructive capacity. The decision loomed large. The visit to Camp Crowder informed his thinking—enemies were still enemies, war demanded victory, but Truman now carried the memory of those German prisoners, young men who looked like they could be from Missouri or Kansas, who had fought because their country demanded it.

5) Going Home and Rebuilding

Repatriation from American POW camps began in late 1945 and continued through 1946. Walter Kesler returned to Germany in January 1946, finding his family’s house damaged but standing, his wife and children alive. He resumed work as a civil engineer, helping rebuild infrastructure destroyed in the war. He never forgot the day the American president visited Camp Crowder. When his children asked about his time as a prisoner, he told them about adequate food, fair treatment, and the day Truman spoke to them about rebuilding and dignity.

The young prisoner who wanted to be a teacher returned to Germany in March 1946. His school in Stuttgart had been destroyed, but temporary facilities were established. He completed his education in 1948, became a teacher, and spent 35 years educating German children about history, democracy, and learning from the past. He kept the memory of Truman’s words—“Finish your education, become a teacher, help rebuild”—as a guiding principle.

A Bavarian farmer returned to find his land intact but neglected. He worked for years rebuilding his farm, using techniques he’d learned while working at American farms during captivity. He prospered, raised his children in a peaceful Germany, and when asked about his time as a prisoner, described fair treatment and a president who spoke to him about farming like one agricultural worker to another.

6) The Lesson That Endures

Truman’s presidency continued through enormous challenges—the Cold War, Korea, contentious domestic politics. The Camp Crowder visit became a footnote, barely mentioned in histories of his presidency, overshadowed by dramatic events. But for the men who were there, the moment never faded.

Truman gathered the prisoners again before leaving. “I appreciate you men speaking with me today. I know this situation isn’t easy for you—being prisoners, far from home, not knowing exactly when you’ll get back to your families. I can’t give you specific dates for repatriation, but I can tell you this: You’ll be treated fairly while you’re here. You’ll be fed adequately, housed adequately, given work that’s useful but not punishing. And when you go home, you’ll go with documentation that you were held according to proper standards.”

He added, “Some of you probably think Americans are soft or weak. Your propaganda told you that. But I want you to understand something. We treat you fairly not because we’re weak, but because we’re strong. Strong enough to win the war. Strong enough to treat defeated enemies with dignity. That’s what separates civilization from barbarism—maintaining standards even when you have the power to ignore them.”

Truman concluded, “When you go home and people ask you about America, about being prisoners here, tell them the truth. Not propaganda. Not what anyone wants you to say. Just the truth about how you were treated. That matters. Truth matters.”

7) Memory and Meaning

As Truman’s motorcade departed, Morrison joined him. “That was unusual, Mr. President,” Morrison said. Truman gazed at the passing countryside. “Those men didn’t start this war, Colonel. They were conscripted, trained, sent to fight, just like American boys. The difference is we won and they lost. That’s significant, but it doesn’t make them less than human.”

Truman continued, almost to himself, “I keep thinking about what comes next. We can’t just defeat Germany and leave it in ruins. That’s what happened after the last war. Look where that led. We need Germans to rebuild, to create something stable and democratic. The men in that camp will be part of that. Treating them fairly now might matter later.”

Word of the visit spread. Prisoners wrote letters home, news reporters filed stories. The initial coverage was mixed—some praised Truman’s humanity, others questioned whether a president should fraternize with former enemies. But among the prisoners, the impact was immediate and profound.

Years later, Walter Kesler visited America, standing in a field where Camp Crowder had been. He remembered Truman’s visit, the impossible moment when the president of the victorious nation spoke to defeated enemies about rebuilding, about dignity, about truth. He told his wife, “Those words mattered. They changed how I thought about enemies and nations and what’s possible after war ends.”

The story persisted in family histories, in documentary films, in academic papers about post-war reconciliation. Sometimes the smallest moments reveal the most about human character and possibility. Truman understood instinctively: how victors treat defeated enemies determines what kind of peace follows war.

He was not a pacifist or sentimentalist, but he believed rules mattered, that treatment of enemies revealed something essential about victors, that peace required more than just winning. The Camp Crowder visit embodied that belief. No cameras recorded it, no major policy emerged from it. But for the men who were there, who expected contempt and found respect, the moment carried weight that outlasted the war.

That understanding mattered for postwar Germany, for American-German relations, for the slow construction of peace in Europe—not dramatically, not decisively, but as one thread among many that wove defeated enemies into democratic partners.

Sometimes the simplest choices have the longest shadows. Truman’s visit to Camp Crowder shows how peace is built—not with grand gestures, but with quiet choices that reveal character and create possibility. A president walked among enemy prisoners and spoke to them about rebuilding. Simple, almost mundane. But sometimes the simplest choices carry the most meaning.