German Women POWs Shocked to Visit American Cities Without Being Chained
Chapter 1: Expecting Chains
Fort Des Moines, Iowa. September 1945.
Twelve German women stood in formation outside the prison barracks, hands at their sides, backs rigid, waiting for the chains. Their orders were simple: they would visit the city of Des Moines, just forty blocks of American civilization. They expected shackles, armed escorts, crowds throwing stones. Instead, a Red Cross volunteer handed them civilian coats and bus tickets. No guards, no weapons, no chains—just an address where they should return by sunset.
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.
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Hilda Angel stared at the ticket in her hand like it might explode. Was this freedom or a trap? She was twenty-six, from Hamburg, a signals operator for the Luftwaffe. She had believed in Germany’s cause, then watched that belief collapse into survival as her city burned and her family vanished. When captured near Caen, France, in July 1944, she felt relief more than fear. The war was over for her; she had survived.
The transatlantic crossing was surreal. The women were separated from the men, treated professionally but coldly by the guards. Rumors spread: they would be executed as spies, sent to labor camps, used for medical experiments. Nazi propaganda had prepared them for American brutality. Instead, they arrived at Fort Des Moines—a Women’s Army Corps training facility, now a POW camp.
Chapter 2: The Wire and the World
The accommodations were basic but clean. Real beds, toilets that flushed, hot showers, meals three times daily—better than the last year in Germany. The other women in Hilda’s barracks represented a cross-section of German military service: anti-aircraft gunners, radio operators, secretaries, technicians. Some remained bitter Nazis, defiant in captivity. Others, like Hilda, had lost faith gradually, the propaganda dissolving under the weight of reality.
What shocked them most was abundance. Meals were simple but substantial: meat, fresh vegetables, bread without sawdust, coffee that tasted like coffee. In Germany, food had become a distant memory. Here, guards threw away leftovers—food that would have fed a German family for days. Hilda watched American soldiers waste food and felt something break inside. Not anger—confusion. Germany had been starving while waging war against a country that could afford to throw away meals.
The arithmetic of that reality was devastating. They had never had a chance. The propaganda had lied about America—comprehensively, systematically. They had been told Americans were weak, decadent, incapable of sacrifice. Instead, Hilda saw a country so wealthy it could feed millions of soldiers and prisoners while its civilians lived in comfort. She saw women in positions of authority, black and white soldiers eating together. The cognitive dissonance was overwhelming.
Chapter 3: Truth in Photographs
By summer 1945, Germany had surrendered. The camps had fallen. American newspapers showed photographs of Bergen-Belsen and Dachau. The guards made sure the German POWs saw them: long rows of corpses, living skeletons, mass graves, evidence of systematic horror.
Some German women refused to believe the photographs were real—propaganda, they insisted, staged images. But Hilda looked at those pictures and recognized the truth. She had heard rumors during the war, whispers about camps in the east, transports of Jews. She had not wanted to believe. Now she had no choice. The guilt was crushing. She had not personally committed atrocities, but she had served a regime that did. She had believed, however briefly, in a cause that led to these horrors.
Captain Margaret Walsh, commander of the POW section, watched the German women process the photographs. Some cried, some went silent, some became angry. Walsh didn’t offer comfort. This was necessary confrontation. These women needed to understand what they had been part of. But she also saw their humanity. They were not monsters. They were people who had made choices in impossible circumstances. Some good, some terrible. The line between victim and perpetrator was thinner than anyone wanted to admit.
Chapter 4: The Excursion
In September 1945, with the war over everywhere, the question became what to do with prisoners. Male German POWs would be repatriated gradually, but Germany was destroyed, occupied, divided. Female POWs presented an additional complication: many had no families, no homes, no prospects. Repatriation meant sending them into chaos and starvation.
Captain Walsh received orders: the female POWs at Fort Des Moines would participate in a rehabilitation program. The goal was to prepare them for eventual repatriation by exposing them to American democratic values and way of life. This included supervised excursions into Des Moines.
When Walsh announced the program at morning formation, the prisoners didn’t believe her. Hilda listened, certain she misunderstood. They would visit the city without chains, without armed guards. They would ride public buses, visit shops, walk on streets. Only one rule: be back by sunset.
Some refused to participate. It was a trap, they insisted. The Americans would let them go into the city, then arrest them for attempted escape—or worse, allow civilians to attack them. Nazi propaganda had claimed Americans were lawless, that mob violence was common. But others were curious. Hilda among them. She wanted to see America beyond the wire, wanted to test whether the abundance she saw in the camp extended to civilian life.
Twelve women volunteered for the first excursion. Walsh gave them each a civilian coat, $5 spending money, bus schedules, and a map of downtown Des Moines. No chains, no guards—just trust.
Chapter 5: Abundance and Anonymity
The September air was cool, clean, carrying the smell of cut grass and distant industry. An army truck drove them to the bus stop. The driver, a young private from Nebraska, was friendly. “Good luck, ladies. Don’t get lost.” Then they were alone.
Twelve German women at an American bus stop, waiting for public transportation. The bus arrived. The driver barely glanced at them. “Fares ten cents,” he said. They paid, found seats, and the bus pulled away.
Through the windows, Des Moines unfolded: tree-lined streets, houses with lawns, children riding bicycles, women pushing strollers, cars driving freely, shops with full windows, no bomb damage, no rubble, no evidence of war. Liselot, the youngest, started crying silently. Anna took her hand. Greta stared out the window, grief in her eyes.
They had been told America was suffering, that the war had devastated the economy, that civilians were starving. Instead, they saw prosperity, normality, peace. The contrast with Germany, destroyed and starving, was unbearable.
The bus stopped downtown. They got off, stood on the sidewalk. No one paid them attention. People walked past, going about their business. No one stared. No one pointed. Invisibility felt like safety and loss simultaneously. For women who had spent years defined by nationality, by war, by ideology, anonymity was disorienting.
They walked aimlessly, just to see. Downtown Des Moines was modest by big city standards, but overwhelming to women who had spent a year in captivity and years before that in a country being bombed daily. The buildings were intact, windows unbroken, signs advertising goods in bright colors.
They passed a bakery. The smell stopped them. Fresh bread, cake, pastries displayed like jewels. Hilda thought about Hamburg, about bread made from sawdust, about ration cards that promised food that didn’t exist. Here, bread was abundant enough to display casually in a window.
Should we go in? Ursula asked. They hesitated. Then Greta pushed open the door. The woman behind the counter smiled. “Good morning. What can I get for you?” The transaction was simple. They pointed to items, paid with American coins, and walked out with pastries wrapped in white paper. Liselot bit into hers and closed her eyes. Real butter, real sugar, flavor that seemed impossible.
“We lost,” Greta said quietly. “We lost so completely.”
Chapter 6: Encounters with Kindness
They walked further, past clothing stores with dresses in the window, fashion that suggested abundance of fabric and production capacity. In Germany, clothing had been rationed since 1939. New clothes were fantasies.
A bookstore displayed novels and magazines. An appliance store showed radios and toasters. A toy store window was full of dolls and trains. Abundance everywhere—not luxury, just ordinary middle-class American abundance.
They reached a park, green space in the city, trees, benches, a fountain. People sat eating lunch. Children played. An old man fed pigeons. Normal life. Life without fear of bombs or soldiers or collapse.
Hilda sat on a bench. The others arranged themselves nearby. A mother with two young children sat next to Hilda. The children chased each other around the fountain, the mother watching with relaxed attention. No worry about air raids, no fear of soldiers, no concern about food. The little girl ran to her mother, breathless and laughing. “Mama, can we get ice cream?” “After lunch, sweetheart.” The mother glanced at Hilda and smiled. “Kids. Never stop moving.”
Hilda smiled back, not trusting her English enough to respond. The mother didn’t expect conversation, just casual friendliness. But Hilda felt a crack forming in her chest. This woman had children the same age as her sister when she died in the Hamburg bombing. This woman didn’t know what it meant to dig through rubble, to hear the sound a mother makes when she realizes her daughter is dead. She didn’t know the smell of a burning city—and that was good. But the unfairness, the randomness of who suffered and who didn’t, overwhelmed her.
Anna noticed, leaned over. “You okay?” she whispered. “No,” Hilda said honestly. “But I will be.”
Chapter 7: Freedom and Reflection
By early afternoon, the women had spread out, more confident, exploring. Greta and Ursula entered a department store—five floors of goods, clothing, household items, toys. The abundance was paralyzing. A saleswoman approached. “Can I help you find something?” “Just looking,” Greta said. “Thank you.” No suspicion, no hostility, just professional courtesy.
On the third floor, the toy section. Ursula stopped in front of a display of wooden trains. Her younger brother had loved trains. She sent him one for Christmas 1943 before mail stopped. She never learned if he received it, didn’t know if he was alive. “He would have been ten now,” she said quietly. Greta didn’t ask who. She knew.
Meanwhile, Liselot and Anna found a library, free to enter. Rows of books, thousands, available for anyone to borrow. In Nazi Germany, libraries had been purged. Here, books on every subject lined the shelves, including banned German titles. A librarian approached. “Are you looking for something specific?” “Just looking,” Anna said. “Take your time. If you need help, just ask.” Anna pulled out a German novel, Thomas Mann’s “Buddenbrooks.” It had been banned in Germany. She ran her fingers over the pages. The cognitive dissonance was complete.
Hilda wandered alone, ending up at a church. Stone construction, colored light through stained glass, the smell of wood and old hymnals. It reminded her of churches in Hamburg before the war, before the bombing. A pastor spoke to her, welcoming her. “You’re one of the prisoners from the fort, aren’t you?” Hilda nodded. “Captain Walsh mentioned the program. I think it’s a good thing you’re doing. Seeing the city, seeing how people live.”
“I expected different,” she managed. “Different how?”
“Guards, chains, anger from people.”
The pastor was quiet. “I was in France in 1918. First war. I saw what happens when hate consumes everything. When we treat enemies as less than human, it doesn’t end well for anyone. You’re not our enemy anymore. The war is over. Now we all have to figure out how to be human beings again.”
Tears surprised Hilda. She let them come, not from sadness, but from the release of tension she had carried for years. Crying because kindness had been shown without requiring anything in return. Crying because she was beginning to believe she might survive not just the war, but the aftermath.
Chapter 8: The New Lesson
By late afternoon, the twelve women regrouped at a diner Captain Walsh had marked on the map. A waitress approached with menus and a smile.
“What can I get you ladies?”
“Coffee,” Greta said in English. “And pie.”
“Any particular kind, honey?”
“Any kind,” Greta said.
“Apple, cherry, lemon meringue, chocolate cream?”
“Apple,” Greta said, then looked at the others.
“Twelve apple pies and twelve coffees, coming right up.”
They sat at the counter, holding coffee cups, feeling surreal. “This is madness,” Ursula said. “We are prisoners having coffee in a diner like tourists.”
“Maybe that’s the point,” Anna said. “Maybe they want us to see that we’re not prisoners anymore.”
The pies arrived—generous slices with ice cream melting on top. The women ate in silence, savoring not just the pie, but the freedom.
A man in his sixties sat nearby, overheard them speaking German. “You ladies from the fort?”
“Yes,” Hilda said.
“My son was in Germany. Came back last month. Said it’s pretty bad over there.”
“Yes. Very bad.”
“Well, hope it gets better. Nobody deserves to live in ruins.”
The simple statement carried profound weight. Nobody deserves to live in ruins, including Germans, including the enemy, including those whose government had started a catastrophic war.
They paid and left, walking slowly toward the bus stop, reluctant to leave. “What did you think?” Anna asked.
“I think we were lied to,” Liselot said.
“I think,” Hilda said slowly, “the war destroyed Germany not just with bombs but with lies. We were told we were superior. We were told we would win. We were told our enemies were subhuman. Every single thing we were told was wrong.”
Greta was quiet. “I think I need to become a different person. The person I was cannot exist in the world that actually is.”
They caught the bus back to the fort as the sun set, painting the Iowa sky in shades of orange and purple. The ride was quiet, each woman processing, thinking.
At the gates, Captain Walsh was waiting. “How was it?”
“Complicated,” Hilda said in English.
Walsh nodded. “Good. That means you actually looked, actually thought about what you saw.”
Epilogue: The Chains That Never Were
That evening, the twelve women gathered in the barracks. The others crowded around, asking questions. Hilda tried to explain the abundance, the kindness, the absence of brutality. Some remained skeptical. Propaganda, they insisted. But Hilda knew better. You couldn’t stage an entire functioning city.
More excursions followed. Some visited farms, saw agricultural abundance. Some visited schools, saw children learning in buildings with windows and books. Some visited factories, saw production lines making consumer goods, not weapons. Each encounter dissolved propaganda, chipped away at Nazi ideology.
Not everyone changed. Some prisoners remained committed to their beliefs. But many, like Hilda, began the slow process of deprogramming. They wrote letters home, discussed democracy, debated Germany’s future.
Captain Walsh watched with quiet satisfaction. This was the true victory—not just defeating Germany militarily, but defeating Nazism ideologically, showing people that another way was possible.
In May 1946, the female POWs boarded a transport ship in New York Harbor. Hilda stood on deck, watching the American coastline recede, thinking about that first excursion, the bus ride, the bakery, the park, the pastor, the diner—small moments that had changed everything.
Greta stood beside her. “Do you think Germany can become like America?”
“I don’t know,” Hilda said. “But I think we have to try. We have to build something different. Something that doesn’t require lies.”
The chains they expected never materialized. Instead, they found bus tickets and civilian coats and $5 bills. They found trust when they expected suspicion, abundance when they expected deprivation, a country that believed people could change.
That belief—more than any bomb or battlefield victory—defeated the ideology that had plunged the world into war. Not through force, but through demonstration. Not through punishment, but through example. Not through chains, but through freedom.
Through the women who walked through Des Moines without shackles, the lesson carried back to Germany, through decades of rebuilding, into the democratic nation Germany would become.
The chains had never been necessary. That was the revelation. That was the transformation. That was the story.
