Alva Review-Courier -

In the fall semester of 1944 at Northwestern State College in Alva, Oklahoma, an 18-year-old coed named Phyllis Stout was surprised to see long lines of German prisoners of war marching past Shockley Hall (now Vinson Hall) on the east side of the NWOSU campus. The POWs, composed of captured Afrika Corps soldiers, had been off-loaded from railroad cars on the north side of Alva. From the railroad, they were being moved on foot down Seventh Street, turning east on Highway 64 to the junction of U.S. Highway 281, then south to the POW camp a few blocks southwest of the city. So just about everyone in the city was getting an eyeful.

Phyllis was surprised (and more than a little bit shocked) to see the hundreds of hardened Axis desert soldiers, formerly commanded by General Erwin Rommel, marching just a few feet from her vantage point of just inside the women’s dormitory. At first the military prisoners walked in a fairly relaxed fashion, but suddenly one of the German officers barked out an order, and the entire group of soldiers snapped into a silent rigid military marching cadence. It made the strange experience even more surreal with only the rhythmic sound of hundreds of German jack boots resounding off the pavement as the soldiers marched in unison

Phyllis Stout later married her husband of many years, Bill Brunstetter, and became the administrative secretary to the vice-president for academic affairs at NWOSU. For decades, Phyllis was THE person on campus who likely knew if something important was brewing, and probably had practical solutions to most problems (or at least reasoned opinions about them). This was true whether the issue involved an academic or personal matter – or a distant historic German invasion of sorts.

In late 1942 and most of 1943, eight POW compounds were constructed in Oklahoma that would eventually house up to 20,000 POWs. Most of the compounds were designed to confine roughly a thousand men, but the camp at Alva was intended to house up to 6,500 soldiers. Various numbers have been given for the number of POWs actually confined there, but probably a figure of 4,500 was closer to the peak number (although a recent TV documentary put the figure at 6,100.)

While the majority of POW camps consisted of one compound, the Alva camp had a total of five. It was a maximum security complex designed for hardened Nazis and Nazi sympathizers, and deservedly acquired the label of “Nazilager” or Nazi camp. In other camps, the German POWs referred to it as “Devil’s Island” or “the Alcatraz of POW camps.”

During World War II, a rough total of 80 escapes were attempted from the Oklahoma camps. One of the more interesting examples involved an inmate who made his way to Texas before being recaptured. He was bent over an outside well getting a drink when he was shot in his backside by a 72-year-old grandmother who was armed with her trusty shotgun. She was later mortified to find out he was a POW, and not the local troublesome banker she thought he was.

The POWs had strict codes of conduct, and enforcement of them could be harsh, which sometimes involved the killing of another inmate. American authorities did their best to maintain secure installations, and penalties for violation of some rules included execution.

My first experience with a German POW from the Alva camp occurred when I took an advanced German language course at Fort Hays (Kansas) State College (now a university) in 1964. The course was taught by one of Alva’s former POWs. I can still remember him all too often saying, “Herr Kilbourne, you must pay more attention to proper word order in a sentence.”

Later on I gained some satisfaction at being able to relate the same message when I was the one teaching German classes at Northwestern. An Alva resident who had previously been a German war bride, named Marlisse Weber, helped me prepare conversational dialogues on tapes for the classes.

(To be continued)