Nebraska POW Camps by Melissa Amateis Marsh

Author:Melissa Amateis Marsh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2014-08-30T04:00:00+00:00

DER RUF AND THE ATLANTA ECHO

The reception of the nationwide POW camp newspaper, Der Ruf, wasn’t an immediate success at Camp Atlanta. The Germans in compound two recognized it as propaganda (though why this particular compound was singled out in the report is a mystery), but as more copies arrived, more men began to read it. It cost five cents and was issued on a semimonthly basis. POWs could contribute to this newspaper, but at Camp Atlanta, some worried there would “be a reaction against them if they did so.”209

However, by March 1945, the POWs and Stonehill prepared a “dummy copy” of a new camp newspaper they called Atlanta Echo. The newsletter would not contain military or political news but camp news only. “With careful censorship,” Major Neuland reported, “and stimulated interest in book reviews, film reviews, sport review, cartoons, and branch camp news, it should prove to be a good publication.” Issued semimonthly and costing five cents, the paper was a success. However, by July 1945, the “nonpolitical” tone of the newspaper changed, ostensibly due to the Allied victory in Europe. The July issue contained quotes from Thomas Mann’s Achtung Europe, articles about the history of America and the Fourth of July and an editorial by one POW, who wrote, “We will not put our head into the sand, but decisively break with the past and start from a new point believing in a future of security, freedom, and self-determination.”210 The American soldiers’ newsletter even commented on these editorials, stating that they “provoke thought.”211

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