Afrika Corps Soldiers near what would become the Villages.

[Taltarzac725]

German soldiers once built houses and picked fruit in Lake County. During World War II, the area fronting U.S. Highway 441 and in front of the Lake-Sumter State College Learning Center served as a prisoner-of-war camp for German soldiers and pilots. The quarters had been the temporary home of the 313th Air Corps Fighter Squadron, while they trained for the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, across the street at the U.S. Army Air Base — now Leesburg International Airport. The first batch of prisoners — about 250 from Field Marshall Erwin Rommel's elite Afrika Korps — arrived in March 1944.

This was on The Daily Commercial Facebook page and I thought some people on TOTV would enjoy seeing it. I have always been a history buff getting my 2nd BA in History. And writing historically themed papers for the U of MN Law School on the Antarctic Treaty and enforcing it as well as another on loopholes MN lawyers found in the Prohibition Laws.

I believe there is a small dog park in that area where the Rommel troops might have been in 1944 till until they shut it down.

[Bavarian]

There needs to be a historic monument placed there to honor the bravery of the Afirka Korp interned there.

[manaboutown]

My very best friend during grade school had emigrated with his parents from post war Germany. His father, a physician specializing in high altitude and aviation medicine, had been stationed with the Afrika Korps for two years. His father later worked with US astronauts. My friend became a research oriented MD who in the early 1980's went back to Berlin where he became a professor/researcher.

[Taltarzac725]

My very best friend during grade school had emigrated with his parents from post war Germany. His father, a physician specializing in high altitude and aviation medicine, had been stationed with the Afrika Korps for two years. His father later worked with US astronauts. My friend became a research oriented MD who in the early 1980's went back to Berlin where he became a professor/researcher.

That's really good story. Thanks manaboutown.

[RickeyD]

My father was working Shore Patrol in Brooklyn, 1946. A German POW who at that time were allowed to walk the streets asked him for a light. Dad slipped on his brass knuckles and put him down. A small piece of unwritten history that poor soldier probably never forgot.

[NotGolfer]

I grew up in Southern Minnesota but didn't learn until recent years that there was a German prisoner of war camp not far from there. I don't recall the town now...but it may have been Owatonna. I would venture to guess there were several throughout the U.S. during that time.

[Taltarzac725]

I grew up in Southern Minnesota but didn't learn until recent years that there was a German prisoner of war camp not far from there. I don't recall the town now...but it may have been Owatonna. I would venture to guess there were several throughout the U.S. during that time.

The secret history of prisoner-of war-camps in Minnesota | Minnesota Public Radio News (http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/03/25/books-bcst-treuer-prudence)

Looks like Minnesota had more than 15 POW camps for German prisoners. 400,000 men came to MN. They picked up a lot of the labor shortage from Minnesotans fighting in WWII.

As an aside, have you watched the movie Fargo or seen the Series of the same name? They seem a bit heavy on the Minnesotan accent. I met hundreds of Minnesotas in Middlebrook Hall (an about 12 story residence hall on the U of MN Minneapoils campus) and was at the U of MN Law School first as a student and then as a cataloging/reference librarian. I cataloged all the WESTLAW files for a national project started by one of the U of MN Law Librarians among others. This was from late Summer of 1986 through late November of 1991 that I lived in the Twin Cities.

Also like to see how the books by John Sandford ( various Prey books and other series) portray Minnesota, Wisconsin and other places.

I had never been to Minnesota in 1986 but my double cousin Tom married into a very large Irish family in Edina, MN and they said that I would like it there. For the most part they were right. And the U of MN was the highest ranked of the law schools I managed to get into at about 17th in the US according to some of the rating systems.

[manaboutown]

New Mexico had several POW camps. They housed not only German POWs but Japanese and Italian as well. The largest was just outside Roswell (so the later alleged UFO landing did not bring the first aliens to Roswell). Most of the prisoners worked on farms. Some even worked in Roswell itself.

POW Camps in New Mexico (https://www.gentracer.org/powcampsNM.html)

The Iron Cross war memorial is in a park there. Roswell German Iron Cross and POW/MIA Park - War Memorials HQ (http://www.warmemorialhq.org/cpg/thumbnails.php?album=762)

Ironically the atomic bomb was being developed just a couple hundred miles away in Los Alamos. Its test occurred near Alamogordo, not very far from Roswell.