Prisoners were field workers in late years of World War II

Farmers in North County and southern York County, Pa., faced severe shortages of field workers during World War II. Fathers, husbands and brothers were off fighting in Europe or the Pacific, but crops still needed to be planted and harvested.

Relief came from an unlikely source.

During the spring and summer of 1944 and 1945, at least 15 German soldiers who were prisoners of war worked side by side with farmers like Paul Miller, of White Hall, and Alvin Shaub, of Shrewsbury, Pa.

When the war ended, the soldiers were sent back to Germany to face uncertain futures. But they never forgot the past.

Some stayed in touch with the American families and even came back for visits.

Tales of those enduring friendships are the subject of a talk to be given by Alvin Shaub's son, Robert, and his wife, Margaret, on Feb. 18 at 7 p.m. at Morris Meadows Historical Museum in Freeland. The talk, free and open to the public, is presented by the Northern Baltimore County Historical Society.

Fred Miller, who runs the family grain farm in White Hall, was born shortly after five German soldiers who worked for his father, Paul Miller, were sent back to Germany at war's end.

He said his father drove to the arsenal in Edgewood each day in the summer of 1945 to pick up the soldiers, who included 17-year-old Karl Atzig.

Atzig was a 15-year-old schoolboy when he was ordered to join the German army. He turned 16 while fighting on the Russian front. He was captured in October 1944, brought by ship to New York in December and then sent to Edgewood Arsenal, Fred Miller said.

Fred Miller said his father, who died in 2001, considered Atzig more of a teen who liked to sing and play hide and seek rather than a prisoner of war.

When the war was over, Paul Miller gave all five workers his name and address and asked them to keep in touch.

Only Atzig did. After learning where he lived, Paul Miller's wife, Ruth, sent Atzig a suit he wore on his wedding day.

The families corresponded, mostly Christmas cards and occasional letters, but communications slowed after Ruth Miller died in 1962. Years later, Paul's son, Fred, and his wife, Debbie, found the old letters and started writing again. Atzig and his wife, Luise, made their first visit to White Hall in 1986. He was 59.

"The two men hugged each other, and then Karl went out into the fields where he used to work. He just stood there and looked and looked," Debbie Miller said.

The Millers took "Uncle Karl" and his wife to Washington, Lancaster, Pa., and Niagara Falls, N.Y., and introduced them to the arts of eating steamed crabs and corn on the cob.

While wandering on the farm, Atzig found an old bell on a shed floor that Ruth Miller once rang to call the farm workers, German soldiers included, to a hot midday meal.

The Millers had the bell repaired, and Atzig painted it and put it on a post by the farmhouse backdoor. It is still there today.

Karl Atzig's last trip to Maryland was in 1993 for Paul Miller's 80th birthday.

Farmer and carver

Margaret Shaub, who grew up on a farm in White Hall, said she never knew that German soldiers worked at her husband's family farm until after her father-in-law's death in the late 1980s.

When she and her husband, Robert, started looking through Alvin Shaub's belongings, they found a wooden carving signed by a POW named Johann Schleicher. Resembling a carving of an Indian-head nickel, it features the profile of an American Indian with the word "Amerika" and the date of 1945.

Robert Shaub, now 79, was in high school when the Germans worked at his family's farm and has only vague memories of taking water out to the German men in the fields.

That carving turned Margaret Shaub into a detective. She began writing to American and German officials, trying to locate the soldiers assigned to Alvin Shaub's farm.

She knew who to look for because Alvin Shaub kept lists with the names of 10 German workers and how many tomatoes, ears of corn or bushels of beans they picked. He drove his truck to Stewartstown, Pa., each day to get and then return the men. The 200 or so POWs who worked on southern York County farms, including the Shaubs', lived at what was then the Stewartstown fairgrounds in tents. The area is now parks and ballfields. The POWs were there for farm work only from June to October. The rest of the time, they were at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, northeast of Harrisburg, Pa.

Over the years, she found addresses for many soldiers and wrote to them. Some responded; some made arrangements for visits. Others were never heard from.

By the time Margaret located Schleicher, he had died. But the carver's family had heard stories of his American adventure. Schleicher's widow, son and daughter-in-law came to America for a visit.

In 1992, the Shaubs made their first trip to Germany and visited some of the men they had located, including Andreas Neuhauser. He and his family visited the Shaubs in 2001, and Margaret and her daughter, Megan Shaub, attended his daughter's wedding about five years ago in Germany.

"It has just been the most amazing thing," Margaret said. "I still get calls and letters from so many of them, or their families. We've really gotten to know them, and despite being prisoners of war, they have good memories of time in America."

The Shaubs' talk is at 7 p.m. Feb. 18 at the Morris Meadows Historical Museum, 1523 Freeland Road, Freeland. For details, call 410-357-4088.

On March 18, the Northern Baltimore County Historical Society will hold a program at 7 p.m. on American prisoner of war experiences during World War II.

---

user comments (0)