Components Of The Reeducation Program

Two of the most important components of the POW program vigorously applied by the War Department in all the camps were the recreation and reeducation programs. The recreation program was intended to occupy the prisoners’ free time with constructive activities designed to overcome the monotony of confinement. The reeducation program attempted to break the grip of Nazi indoctrination by exposing the prisoners to democratic ethos. Reeducation was not without complications. For one thing, it could be perceived as subjecting prisoners of war to propaganda, which was prohibited by the Geneva Convention. Conducting a propaganda program would also have invited retribution against American captives held in enemy hands. The War Department circumvented
The PMGO, in turn, promptly created the Prisoner of War Special Projects Division, and placed it in charge of operating the program which officially began in September 1944. U.S. Army personnel, highly competent civilians, and specially screened German POWs who were dedicated anti-Nazis staffed the division. During the next year and a half they developed an extensive reeducation program which included publishing a national newspaper, Der Ruf (The Call), that was sold in all the camps.6
The Special Projects Division trained a select passel of American officers and enlisted men, and assigned them to service command headquarters and to prisoner of war camps. Using classrooms, films, and other media, they encouraged prisoners to recognize the character of National Socialism and to openly embrace democratic
Harris, an extensive education system developed at Camp Cooke. Besides the required reeducation curricula of English, American history and civics, and American geography, prisoners could study other subjects including accounting, art, biology, bookkeeping, calculus, chemistry, economics, French, German, geometry, Latin, mathematics, physics, sociology, Spanish, and statistics. Technical instruction in agriculture, building and construction, machinery, radio repair, and tailoring were also available.19
Another educational option accessible to all prisoners at Cooke, and approved by the Provost Marshal General’s Office, was group correspondence courses. Offered by the University of California at Berkeley, at least fifteen courses were available including art appreciation, zoology and general biology, differential and integrated calculus, and mechanical engineering. The camp prisoner of war trust fund paid for these