Volume 15 , Issue 3

Camp Trinidad POW (Henning Jess)

We heard from someone interested in Camp Trinidad and she sent us a news clippings of the 1960's written by a Houston, Texas news reporter. She shared that clipping with us.

Darla Bracklow says, "I have an newspaper article from the 1960's (written by a Houston Texas newspaper reporter) of an interview with a former Camp Trinidad German POW. I have just read the Okie Legacy and mentioned therein is Camp Trinidad. I just figured out that this was sent to my Mother from her Mother who loved in the Denver area at the time. I was born not far from this area in La Junta. I hope it is of some use for you. My husband's father was a German POW in (we think) Missouri and I would so love to one day find a was to search names of those interred in the camps." ~ Cheers, Darla Bracklow

Jolly German Recalls Captivity In U.S.

Written by Dick Martinsen, Chronicle staff -- Henning Jess, senior director of the port and state of Hamburg no visiting here, is by all odds the jolliest former German officer who spent three years in captivity.

The captivity was in the United States, and Jess with 200 other German officers enjoyed it so much, he says, they ended up firm friends with their guards and of Americans in general.

"We tunneled our way to liberty." Jess chuckled Tuesday. "We dug away for months, in our compound, near Trinidad, Colorado. Then, when the tunnel was finished, we just didn't want to escape. So, in relays of 20, we used it to have a few drinks in town."

Jess mentioned in the article, "Bed-ticking made pretty fair white shirts. Our uniform pants matched the color of your uniforms. So we had lots of fun before the tunnel was discovered in about a month. We didn't dare try for dates, though, with the Trinidad girls."

He goes on to say, "One of our officers really did escape, though, a couple of years earlier. He worked as a soda-jerker and otherwise in a Midwestern town. Then, by golly, they tried to draft him for the U.S. Army! He flung up his hands and cried, 'I'm a German prisoner!' So back he came to us."

Jess, an officer of Rommel's Afrika Corps, was captured by the English, then was sent to America for safekeeping. He didn't get back to Germany until 1946, to re-engage in the government work which he had made his career since graduating from Marburg University 10 years before World War II.

His new job was to co-ordinate the efforts of the Hamburg cabinet, its senate and its parliament. It involved public relations, so he welcomed the offer of the U.S. State Department to visit some American port cities as its guest.

"Hamburg and Houston had a very great deal in common," Jess declared. "They are both building for the future. Hamburg is now the second largest port in Europe, yielding only to Rotterdam, and London, of course Houston may one day be the largest port in the United States."   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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