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The Barbed-Wire College : Reeducating German POWs in the United States During World War II

By: Robin, Ron TheodoreMaterial type: TextTextSeries: eBooks on DemandPublisher: Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1995Description: 1 online resource (230 p.)ISBN: 9781400821624Subject(s): Education, Higher -- United States -- History -- 20th century | Education, Humanistic -- United States -- History -- 20th century | Prisoners of war -- Germany -- History -- 20th century | Prisoners of war -- United States -- History -- 20th century | Social sciences -- United States -- History -- 20th century | World War, 1939-1945 -- Education and the war | World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, American | World War, 1939-1945 -- Psychological aspects | World War, 1939-1945 -- United StatesGenre/Form: Electronic books.Additional physical formats: Print version:: The Barbed-Wire College : Reeducating German POWs in the United States During World War IIDDC classification: 940.54/7273 | 940.547273 LOC classification: D805.U5 | R635 1995Online resources: Click here to view this ebook.
Contents:
Book Cover; Title; Copyright; Contents
Summary: From Stalag 17 to The Manchurian Candidate, the American media have long been fascinated with stories of American prisoners of war. But few Americans are aware that enemy prisoners of war were incarcerated on our own soil during World War II. In The Barbed-Wire College Ron Robin tells the extraordinary story of the 380,000 German prisoners who filled camps from Rhode Island to Wisconsin, Missouri to New Jersey. Using personal narratives, camp newspapers, and military records, Robin re-creates in arresting detail the attempts of prison officials to mold the daily lives a
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Electronic Book UT Tyler Online
Online 		D805.U5 R635 1995 (Browse shelf) http://uttyler.eblib.com/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=617283 Available EBL617283
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D805.G3 M2913 2012 Shavelings in Death Camps : D805.G3K619 2005 Confronting Captivity : D805.P6 A433 2010 All This Hell : D805.U5 R635 1995 The Barbed-Wire College : D805.U5 T466 2010 Men in German Uniform : D807.U6 T66 2003 G.I. Nightingales : D808 .O98 2012 Outcast Europe :

Book Cover; Title; Copyright; Contents

From Stalag 17 to The Manchurian Candidate, the American media have long been fascinated with stories of American prisoners of war. But few Americans are aware that enemy prisoners of war were incarcerated on our own soil during World War II. In The Barbed-Wire College Ron Robin tells the extraordinary story of the 380,000 German prisoners who filled camps from Rhode Island to Wisconsin, Missouri to New Jersey. Using personal narratives, camp newspapers, and military records, Robin re-creates in arresting detail the attempts of prison officials to mold the daily lives a

Description based upon print version of record.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

More than 380,000 German prisoners of war were held in the US during WW II. Their stories have been recounted in Stalag, U.S.A. (1977), Arnold Krammer's Nazi Prisoner of War in America (1979), and local histories and autobiographies. Robin examines an obscure subtopic: the effort to denazify these prisoners and "reeducate" them in the ways of democracy and peace. The Office of the Provost Marshal General recruited academics to operate a Special Projects Division (SPD) intended to reorient soldiers previously miseducated in Nazi Germany. Sent to all main POW camps, SPD reeducation coordinators established a special "Idea Factory" in Rhode Island, a prisoner-run newspaper, Der Ruf, and several types of schools. Robin believes the SPD task was impossible and its mission failed because it recruited elitist, impractical, civilian liberal arts professors who could not grasp the mentalities of soldiers or prisoners, and ignored the interests of common POWS. Caught up in the politics of academia, they disdained popular culture and behavioral sciences, and treated their charges like college students. The strength of Robin's study stems from his archival research: analyses of the contents of Der Ruf, reeducation curricula, and films. Less credible are his modeling of military and prison camp life and his views that the knowledge of behavioral scientists was better than that of humanistic scholars. His discourse also lacks awareness of British and Soviet reeducation of German POWS, the closest parallels to the American experience. Upper-division undergraduate and above. G. H. Davis; Georgia State University

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Ron Robin teaches history at the University of Haifa in Israel. Among his books is Enclaves of America: The Rhetoric of American Political Architecture Abroad, 1900-1965 (Princeton).

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