Ernst’s story: How a German POW became a proud American

Editor’s note: This is the third part of a five-part series on the history of World War II POW camps in Michigan. Part 1 is available here. Part 2 is here. A new story will be published every Sunday.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — In the final days of World War II, the Grand Rapids Press published an editorial on the nation’s POW camps and how the American military’s decision to treat its prisoners humanely helped end the war.

“Perhaps we have erred on the side of kindness, but thereby we may have helped shorten the war and bring more American sons, husbands and fathers home safely,” it read.

One prisoner took that kindness and humanity to heart, moving back to the U.S. after the war. This is his story.

Ernst Floeter was born in August 1925 in the German town of Stettin, which is now a part of Poland. After being forced into the military and dragged into a battle he wanted no part in, he was eventually captured by American troops and brought stateside to be held in a POW camp.

But Floeter, who told his story in a 2008 sit-down interview with a historian from the Archives of Michigan, would use a different word. He wasn’t captured. He says he was liberated.

“I wanted to become a prisoner. I didn’t want to fight for that Germany,” Floeter said.

In September 1943, Floeter learned that his draft class would have him assigned to the SS — the group in charge of surveillance and enforcing the Nazi racial policies. Instead, he volunteered for the army and was sent to boot camp in Danzig.

“Thanks to divine guidance, I was a stupid soldier. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here,” he said. “From our boot camp … three guys didn’t qualify. I was one of them. We three came to Normandy. The rest all stayed in Poland. (By the end of the war) they were all dead or missing.”

As the war crawled on in the spring of 1944, Floeter explained that the Germans knew the Allies would try to make landfall at Normandy. He was on the crew that monitored the skies overnight. They took extra-long shifts on nights where the landing conditions were favorable.

“Nothing happened until the night from the fifth through the sixth of June,” he said.

The rest is history. The infamous Invasion of Normandy was a key turning point in the war, giving the Allies a foothold in Europe that was the key to defeating the Germans. Floeter, for his part, did little to stop it.

“We were told the Allies will land (at Dover and Calais), and we had to make preparations — under Feldmarshall Rommel — to cut trees down and put the trees into low-lying areas as a defense for the gliders. We did, but that was about all we did there,” Floeter said.

Floeter served as a radio man for his regiment and recalls the first night of the invasion.

“The night they came, we were right over in Saint Sauveur . That is about halfway — Cherbourg is in the north, and Omaha is in the east — we were right in the middle. We were under the incoming B-47s who dropped off all the paratroopers. We were right under the line. They came right over us,” he said.

The fight continued for several days. Eventually, with his team pinned down, Floeter’s commanding officer called for a final blaze of glory, telling his men to “stand up and shoot.”

“Instead, somebody pulled out his towel and started to wave,” he said.

Floeter’s time as a soldier was over. He was now a prisoner of war. He recalled with pride that he never shot at anyone.

ON THE MOVE

After being captured, Floeter spent four days at an American holding camp. Two things stood out, one being the sheer amount of supplies the Americans had compared to the Germans and the other how much went to waste.

“At my first breakfast, there I saw the waste of food by the American soldiers. It was sinful,” Floeter said. “Then, we had to police between the tents, clean up the place, and we found cigarette boxes all over the place, all filled — mostly with one or two taken out and thrown away. So we all put the packs of cigarettes in our pockets.”

“(At breakfast break) he brought us beautiful marmalade and coffee and crackers. And at noon, we had lunch. It was our first good lunch for many weeks. Later, by 4 p.m., everybody got 20 cigarettes as pay.”

From there, Floeter and his fellow POWs were shipped across the English Channel and spent four days under the care of the British.

“They weren’t as nice,” he noted. “We had to run all the time, and the food we got was all rotten there.”

After train rides through the United Kingdom, the POWs ended up in Liverpool and boarded a supply ship to take them stateside. A convoy of ships traveled together on the trip, arriving in New York 12 days later.

Floeter remembers arriving at Ellis Island and being able to take a shower for the first time in three months. His clothes were deloused once again and each POW was given a medical examination and necessary inoculations.

The POWs then boarded a train. Floeter didn’t know where they were heading next. At first, he was awed to see the Niagara Falls, but shuddered when he saw the Union Jack flying over the Canadian side.

“I was not sure where I was suddenly. I didn’t want nothing (to do) with the British,” he said.

Fortunately for Floeter, the train only cut across Canada. It eventually traveled through Windsor and crossed into Detroit, in bound for Fort Custer near Battle Creek — then known as Camp Custer.

He didn’t spend much time at Camp Custer but remembers being given the basic rundown of how the POW camps would operate and his first in-depth interrogation from American officers. He also got a brand new uniform, one emblazoned with “PW” in bright white .

“I threw everything away that I had. I kept my boots, but everything else went in the junk,” he said. “And I felt like an angel in seventh heaven with all the GI uniforms, one khaki and one woolen for the winter. It was fantastic.”

He also remembers being blown away by the food.

“They blew the whistle. We go into the mess hall and the tables are filled with stuff: ‘Hurry up, boys. Get ready for seconds,’” Floeter recalled. “I didn’t know what (some of it) was, but it was much more — much, much more — than what we had in the last month. Then, every morning we got a quart of milk and cornflakes and some bread and (oleo) and marmalade. … It was a happy time.”

Days later, Floeter was on the move again, this time to Camp Ellis in Illinois. Finally, he got a chance to work.

“Our work was night work in the corn cannery,” he said. “When the farmers brought in the corn, from between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m., we were working on chutes and put the corn cobs into machinery where they got cut off on both ends and dehusked. That was our job.”

Camp Ellis was also Floeter’s first chance meeting with prisoners from the Afrika Korps — made up of more devoted Nazis — who were caught a year prior. Floeter and the new POWs were berated by their fellow Germans, accused of being cowards and traitors.

“(They believed) Germany was still winning the war, that German cities are all intact. Then, when we came, we told them the difference. One of them said, ‘Well, we will give your name to the Gestapo after our victory,’” he said. “We had to keep our mouth shut as much there than in Germany.”

That experience was reportedly common in the camps. Floeter referred to them as “uncurable” Nazis. Interrogators did their best to keep “hardcore” Nazis together in camps with tighter conditions, but initially didn’t care much what the POWs did to each other inside the camp boundaries.

After several attacks, however, and convictions from a kangaroo court, the Americans eventually instituted new rules and granted protective custody to POWs under threat.

Floeter said that the new rules were quickly explained and the attacks stopped immediately.

“Everybody who kills somebody will be hung,” he said. “They published 11-by-14 pictures with eight guys on the gallows in Fort Leavenworth, so that calmed the whole thing down.”

ERNST’S JOURNEY HOME

Floeter spent most of his time as a POW in camps in Texas and in New Mexico, but after the war ended and he was sent back to Europe, he knew he wanted to come back, and Michigan made his short list of places to settle down.

He lived in East Berlin for seven years before escaping and becoming a legal citizen of West Germany after getting married. Years later, because he was technically considered a “displaced person,” Floeter qualified for a special immigration program to move to the U.S.

After 11 months of crossing T’s and dotting I’s, Floeter, his wife and their newborn daughter were on their way to a new life in the states. The young family arrived in New York on Christmas Eve of 1957.

“The next morning, we all assembled. People from all the different organizations came and put a big map on the wall. They told us, ‘You’re Mr. So-and-so? You go to Cleveland. You go to Bay City. And Mr. Floeter, you go to East Lansing, Michigan,” he said. “And that’s what I wanted, Michigan or Illinois.”

They soon made their way to East Lansing, where the Saints Episcopal Church had made a place for them.

“They had everything for us,” he recalled. “We had things that we never thought about in Germany. Everyday, somebody came and brought us cake or a radio or a record player and a television set. Then, after four days, I got a job in photography.”

Michigan was his new home and photography became his new passion. Eventually, they moved to nearby Grand Ledge. Floeter opened his own studio in 1966. In 1967, he became an American citizen, and he lived the American dream for another 48 years, passing away in 2015 at 90 years old.

In his obituary, the writers highlighted how he was recruited to play Uncle Sam for an annual production of “Mudge’s Follies.”

“They needed somebody tall and very outgoing,” his longtime friend Marilyn Smith told the Lansing State Journal .

But it went deeper than that. It was a role that captured his spirit: one that believed in passion, compassion and freedom. It was a role that he held for the next 25 years, dressing up for local parades and events.

As the state archivist wrapped up their conversation that stretched will over an hour, he asked Floeter if he had anything else he would like to say. His response was simple:

“God bless America.”

Editor’s note: This is the third part of a five-part series on the history of World War II POW camps in Michigan . A new story will be published every Sunday.

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