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AMPLE MEALS, FARM WORK<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gr\u00e4we\u2019s military career started in Latvia, where he went through training for what appeared to be an assignment to the Eastern Front to fight a resurgent Russian army. If Josef Stalin\u2019s forces had captured him, he likely would have been sent to a labor camp, where harsh conditions killed many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then Allied forces invaded France, and the Germans scrambled to try to slow their advance toward Paris with fresh reinforcements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gr\u00e4we was transferred to Normandy, where he served in a tank unit that was quickly overwhelmed by the U.S. and British armies in clashes he said killed most of the young soldiers he arrived with from Latvia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was a terrible fight in Normandy \u2014 it wasn\u2019t what we expected, and we were young and inexperienced,\u201d Grawe said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A grenade hit his tank, and Gr\u00e4we scrambled out amid volleys of gunfire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He suffered only a small wound to his foot, and several days later became an American prisoner as U.S. soldiers overran the hospital tent camp where he was recuperating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gr\u00e4we said he realized how well things had turned out as he was put on the ocean liner Queen Mary for the voyage to America. He had comfortable quarters and most important \u2014 ample meals \u2014 served on metal trays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next, he took a train ride across America to what was then Fort Lewis. At the Army post south of Tacoma, barracks vacated by U.S. troops were turned into prison quarters for some 4,000 German POWs at five locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fort Lewis (now part of the joint base) was part of a much broader POW prison-camp network of some 500 sites across the country that held 400,000 Germans. Overall, historians say these prisoners were treated well. Some Germans even referred to their camp as a \u201cgolden cage,\u201d according to Michael Farquhar, who wrote a 1997 article about the POWs for The Washington Post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The POWs\u2019 relative comfort angered some wartime Americans who had lost their loved ones to German troops. But they did have to work, providing labor at a time when the massive troop mobilization made it hard to find enough people to bring in the nation\u2019s crops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gr\u00e4we traveled by truck from Fort Lewis to help in apple, sugar-beet and potato harvests. Later, he was transferred to Arizona to bring in cotton. He recalled his farm labor as a real adventure that earned him an 80-cents-a-day salary to buy things at the commissary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CRISIS OF FAITH<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n Through his years as a prisoner, Gr\u00e4we says he came to love America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But his first loyalties were to Germany. As a boy, he participated in Hitler Youth. He joined the army as what he calls a \u201cyoung idealistic soldier\u201d who thought it \u201cright to fight for an honest and upright fatherland\u201d just like his father, a plumber turned soldier who died in the war in 1940.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gr\u00e4we says he first learned of the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps while a prisoner in America. He initially brushed off the news as propaganda because it was conveyed by a U.S. officer. When he wrote home to his mother and sister, they replied it was true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1947, two years after Germany\u2019s unconditional surrender, Gr\u00e4we was released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a crisis of faith, he left his church, where he says the pastors prayed for their own people rather than trying to stop the Nazis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the postwar era, as the German economy surged, Gr\u00e4we prospered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He got married, had two sons and opened a successful import business bringing in merchandise from Asia. Through the decades, he returned to the U.S. several times to vacation. But only after his wife died in 2016 did he make up his mind to return to Washington state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Searching online, Gr\u00e4we found an article on the camp on HistoryLink.org. In July of last year, he wrote a letter to propose a visit that finally unfolded this fall with stops in California and then Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gr\u00e4we, a passionate cyclist, had planned to ride his electric bike all the way up the West Coast to Seattle. But when he sought the advice of California police, they counseled against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So he put his bike on a northbound train, and once he arrived in Seattle reached out to HistoryLink staff for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe weren\u2019t expecting him just then,\u201d Marie McCaffrey, HistoryLink\u2019s executive director, whose staff reached out the base to help arrange the visit. \u201cBut we\u2019re a public information utility, and if there is something we can do to help, we try to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A HUG AND A CASSEROLE<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n On Oct. 3, a brilliant fall day, Gr\u00e4we arrived at JBLM. He brought his electric bike, determined to ride the final distance \u2014 a little over a mile \u2014 to the old camp site. On each side of his bike\u2019s rear wheel hung a sign: \u201cUSA, the country and its people, you are my first and final love!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the blacktop by the barracks, he looked around somewhat uncertainly. He recalled a barren site. This place was full of fir trees that had grown up in the seven decades since the prisoners had gone home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was greeted by the base\u2019s deputy joint commander, Col. William Percival, who offered a handshake, and later a hug inside a building now empty and bare of furniture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou remind us that how you treat somebody defines who we are,\u201d Percival said. \u201cThere are times, even today, when we may want to forget that. And you let us know that\u2019s a lesson not to be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gr\u00e4we then went for lunch at a base dining hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He piled his plate full of a noodle casserole, and sat down to eat one more ample meal served up by the U.S. Army. This time, as a free man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Information from: The Seattle Times, http:\/\/www.seattletimes.com<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gunter Grawe spent three years as a German prisoner of war in western Washington, a World War II incarceration he recalls not with rancor but gratitude for the chance to \u201clive and learn in America.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":79400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":12,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"2":{"categories":["news","good-news-report","newsletters","retirement-e-report"],"primary_category":"news"},"4":{"categories":["news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"news"},"6":{"categories":["news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"news"},"7":{"categories":["news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"news"}}},"categories":[100,12,25],"tags":[],"coauthors":[5226],"class_list":["post-42222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-news","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"6MOKQCCA3VGLFHM3SDNRPPSPUQ","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/2017\/10\/14\/wwii-german-pow-returns-to-washington-state-to-say-thank-you\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP17283587460723.jpg.jpg\")
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