A Look Into WWII History: Crossville POW Camp

Saturday marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Did you know Crossville served as home to one of the state’s three POW camps?

Crossville Military Memorial Museum Curator Robert Boring said during the war the area was secluded, making it the perfect location.

“We had 1,550 Rommel North Africa Corps officers,” Boring said. “We specialized in officers. For about four months we had Italian officers there, we had the top Italian general as prisoner here. The Italians and Germans would throw rocks at each other all day, so we sent the entirety of the Italians to Arizona.”

Boring said since most of the local men were away, if any Crossville resident needed a handyman, electrician, plumber, or carpenter a German prisoner was dispatched and paid.

The local women formed a society called MUFFS (Maidens Unified For Fun Society) where they would send baked goods to the officers. Eventually relationships were formed, and after the war a majority of German officers returned to the United States to marry the women they met.

Interrogating the officers was difficult because Germans would either say nothing or lie. Boring said the Americans found an alternative and effective way to extract information: the local women.

“What they did is they would brag to the girls who they were, where they were going-all the information that we couldn’t get in an interrogation,” Boring said. “They didn’t know their barracks and common areas were all bugged. So, we got more intelligence information by letting them think they had the run of the camp.”

Several of the prisoners were Nazis and they formed a group called “The Holy Ghosts.” Boring said these men would threaten to kill others if they collaborated with the Americans. He said once they were found out, they were sent to Arizona.

The old POW camp was located five miles away from Crossville. It was torn down in 2000 where the Cumberland County 4-H camp stands today.

“The 4-Hers in the camp now claim that they see a German officer walking around in there,” Boring said. “They have a funny name for him, they call him “Herman the German.”

There were two other POW camps in Tennessee, one in Tullahoma and the other in Memphis, Boring said.