October 6th, German American Day!

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My mother's ancestry can be traced back to the Teutonic Knights.
Just thought I should throw that in there.

And I am not jousting joking.

I own a book published in the 1980s that covers life in the WWII POW camps in Nebraska and Kansas. There were similar camps in the previous war there also. You might want to look for something like that if it interests you. I cannot remember the title offhand though. It was an estate auction purchase. That is where I got some of my Kansas POW information. I have visited the camp remains at a few of the sites. Often there is just a plaque stating what was there at one time out in a farm field. The army did interrogate the prisoners while there to sort out which ones could be rehabilitated and which ones could not. Those that they deemed bad ones were sent on to heavily guarded camps elsewhere. After the war, there were several former POWs that married local girls after coming back. A few of them are mentioned in this book.

gosh darn it, i MISSED IT. verdammt! i wish to H my calendar would have these things on it.

1/4 of my ancestors came from a little town in germany called Müller. they came over to america sometime in the great 1880s wave. they were hardy stock.

Scheiße dreck!

Bauer bleibt bauer.

my ancestors left the farm back in the 40s.

During WWII, my paternal grandfather, who was a farmer in rural eastern Washington where a number of Russian Germans had settled, had been asked to translate for the US military and German POWs. One of the German prisoners commented that he hadn't heard anyone speak that kind of German since his his own grandfather.
I've read that German colonists in Russia continued to speak the German of the early 19th century, whereas in Germany the language changed somewhat over time.