As the war began to come to an end in the spring of 1945, small branch camps began to send their prisoners to the larger camps. Many including American General Lucius Clay, did not want to send the soldiers back immediately. America's farmers did not want to see them leave either. On the other hand, American labor unions demanded that they leave the United States to make jobs available to returning U.S. soldiers. The new president, Harry S. Truman ordered the War Department to ship them out of the United States, to whichever country wanted them. Most German POWs spent the next two to three years in the unfriendly hands of the French and British. The last German POW was returned home in mid-1948, three years after the war was over.
Courtesy of Humanities Texas