German American internment
Encyclopedia
German American Internment refers to the detention of people of German citizenship in the United States
during World War I
and World War II
.
issued two sets of regulations on April 6, 1917, and November 16, 1917, imposing restrictions on German-born male residents of the United States over the age of 14. The rules were written to include natives of Germany who had become citizens of countries other than the U.S. Some 250,000 people in that category were required to register at their local post office, to carry their registration card at all times, and to report any change of address or employment. The same regulations and registration requirements were imposed on females on April 18, 1918. Some 6,300 such aliens were arrested. Thousands were interrogated and investigated. A total of 2,048 were incarcerated for the remainder of the war in two camps, Fort Douglas, Utah
, for those west of the Mississippi
and Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, for those east of the Mississippi.
The cases of these aliens, whether being considered for internment or under internment, were managed by the Enemy Alien Registration Section of the Department of Justice
, headed beginning in December 1917 by J. Edgar Hoover
, then not yet 23 years old.
Among the notable internees were the geneticist Richard Goldschmidt
and 29 players from the Boston Symphony Orchestra
. Their music director, Karl Muck
, spent more than a year at Fort Oglethorpe, as did the music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
, Ernst Kunwald
. One internee described a memorable concert in the mess hall packed with 2000 internees, with honored guests like their doctors and government censors on the front benches, facing 100 musicians. Under Muck's baton, he wrote, "the Eroica rushed at us and carried us far away and above war and worry and barbed wire."
Most internees were paroled on the orders of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer
in June 1919. Some remained in custody until as late as March and April 1920.
, free to leave. With the declaration of war, 1800 merchant sailors became prisoners of war.
with full military honors. The surviving 353 German service members became prisoners of war, and on April 29 were shipped to the U.S. mainland. Non-Germans were treated differently. Four Chinese nationals became personal servants in the homes of wealthy locals. Another 28, Melanesians from German New Guinea
, were confined on Guam and not accorded the rations and monthly allowance that other POWs received. The crews of the cruiser Geier and an accompanying supply ship, which sought refuge from the Japanese Navy in Honolulu in November 1914, were similarly interned until they became POWs.
Several hundred men on two other German cruisers, the Prinz Eitel Friedrich
and Kronprinz Wilhelm
, unwilling to face the British Navy in the Atlantic, lived for several years on their ships in various Virginia ports and frequently enjoyed shore leave. Eventually they were given a strip of land in the Norfolk Navy Yard on which to erect accommodations. They constructed a complex commonly known as the "German village" with painted one-room houses and fenced yards made from scrap lumber, curtained windows, and gardens of flowers and vegetables, as well as a village church, a police station, and cafes serving non-alcoholic beverages. They rescued animals from other ships and raised goats and pigs in the village along with numerous pet cats and dogs. On October 1, 1916, the ships and their personnel were moved to the Philadelphia Navy Yard along with the village structures, which again became known locally as the "German village." In this more secure location in the Navy Yard at Philadelphia's League Island
behind a barbed wire fence, the detainees designated February 2, 1917, Red Cross Day and solicited donations to the German Red Cross. As German-American relations worsened in the spring of 1917, nine successfully escaped detention, prompting Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels
to act immediately on plans to transfer the other 750 to detention camps at Fort McPherson
and Fort Oglethorpe in late March 1917, where they were isolated from civilian detainees. Following the U.S. declaration of war on Germany, some of the Cormorans crew members joined them at McPherson, while others were held at Fort Douglas, Utah
, for the duration of the war.
At the start of World War II
, under the authority of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798
, the United States government detained and interned over 11,000 German enemy aliens. They were all either former civillians or citzens of Germany. Their ranks included immigrants to the U.S. as well as visitors stranded in the U.S. by hostilities. In many cases, the families of the internees were allowed to remain together at internment camps in the U.S. In other cases, families were separated. Limited due process
was allowed for those arrested and detained.
The population of German citizens in the United Statesnot to mention American citizens of German birthwas far too large for a general policy of internment comparable to that used in the case of the Japanese in America. Instead, German citizens were detained and evicted from coastal areas on an individual basis. The War Department considered mass expulsions from coastal areas for reasons of military security, but never executed such plans.
A total of 11,507 Germans were interned during the war, accounting for 36% of the total internments under the Justice Department's Enemy Alien Control Program, but far less than the 110,000 Japanese-Americans interned. Such internments began with the detention of 1,260 Germans shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor
. Of the 254 persons evicted from coastal areas, the majority were German.
In addition, over 4,500 ethnic Germans were brought to the U.S. from Latin America and similarly detained. The Federal Bureau of Investigation
drafted a list of Germans in fifteen Latin American countries whom it suspected of subversive activities and, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, demanded their eviction to the U.S. for detention. The countries that responded expelled 4,058 people. Some 10% to 15% were Nazi party members, including approximately a dozen who were recruiters for the NSDAP/AO
, roughly the overseas arm of the Nazi party. Just eight were people suspected of espionage. Also transferred were some 81 Jewish Germans who had recently fled persecution in Nazi Germany. The bulk of those transferred from Latin America to the U.S. were not objects of suspicion. Many had been residents of Latin America for years, some for decades. In some instances, corrupt Latin American officials took the opportunity to seize their property. Sometimes financial rewards paid by American intelligence led to someone's identification and expulsion. Several countries did not participate in the program, while others operated their own detention facilities.
The U.S. internment camps to which Germans from Latin America were directed included:
Some internees were held at least as late as 1948.
in 2001 to create an independent commission to review government policies on European enemy ethnic groups during the war. On August 3, 2001, Senators Russell Feingold (D-WI) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) the European Americans and Refugees Wartime Treatment Study Act in the U.S. Senate, joined by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Senator Joseph Lieberman. This bill creates an independent commission to review U.S. government policies directed against European enemy ethnic groups during World War II in the U.S. and Latin America.
In 2007, the U.S. Senate passed the Wartime Treatment Study Act
, which would examine the treatment of ethnic groups targeted by the U.S. government during World War II. Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions
opposed it, citing historians from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum who called it exaggerated. He called it a slander on America, despite the findings that it was devastating on German and Italian-Americans livelihoods.
In 2009, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law passed the Wartime Treatment Study Act by a vote of 9 to 1.
violations.
The TRACES Center for History and Culture based in St. Paul, Minnesota travels the United States in a "bus-eum" to educate citizens of the World War II treatment of foreign nationals in the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Civilian internees
President Woodrow WilsonWoodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
issued two sets of regulations on April 6, 1917, and November 16, 1917, imposing restrictions on German-born male residents of the United States over the age of 14. The rules were written to include natives of Germany who had become citizens of countries other than the U.S. Some 250,000 people in that category were required to register at their local post office, to carry their registration card at all times, and to report any change of address or employment. The same regulations and registration requirements were imposed on females on April 18, 1918. Some 6,300 such aliens were arrested. Thousands were interrogated and investigated. A total of 2,048 were incarcerated for the remainder of the war in two camps, Fort Douglas, Utah
Fort Douglas, Utah
Camp Douglas was established in October 1862 as a small military garrison about three miles east of Salt Lake City, Utah, for the purpose of protecting the overland mail route and telegraph lines along the Central Overland Route. In 1878, the post was renamed Fort Douglas. The fort was officially...
, for those west of the Mississippi
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
and Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, for those east of the Mississippi.
The cases of these aliens, whether being considered for internment or under internment, were managed by the Enemy Alien Registration Section of the Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
, headed beginning in December 1917 by J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...
, then not yet 23 years old.
Among the notable internees were the geneticist Richard Goldschmidt
Richard Goldschmidt
Richard Benedict Goldschmidt was a German-born American geneticist. He is considered the first to integrate genetics, development, and evolution. He pioneered understanding of reaction norms, genetic assimilation, dynamical genetics, sex determination, and heterochrony...
and 29 players from the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
. Their music director, Karl Muck
Karl Muck
Karl Muck was a German-born conductor of classical music. He based his activities principally in Europe and mostly in opera. His American career comprised two stints at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He endured a public outcry in 1917 that questioned whether his loyalties lay with Germany or the...
, spent more than a year at Fort Oglethorpe, as did the music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
As the fifth oldest orchestra in the United States, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra has a legacy of fine music making as reflected in its performances in historic Music Hall, recordings, and international tours...
, Ernst Kunwald
Ernst Kunwald
Ernst Kunwald was an Austrian conductor.Ernst Kunwald was born and died in Vienna. He studied law at the University of Vienna, earning his Dr. Juris in 1891. He also studied piano with Teodor Leszetycki and composition with Hermann Graedener...
. One internee described a memorable concert in the mess hall packed with 2000 internees, with honored guests like their doctors and government censors on the front benches, facing 100 musicians. Under Muck's baton, he wrote, "the Eroica rushed at us and carried us far away and above war and worry and barbed wire."
Most internees were paroled on the orders of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer
Alexander Mitchell Palmer
Alexander Mitchell Palmer was Attorney General of the United States from 1919 to 1921. He was nicknamed The Fighting Quaker and he directed the controversial Palmer Raids.-Congressional career:...
in June 1919. Some remained in custody until as late as March and April 1920.
Merchant marine vessels
Until the U.S. declared war on Germany, German commercial vessels and their crews were not detained. In January 1917, there were 54 such vessels in mainland U.S. ports and one in San Juan, Puerto RicoSan Juan, Puerto Rico
San Juan , officially Municipio de la Ciudad Capital San Juan Bautista , is the capital and most populous municipality in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 395,326 making it the 46th-largest city under the jurisdiction of...
, free to leave. With the declaration of war, 1800 merchant sailors became prisoners of war.
Military internees
Before the U.S. entered the war, several German military vessels found themselves in U.S. ports, where authorities ordered them to leave within 24 hours or submit to detention. The crews were first treated as alien detainees and then as prisoners of war (POWs). In December 1914 the German gunboat Cormoran, pursued by the Japanese Navy, tried to take on provisions and refuel in Guam and the commanding officer, when denied what he required, accepted internment as enemy aliens rather than return to sea. The ship's guns were disabled. Most of the crew lived on board, since there were no housing facilities available. During the several years the Germans were detainees, they outnumbered U.S. marines in Guam. Relations were cordial, and a U.S. Navy nurse married one of the Cormoran's officers. As a result of U-boat attacks on U.S. shipping, the U.S. broke off diplomatic relations with Germany on February 4, 1917, and U.S. authorities in Guam imposed greater restrictions on the German detainees. Those who had moved to quarters on land returned to the ship. Following the U.S. declaration of war on Germany in April 1917, the Americans demanded "the immediate and unconditional surrender of the ship and personnel." The German captain and his crew blew up the ship, taking several German lives. Six whose bodies were found were buried in the U.S. Naval Cemetery in ApraApra Harbor
Apra Harbor is a deep-water port on the western side of Guam in the Mariana Islands. The harbor is formed by Orote Peninsula in the south and Cabras Island in the north. To the south, the harbor narrows and then widens again to form an inner harbor. The southern end of the harbor is the location...
with full military honors. The surviving 353 German service members became prisoners of war, and on April 29 were shipped to the U.S. mainland. Non-Germans were treated differently. Four Chinese nationals became personal servants in the homes of wealthy locals. Another 28, Melanesians from German New Guinea
German New Guinea
German New Guinea was the first part of the German colonial empire. It was a protectorate from 1884 until 1914 when it fell to Australia following the outbreak of the First World War. It consisted of the northeastern part of New Guinea and several nearby island groups...
, were confined on Guam and not accorded the rations and monthly allowance that other POWs received. The crews of the cruiser Geier and an accompanying supply ship, which sought refuge from the Japanese Navy in Honolulu in November 1914, were similarly interned until they became POWs.
Several hundred men on two other German cruisers, the Prinz Eitel Friedrich
SS Prinz Eitel Friedrich (1904)
SS Prinz Eitel Friedrich was a German passenger liner which saw service in the First World War as an auxiliary cruiser of the Imperial German Navy...
and Kronprinz Wilhelm
SS Kronprinz Wilhelm
SS Kronprinz Wilhelm was a German passenger liner built for the Norddeutscher Lloyd, a former shipping company now part of Hapag-Lloyd, by the AG Vulcan shipyard in Stettin, in 1901...
, unwilling to face the British Navy in the Atlantic, lived for several years on their ships in various Virginia ports and frequently enjoyed shore leave. Eventually they were given a strip of land in the Norfolk Navy Yard on which to erect accommodations. They constructed a complex commonly known as the "German village" with painted one-room houses and fenced yards made from scrap lumber, curtained windows, and gardens of flowers and vegetables, as well as a village church, a police station, and cafes serving non-alcoholic beverages. They rescued animals from other ships and raised goats and pigs in the village along with numerous pet cats and dogs. On October 1, 1916, the ships and their personnel were moved to the Philadelphia Navy Yard along with the village structures, which again became known locally as the "German village." In this more secure location in the Navy Yard at Philadelphia's League Island
League Island
League Island was an island in the Delaware River, part of the city of Philadelphia, just upstream from the mouth of the Schuylkill River, which was the site of the Philadelphia shipyard, which eventually became the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, now known as the Philadelphia Naval Business...
behind a barbed wire fence, the detainees designated February 2, 1917, Red Cross Day and solicited donations to the German Red Cross. As German-American relations worsened in the spring of 1917, nine successfully escaped detention, prompting Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels
Josephus Daniels
Josephus Daniels was a newspaper editor and publisher from North Carolina who was appointed by United States President Woodrow Wilson to serve as Secretary of the Navy during World War I...
to act immediately on plans to transfer the other 750 to detention camps at Fort McPherson
Fort McPherson
Fort McPherson was a U.S. Army military base located in East Point, Georgia, on the southwest edge of the City of Atlanta, Ga. It was the headquarters for the U.S. Army Installation Management Command, Southeast Region; the U.S. Army Forces Command; the U.S. Army Reserve Command; the U.S...
and Fort Oglethorpe in late March 1917, where they were isolated from civilian detainees. Following the U.S. declaration of war on Germany, some of the Cormorans crew members joined them at McPherson, while others were held at Fort Douglas, Utah
Fort Douglas, Utah
Camp Douglas was established in October 1862 as a small military garrison about three miles east of Salt Lake City, Utah, for the purpose of protecting the overland mail route and telegraph lines along the Central Overland Route. In 1878, the post was renamed Fort Douglas. The fort was officially...
, for the duration of the war.
World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, under the authority of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798
Alien and Sedition Acts
The Alien and Sedition Acts were four bills passed in 1798 by the Federalists in the 5th United States Congress in the aftermath of the French Revolution's reign of terror and during an undeclared naval war with France, later known as the Quasi-War. They were signed into law by President John Adams...
, the United States government detained and interned over 11,000 German enemy aliens. They were all either former civillians or citzens of Germany. Their ranks included immigrants to the U.S. as well as visitors stranded in the U.S. by hostilities. In many cases, the families of the internees were allowed to remain together at internment camps in the U.S. In other cases, families were separated. Limited due process
Due process
Due process is the legal code that the state must venerate all of the legal rights that are owed to a person under the principle. Due process balances the power of the state law of the land and thus protects individual persons from it...
was allowed for those arrested and detained.
The population of German citizens in the United Statesnot to mention American citizens of German birthwas far too large for a general policy of internment comparable to that used in the case of the Japanese in America. Instead, German citizens were detained and evicted from coastal areas on an individual basis. The War Department considered mass expulsions from coastal areas for reasons of military security, but never executed such plans.
A total of 11,507 Germans were interned during the war, accounting for 36% of the total internments under the Justice Department's Enemy Alien Control Program, but far less than the 110,000 Japanese-Americans interned. Such internments began with the detention of 1,260 Germans shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
. Of the 254 persons evicted from coastal areas, the majority were German.
In addition, over 4,500 ethnic Germans were brought to the U.S. from Latin America and similarly detained. The Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
drafted a list of Germans in fifteen Latin American countries whom it suspected of subversive activities and, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, demanded their eviction to the U.S. for detention. The countries that responded expelled 4,058 people. Some 10% to 15% were Nazi party members, including approximately a dozen who were recruiters for the NSDAP/AO
NSDAP/AO
The NSDAP/AO was the Foreign Organization branch of the National Socialist German Workers Party . AO is the abbreviation of the German compound word Auslands-Organisation...
, roughly the overseas arm of the Nazi party. Just eight were people suspected of espionage. Also transferred were some 81 Jewish Germans who had recently fled persecution in Nazi Germany. The bulk of those transferred from Latin America to the U.S. were not objects of suspicion. Many had been residents of Latin America for years, some for decades. In some instances, corrupt Latin American officials took the opportunity to seize their property. Sometimes financial rewards paid by American intelligence led to someone's identification and expulsion. Several countries did not participate in the program, while others operated their own detention facilities.
The U.S. internment camps to which Germans from Latin America were directed included:
Some internees were held at least as late as 1948.
Review legislation
Legislation was introduced in the United States CongressUnited States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
in 2001 to create an independent commission to review government policies on European enemy ethnic groups during the war. On August 3, 2001, Senators Russell Feingold (D-WI) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) the European Americans and Refugees Wartime Treatment Study Act in the U.S. Senate, joined by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Senator Joseph Lieberman. This bill creates an independent commission to review U.S. government policies directed against European enemy ethnic groups during World War II in the U.S. and Latin America.
In 2007, the U.S. Senate passed the Wartime Treatment Study Act
Wartime Treatment Study Act
The Wartime Treatment Study Act is federal U.S. legislation which would examine the treatment of European Americans, European Latin Americans, and Jewish refugees during World War II in America. Lead sponsors include Russ Feingold and Charles Grassley. The bill passed in the U.S...
, which would examine the treatment of ethnic groups targeted by the U.S. government during World War II. Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions
Jeff Sessions
Jefferson Beauregard "Jeff" Sessions III is the junior United States Senator from Alabama. First elected in 1996, Sessions is a member of the Republican Party...
opposed it, citing historians from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum who called it exaggerated. He called it a slander on America, despite the findings that it was devastating on German and Italian-Americans livelihoods.
In 2009, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law passed the Wartime Treatment Study Act by a vote of 9 to 1.
Activism
In 2005, activists formed an organization called the German American Internee Coalition to publicize the "internment, repatriation and exchange of civilians of German ethnicity" during World War II and to seek U.S. government review and acknowledgment of civil rightsCivil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
violations.
The TRACES Center for History and Culture based in St. Paul, Minnesota travels the United States in a "bus-eum" to educate citizens of the World War II treatment of foreign nationals in the U.S.
See also
- Italian American internmentItalian American internmentItalian American internment refers to the internment of Italian Americans in the United States during World War II.-Terms:The term "Italian American" does not have a legal definition...
- Japanese-American internment
- German prisoners of war in the United StatesGerman prisoners of war in the United StatesGerman prisoners of war in the United States were members of the German military interned in the United States as prisoners of war during World War I and World War II...
- World War II related internment and expulsion of Germans in the AmericasWorld War II related internment and expulsion of Germans in the AmericasBy the outbreak of World War II, the Nazi party's foreign countries organization sought to organize German citizens abroad, and managed to enroll between 3% and 9% of the German citizens in the American countries. Though disappointed by low participation, NSDAP/AO by public activities of uniformed...
World War I
- Charles Burdick, The Frustrated Raider: The Story of the German Cruiser Cormoran in World War I (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979)
- Gerald H. Davis, "'Oglesdorf': A World War I Internment Camp in America," Yearbook of German-American Studies, v. 26 (1991), 249-65
- William B. Glidden, "Internment Camps in America, 1917-1920," Military Affairs, v. 37 (1979), 137-41
- Paul Halpern, A Naval History of World War I (1994)
- Arnold Krammer, Undue Process: The Untold Story of America's German Alien Internees (NY: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), ISBN 0847685187
- Reuben A. Lewis, "How the United States Takes Care of German Prisoners," in Munsey's Magazine, v. 64 (June-September, 1918), 137ff., Google books, accessed April 2, 2011
- Jörg Nagler, "Victims of the Home Front: Enemy Aliens in the United States during World War I," in Panakos Panayi, ed., Minorities in Wartime: National and Racial Groupings in Europe, North America and Australia during the Two World Wars (1993)
- Erich Posselt, "Prisoner of War No. 3598 [Fort Oglethorpe]," in American Mercury, May-August 1927, 313-23, Google books, accessed April 2, 2011
- Paul Schmalenbach, German Raiders: A History of Auxiliary Cruisers of the German Navy, 1895-1945 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1979)
World War II
- John Christgau, "Enemies": World War II Alien Internment (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1985), ISBN 0595179150
- Kimberly E. Contag and James A. Grabowska, Where the Clouds Meet the Water (Inkwater Press, 2004), ISBN 1-59299-073-8. Journey of the German Ecuadorian widower, Ernst Contag, and his four children from their home in the South American Andes to Nazi Germany in 1942.
- John Joel Culley, "A Troublesome Presence: World War II Internment of German Sailors in New Mexico" in Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives and Records Administration v. 28 (1996), 279–295
- Heidi Gurcke Donald, We Were Not the Enemy: Remembering the United States Latin-American Civilian Internment Program of World War II (iUniverse, 2007), ISBN 0-595-39333-0
- Stephen Fox, Fear Itself: Inside the FBI Roundup of German Americans during World War II: The Past as Prologue (iUniverse, 2005), ISBN 978-0-595-35168-8
- Timothy J. Holian, The German Americans and WW II: An Ethnic Experience (NY: Peter Lang Publishing, 1996), ISBN 082044040X
- Arthur D. Jacobs, The Prison Called Hohenasperg: An American Boy Betrayed by his Government during World War II (Parkland, FL: Universal Publishers, 1999), ISBN 1-58112-832-0
- National Archives: "Brief Overview of the World War II Enemy Alien Control Program", accessed January 19, 2010
- New York Times: Jerre Mangione, "America's Other Internment," May 19, 1978, accessed January 20, 2010. Mangione was special assistant to the United States Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization from 1942 to 1948.
- PubMedCentral: Louis Fiset, "Medical Care for Interned Enemy Aliens: A Role for the US Public Health Service in World War II" in American Journal of Public Health, October, 2003, v.93(10), 1644–54, accessed January 19, 2010
- John Eric Schmitz, "Enemies Among Us: The Relocation, Internment, and Repatriation of German, Italian, and Japanese Americans during World War Two" Ph.D. Dissertation, American University 2007
- U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary: "Hearing on: the Treatment of Latin Americans of Japanese Descent, European Americans, and Jewish Refugees During World War II," March 19, 2009, accessed January 19, 2010
General
- Don H. Tolzmann, ed., German-Americans in the World Wars, 5 vols. (New Providence, NJ: K.G. Saur, 1995–1998), ISBN 3598215304
- vol. 1: The Anti-German Hysteria of World War One
- vol. 2: The World War One Experience
- vol. 3: Research on the German-American Experience of World War One
- vol. 4: The World War Two Experience: the Internment of German-Americans
- section 1: From Suspicion to Internment: U.S. government policy toward German-Americans, 1939–48
- section 2: Government Preparation for and implementation of the repatriation of German-Americans, 1943–1948
- section 3: German-American Camp Newspapers: Internees View of Life in Internment
- vol. 5: Germanophobia in the U.S.: The Anti-German Hysteria and Sentiment of the World Wars. Supplement and Index.