There is a misconception that there are too many books on World War II. Yes, there is a ton of World War II literature and content. Yes, the History Channel leaned so heavily into WWII that it was being called "The Hitler Channel." While I can generally agree when another book comes out on a well covered topic, The Fifteen by William Geroux is something very different. It is proof that we need more books on the war because there are still stories left to be told.

Geroux presents the account of fifteen German POWs sentenced to death for murdering fellow prisoners. Lo and behold, Germany also comes up with a list of fifteen American POWs sentenced to death for much lesser offenses. Yes, this narrative thread can stand alone and be quite riveting. However, Geroux is already well-known for writing books about lesser known stories which shed light on a bunch of stuff you never knew before. (Side note: If you have not read Geroux's The Ghost Ships of Archangel yet, then please do so ASAP.) To prove my point, can anyone say how many German POWs were housed in the U.S. during the war? I have read a lot of books on the subject of World War II and had no idea it was 400,000. And that's just the beginning of the book.

Geroux also dives into other territory which is very illuminating. He explains the vast differences between the German soldiers (they weren't all Nazis) and chronicles the many mistakes the U.S. government made when the country was forced to take on the massive influx of men without being prepared. And then, there is the very uncomfortable subject of hostage diplomacy. There is so much to learn from this book, but Geroux also keeps it riveting right to the final pages. It's a must read.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Crown Publishing.)

There was nowhere else to put the Germans but in America. The British already were detaining more than half a million German and Italian prisoners in temporary pens. Britain, a tiny island nation, had no room to house tens of thousands of Afrika Corps men on a long-term basis. It had no spare troops to guard them and no surplus food to feed them. The United States had all of those in abundance." -William Geroux,The Fifteen: Murder, Retribution, and the Forgotten Story of Nazi POWs in America

I was interested in reading this book after a recent experience at the National Cemetery in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I was on a road trip passing through the city and decided to stop and check out some of the interesting monuments within the burial grounds. I think some of the best history can be learned in old cemeteries. While exploring I ran across the grave of a Nazi general who died in 1945 buried right there in Chattanooga.

I couldn’t get my head around how a German high-ranking officer from WWII could be buried in southern Tennessee, USA, at the end of WWII. I whipped out Ye Olde Smartphone and researched it on the spot. Nazi General Karl Robert Max Bülowius (2 March 1890–27 March 1945) was captured by the Allies in Africa toward the end of the German North African Campaign. He was sent, along with 400,000 other German POWs, to the United States, which had agreed to house captured enemy troops.

Space was abundant in America, and extra space was something the Allies did not have in Europe. Hundreds of American towns became POW camp locations during WWII. As for Bülowius, he committed suicide in 1945 on American soil in a camp near Tullahoma, TN, when it became obvious that Germany would lose the war.

I am not sure how I lived so many decades on this planet without knowing that the United States housed so many POWs during WWII, but somehow I did. Part of that might be due to the extreme secrecy the United States government treated the camps with. They feared that the locals might object to having German POWs held in their midst in hastily erected camps scattered across the country.

As WWII progressed, a split was occurring more and more frequently within the German military ranks. The hardcore Hitler loyalists were pitted against Germans who believed that Hitler should negotiate an end to the war because Germany had no way to win. Erwin Rommel wasn’t the only German to be killed (in his case, “suicided”) for such thinking; many Germans were killed in American POW camps by other Germans as well. Forced suicide was one method, although stabbings and horrific assaults also claimed lives.

To try and establish control over a growing problem, clandestine tribunals were held by American authorities for German POWs who were brought to trial for some of the killings, and fifteen of those souls were sentenced to death for their roles in the murders. An outraged German leadership decided to reciprocate by sentencing fifteen American POWs to death in their own POW camps.

This book tells the story of the German POWs in the United States who were convicted of the murders of their countrymen in their respective prison camps, and also of the Americans who were sentenced to the same fate in German camps for various infractions.

The first half of this book is fascinating in the details of the German camps on American soil, and it is a riveting read. The later portion of the book covering the journey of the American POWs gets a little convoluted and hard to follow at times. A different way of documenting the story might have made those portions flow better.

Overall, the thing I kept coming back to was how little I knew about the massive number of POWs housed in America. This book does an excellent job of not only informing, but also engaging. The layers of war and humanity, and the dark side of both, are on full display.

This was a solid book and an interesting read. My many thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the early copy for an unbiased review.

Releasing March of 2025.

This doesn’t shy away for the darkest from the era of Nazis and had that element that needed to be told. I learned a lot in this history book. William Geroux was able to create a well researched book and glad he was able to tell this story.