11/27/2025
"Are We Supposed to Share This for a Week?" — German POW Shocked by American Food Portions... The first German prisoners crossed into Camp Concordia, Kansas on July 4th, 1943.
They had eaten nothing but watery cabbage soup for six days.
The messaul doors opened at 1700 hours.
Sergeant Wilhelm Müller, 21st Panza Division, captured at Cassarine Pass, stopped 3 m from the serving line.
His post-war testimony to British interviewers recorded the moment.
I thought the tables were decorated like a propaganda photograph.
Each tray held 12 oz of pot roast, 4 oz of mashed potatoes, 60 gram of green beans, two dinner rolls, butter, actual butter in a small paper cup, a slice of apple pie.
Miller's ration in North Africa, per Vermach logistics records from January 1943, 300 g of bread, 120 gram of meat substitute, 15 g of fat.
Weekly.
The American daily caloric load before these men averaged 3,200 calories.
German frontline troops in Tunisia received 1,250 on good weeks.
They ate in silence.
Every scrap.
Müller folded his napkin over the two remaining bites of bread and slipped them into his shirt.
Around him, 240 men did the same.
Pockets bulged with rolls, apple cores, buttercups still half full.
Kitchen staff watched through the serving window.
One private asked if they should clear the tables.
The mess officer, Lieutenant Howard Chen, said, "No."
"Let them learn," his duty log noted.
Morning count revealed the hoarded food, bread hardening under bunks, butter melting into uniform pockets.
Oberelitant Ernst Becka, a Luftwaffer navigator shot down over Sicily, had wrapped four rolls in his pillowcase.
His barracks inspection report dated July 6th, recorded the discovery alongside the camp interpreters annotation.
Prisoner states he was saving for when rations stop.
The Geneva Convention required captain nations to feed PS equivalent to their own garrison troops.
US Army regulation 6331 issued February 1943 specified minimum standards meat at least once daily fresh vegetables 3,000 calories minimum.
Camp Concordia's contract with Ellsworth Milling Company supplied 60 lb of flour per 100 prisoners per day.
The German army's entire sixth army at Stalingrad before the encirclement received 30 per 100 men daily at peak supply.
Breakfast on July 5th, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, coffee, orange juice.
Müller's diary preserved in the Concordia camp archive recorded his confusion in fractured English learned from guards.
Eggs again they give yesterday too.
His mistake.
Guards say no mistake.
Everyday eggs.
He ate six pieces of toast, drank three cups of coffee, vomited an hour later behind the latrine.
The camp medical log shows 43 similar incidents that first week.
Digestive systems shocked by fat and protein after months of deprivation.
The hoarding intensified.
Inspections on July 8th found a systematic smuggling network.
Prisoners transferred food during work details.
Burial in hidden caches near the motorpool.
One cache discovered when a guard noticed disturbed earth contained 87 bread rolls.
23 partially eaten steaks wrapped in newspaper.
14 apples.
Decomposition had begun.
The camp commandant, Colonel Paul Newfeld, convened the prisoner liaison committee.
His meeting notes survive.
Informed prisoners via interpreter that food supply permanent met with silence.
Spokesman asked how long permanent means.
Stated indefinite.
Spokesman asked what indefinite means.
Ended meeting.
Trust did not come from words.
It came from repetition.
Week two, the same portions.
Week three, the same.
Müller's diary entries shift in tone.
July 14th, steak again.
They not run out.
July 18th, eggs every morning.
Maybe is Kansas rich place only.
July 22nd, butter every meal.
Where they get so much?
The answer sat 200 km northwest.
Kansas wheat production in 1943, 241 million bushels, a state record.
Beef cattle inventory 3.8 million head.
Peak wartime numbers driven by government price supports.
Ellsworth Milling operated three shifts.
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