How the Milk of Human Kindness
Turned Stalag VII-A into Las Vegas
By
Robert Reeves
(Editing and Introduction by J Nasea)
Robert Reeves and his buddy, Milt Moore, as part of A Btry, 321st Glider Field Artillery Battalion's participation in Operation Market Garden, on September 19, 1944 , had their glider shot down and were captured. They were eventually sent to Stalag VII-A near Munich where living quarters were less than adequate and the food quality was poor and limited. Though they each were supposed to get one Red Cross package a week, six of them split one package, containing among other things, cigarettes. While Milt Moore smoked, Robert Reeves did not and did what many service men did, he bartered the smokes for candy and other goodies, using cigarettes as a medium of exchange. The following slightly edited story has been taken from R. Reeves's book, "Peoria to Munich, - A Prisoner of War".
- J Nasea
Most of our forced labor was done in Munich or nearby Landshut; usually the building or repair of the railroad lines. We would often work for weeks on a particular stretch of tracks and as soon it was repaired again, discover the next day it had been bombed by our planes overnight.
Despite the efforts put into our repairs, we didn't mind the destruction one bit, because we knew the Germans couldn't use to their advantage the tracks and roadways we were repairing under duress. Besides, the renewed damage provided more opportunities for us to get into the city to work. We considered our daily work trips into Munich as an economic benefit.
Among other things, we used the city as a means to trade our cigarettes for bread and meat. While at our work detail location, we would be approached by black-marketers and ordinary citizens who would ask the guard if anyone had cigarettes to trade for bread. 'Cigareten fur brot? Cigareten for brot?', they would call out. Before the barter would begin, we would have to bribe the guard with one or two cigarettes so we could make the trade. Then the bread itself would cost anywhere from five to ten cigarettes. Once in a while, we'd get a guard that wouldn't allow trading with civilians but that was rare. Occasionally we were watched by, and conversed with, English speaking children. They would ask us many questions as we asked them. They told me that English was a required subject in their schools. But again, we would have to bribe the guard with a cigarette to let the conversations continue.
This kind of contact provided me with the most touching conversations I ever had with a German citizen, which, in turn led to a truly unique situation for Milt and me back at the Stalag. I consider the experience to be the highlight of my captivity.
One day in Munich we were working on the rail road tracks outside a machine shop. During our lunch break, a German worker wearing a greasy, leather apron came out of the shop and asked me, in broken English, if we were Americans. When I told him we were, he said he had some thing to show me. Out of his apron, he pulled a dirty, many-times-handled letter. He said it was from his son who was at a POW camp in Georgia in the States. His son wrote that he always had fresh fruit to eat and slept on a bed with sheets on it. The machinist wanted to know if this was the truth, or was the son just telling him that to make his dad feel better. I told him it was all true, and that the United States treated all POW's that well or better. The German citizen said he felt badly that we had to work so hard and were given such poor food-but that is all his country had at present. He wanted to know if there was anything he personally could do for me to show his appreciation for how my country was treating his son.
Thinking quickly about a make-shift lamp I had fabricated from a tin can and a wick-controlled element ( stolen from a railroad signal lantern), I told the man I could surely use some fuel oil to burn in my little lamp.
He left and returned with three soda bottles of fuel. After bribing the guard (I don't remember how many cigarettes I lost on that one). I got to keep the bottles, which I put under my belt and covered with my thin coat. Unfortunately, on the ride back to camp, one of the bottles broke, filling my pants with glass shards and fuel oil. I warned everyone around me not to light any cigarettes, or I might go up like a torch.
Safely back in camp, I now had all the ingredients for a lamp to be used after our carbide lights burned out each night.
Milt Moore and I then parlayed my lamp and the deck of cards that I had received back at the [German captivity] distribution camp in Limburg, into a source of revenue for us.
After our official barracks-lights went out, we threw a blanket on a table and ran a poker game. Naturally, cigarettes were used for money in this gambling venture. Neither Milt nor I played in the game, but we dragged one "house" cigarette from every pot. and from that day on Milt and I had cigarettes to trade, and he always had as many as he wanted to smoke.
This arrangement lasted for many months, providing a great deal of recreation for our buddies., and kept Milt and I "in the chips". Incidentally, our patrolling guards knew that this clandestine game was going on.
About once a week, a guard and his dog would come into the barracks, lay his hat besides the table and scoop that pot of cigarettes into the hat. That was his cut for allowing the game. The guard was happy, Milt and I were happy, and it was only the players who complained when it was their cigarettes in the confiscated pot!
Milt, by the way, contributed to our little casino one day when he managed to steal a bottle of wine while working in the basement of a Munich hospital. He rationed that alcohol out to us at the rate of a bottle-cap-full every night until it was gone.
Robert D. Reeves
425 Brook Crest Drive
Washington, IL 61571
or
2455 Finlandia Lane, # 3
Clearwater, FL 34623 3349
Are there any "Airborne" soldiers out there who were in Stalag VII A, please contact me at the addresses above.