Alien Enemy Detention Facility in Crystal City, Texas (full version)
Channel: TRACESpuren
Date: 2020-08-11

The World War II experience of thousands of German Americans, to most, is an unknown history. During World War II, the U.S. government and many Americans viewed German Americans and others of “enemy ancestry” as potentially dangerous— particularly recent immigrants. The government used many interrelated, constitutionally questionable methods to control persons of German ancestry, including internment, individual and group exclusion from military zones, internee exchanges, deportation, repatriation, “alien enemy” registration, travel restrictions and property confiscation. The human cost of these civil liberties violations was high: families were disrupted, if not destroyed; reputations ruined; homes and belongings lost. By the end of the war 11,000 persons of German ancestry, including many American-born children, were interned. Pressured by the United States, Latin American governments collectively arrested at least 4,050 German Latin Americans. Most were shipped in dark boat holds to the United States and interned. At least 2,000 Germans, German Americans and Latin American internees were later exchanged for Americans and Latin Americans held in the Third Reich.

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