Michael Luick-Thrams lectures about WWII German American Internment

A historian, writer and lecturer, Michael Luick-Thrams work with TRACES began in 1989, when he began to research and record the experiences of eleven U.S. Americans who lived, worked or traveled through Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. In 1993, when he settled in Berlin for eight years and earned a doctorate in modern European history, he researched the lives of refugees who fled the Third Reich and later found a safe haven in non-occupied continental Europe, Britain, Latin America or the United States. The complex legacy of that historical migration fascinated him and served as a motor for further research. That on-going research came to include the experiences of the 10,000 German prisoners of war (POWs) imprisoned at Camp Algona in Iowa and its 35 branch camps in four neighboring states, and the stories of Midwest soldiers and airmen captured by the Germans and kept as POWs in Nazi Germany.
Based in St. Paul, Minnesota, with frequent and long sojourns in Germany, Michael continues to research the causes and effects of fascism—especially the role of the little people who so easily fall prey to clever propaganda, blindly support demagogues and unthinkingly carry out their leaders cynical, often murderous policies. Increasingly, as a scholar and a Quaker, Michael feels compelled to draw contemporary comparisons with past evils and to speak out in a world where democracy is increasingly threatened, where hyper-patriotism and fundamentalist religion are co-opted by insincere politicians for illicit goals, where militarism once casts a destructive shadow across the lives of millions and where war is sinisterly peddled to the enabling masses as peace.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Michael Luick-Thrams
• Traces
• German American
• Internment
• WWII
• Crystal City.

[vadmscheer]

its interesting the German American interment doesn't come up more often, as much as Japanese American interment is discussed. This should not be lost to history

[Ric0908]

Thank you for bringing this issue to the attention of the American Public. In School I only learned of Japanese American Internment never German or Italian or Latin American Internment. I myself have some German Heritage My Grandfather being of German American descent so have been researching this subject. Thanks agian

[ecnalubma696969]

They left the ittle children to fend for themselves. Unforgivable!

[joeguy02]

this was never in my history books...The United States is biased and won't let our "dark" areas be known to the public and this is absolute bullshit.