During World War II, over 400,000 German POWs came to the U.S., where they worked on local farms alongside civilians.

Life is stranger than fiction! What a great story! 

What a smart move to bring regular German POW soldiers not affiliated with the Nazi regime to the U.S. far away from the fighting in Europe.

" ... [American] Women became essential workers [in the U.S.] — and so did the newly arrived German prisoners of war. ... Over 700 POW camps were built across 46 states from Massachusetts to California. German prisoners were deployed to small farming communities across the country, where they worked side by side with American civilians. ...
In the spring of 1944, Curtis’s own relatives, the Brocks and the Striblings [Tennessee], brought six of those same German POWs to work on their farm. They helped the family for two whole years, planting, harvesting, felling trees. And they got paid 80 cents a day, what was considered a normal wage for people working.  ...
We don’t know exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the way, as they worked together on the farms and in the factories, the Germans and the Americans became ... friends. ...
Many farmers were eager to defend German POW labor. And that’s because prison workers had a big impact on the American economy. In Tennessee alone, the program saved the state’s crops for two years in a row. ...
So when all of these German soldiers began arriving in the same American POW camps, all hell broke loose. Nazis were threatening and killing anti-Nazi soldiers and anyone who criticized the regime. So, the U.S. government stepped in and began segregating the camps, moving Nazis and anti-Nazis out of the general population. ..."

Crossing the Divide - #35: Hidden History - The Big Ponder - Goethe-Institut During World War II, over 400,000 German POWs came to the U.S., where they worked on local farms alongside civilians. Cariad Harmon tells the story of the unlikely friendships that one American family from small-town Tennessee forged with enemy soldiers.