Before America joined WWII some Americans of german descent had gone to Germany to fight for Hitlers army.?

Question

What happened to them when America joined the war and then what happened after Germany lost?

Answer 1

They made a choice to fight for the Country of their birth, when they joined they joined as Germans.

Any found / captured were treated as Prisoners of War.

Any who resisted died.

Any who were wounded were afforded First Aid as per the Geneva Convention.

It is also possible some were killed after being taken Prisoner, but I would imagine there is no way to tell how many.

Common sense dictates they would have been very useful to Allied Intelligence officers.

Answer 2

Most were still German nationals and issued Germany army pay books. This made them protected by the Geneva convention. Spies on the otherhand were tried and executed.

An American pilot Monte Martin in 1943 defected to the Axis with a stolen P-38 lightning. He was pro-Nazi but the Germans thought he was a fraud and promptly dumped him in a POW camp. After the war Martin was tried for treason, convicted and did some time in prison.

Answer 3

I don't think the Wehrmacht necessarily had a qualitative advantage in troops and equipment around the start (1939 or 1941). US Stuart and Grant tanks were generally more than a match for German tanks. The reich's main advantage at the start was its much bigger armed forces (except the navy). Because the reich was a dictatorship, it was able to build very large forces--over 100 divisions, much bigger than the US Army--BEFORE war started, whereas democracies generally can't do that because the necessary sacrifices--conscription, guns before butter--are usually too unpopular to be possible in peacetime i.e. before the need for such sacrifices becomes obvious to the masses, or voters. That was one reason why Germany triumphed so handily over the European democracies in 1940. It is noteworthy that the Nazi army only began to encounter really serious competition when it attacked another major dictatorship--Stalin's USSR. The dictatorial Soviet system had also been able to build up enormous forces PRIOR to the actual outbreak of war, which saved it.

Answer 4

Nothing - When taken as prisoners of war, they were treated like all the other German soldiers they were with. And like everyone else, they had to find their own way back home - most Germans had to march back, I imagine any Americans serving in the German military had a much more difficult time.

Answer 5

They were shot at and killed by American soldiers. After the war relations with Germany were pretty okay so most of them return to the US. I think there was this story a few years ago about this 80 year old guy that was arrested and he turned out to be an Nazi officer in the war and killed thousands of Jews and he had been living in the US after the war ended.

Answer 6

there are tons of stories about this.did you know that prior to america being in the war,there were millions of americans that were 100 per cent behind hitler because he had rebuilt the economy so well over there.

Answer 7

I sure hope they shot the little traders