Camp Stark: German POWs in New Hampshire

In nineteen forty-four, a former Civilian Conservation Corps camp in Stark, New Hampshire, was ringed with fencing and guard towers and became the state's only World War Two prisoner of war camp. Roughly two hundred fifty German soldiers were held here.

The prisoners worked in the surrounding forests cutting timber, a labor arrangement common across the United States during the war as German POWs filled gaps left by American men overseas. By most accounts the camp was orderly, conditions were reasonable under the Geneva Convention, and some prisoners formed lasting impressions of rural New England. The camp closed after the war ended. Its CCC origins are a reminder that the same federal infrastructure built to employ Depression-era Americans was quickly repurposed for wartime needs.