At 2:47 in the afternoon on December 23rd, 1944, Unafitzier Verer Krauss stood at the entrance of Camp Papago Park near Phoenix, Arizona, covered in mud and shivering despite the 68° temperature. He had been free for 6 days. He had crawled through 178 ft of tunnel. He had walked 43 mi through the Sonoran Desert.

He had nearly died of thirst twice. And now he was surrendering because he had seen the camp’s Christmas menu posted on the bulletin board through the fence. Roast turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, three kinds of pie. Verer had not seen food like that since 1941. His commanding officer at the P camp had told him the menus were American propaganda designed to weaken German morale.

The guards had told him the Grand Canyon photographs in the camp library were fake, created by Hollywood to make America seem more impressive than it actually was. Verer had believed them both. He had helped dig the tunnel for 4 months. He had escaped with 24 other men on the night of December 16th. And now, 6 days later, he was standing at the gate asking to be let back in because he could not stop thinking about Pi.

The guard who processed Verer’s return was Corporal James Mitchell from Tucson. Mitchell had been assigned to Camp Papago since its opening in May 1943. He had processed 311 German prisoners when they first arrived. He had watched them organize a 32piece orchestra. He had confiscated their volleyball court contraband three times.

And he had heard every possible excuse for escape attempts. But Verer’s reason was new. Mitchell asked Verer to repeat himself. Verer explained in careful English that he had seen the Christmas menu. He wanted to know if the turkey was real. Mitchell confirmed it was real. Verer asked about the pie. Mitchell said there would be apple, pumpkin, and pecan.

Verer sat down on the ground and put his head in his hands. Mitchell called for the camp commander. Camp Papago Park held 3,69 German prisoners of war in December of 1944. Most had been captured in North Africa. Raml’s Africa Corps experienced soldiers who had fought in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt.

They had surrendered to British and American forces between 1942 and 1943, been shipped to the United States, and distributed among dozens of P camps across the country. Arizona received more than most states because the climate resembled North Africa, and the local economy needed labor, cotton growers, fruit orchards, farms.

The prisoners were not required to work under Geneva Convention rules, but most volunteered out of boredom. The pay was 80 cents an hour in camp script. The script could be used at the camp canteen to buy beer, cigarettes, candy bars, magazines. The prisoners could not believe any of it was real.

Lit Jurgen Vottenberg had been at Camp Papago since September 1943. Before the war, he had been a naval officer, yubot service. He had commanded submarines in the Atlantic. The British captured him in 1941 after his boat was depth charged off Iceland. He spent 2 years in British P camps before being transferred to Canada, then to the United States.

He arrived at Camp Papago expecting harsh treatment, military discipline, limited food, hard labor. Instead, he found a camp with a library, a theater, educational classes, and three meals a day that included meat. Watenberg did not trust it. He had been trained to recognize propaganda.

The Americans were trying to break German morale by creating an artificial environment of abundance. The food was probably drugged. The newspapers were certainly fake. The movies shown in the camp theater were Hollywood propaganda designed to make America seem powerful and prosperous. Watenberg organized resistance among the prisoners, not violent resistance, intellectual resistance.

He established a secret committee of senior officers who met weekly to discuss camp conditions and develop theories about American deception tactics. The committee reviewed all camp materials, newspapers, magazines, books, films. They analyzed everything for signs of manipulation. In November 1944, the committee examined photographs of the Grand Canyon that had been placed in the camp library.

The photographs showed a massive gorge, rock formations in red and orange, a river at the bottom. The canyon appeared to be over a mile deep and miles wide. Watenberg’s committee concluded the photographs were obviously fake. No natural formation could be that large. The scale was impossible.

The Americans had created the images in a Hollywood studio to impress and intimidate German prisoners. Verer Krauss had attended three of Vottenberg’s committee meetings before the escape. Verer was 24 years old. He had been drafted into the Vermacht in 1940. He had fought in France, then North Africa. The British captured him near Elamagne in November 1942. Verer had spent 6 months in a British camp in Egypt, then been shipped to the United States in May 1943.

He arrived at Camp Papago in July. Verer had believed Watenberg’s theories about American propaganda because the alternative seemed impossible. If the food was real, if the abundance was genuine, then Germany was losing the war to an enemy with resources beyond anything Verer had experienced. Verer preferred to believe the Americans were lying. The escape plan began in August 1944.

Vaenberg proposed it during a committee meeting. The plan was simple. Dig a tunnel from one of the prisoner barracks to a point outside the camp fence. Exit at night. Split into small groups. Travel to Mexico. The Mexican border was 120 mi south of Phoenix.

Once in Mexico, the prisoners could contact German sympathizers and arrange passage back to Germany. Watenberg recruited 25 men for the escape. Verer volunteered immediately. The tunnel would require 4 months of work. They would dig at night. They would dispose of the excavated dirt by spreading it on the volleyball court they had been permitted to build. The digging began on August 19th.

The tunnel entrance was located beneath a shower drain in compound 1A. The prisoners removed the drain cover at night, dug for 3 hours, then replaced the cover before dawn. The excavated dirt was dark Arizona clay. It contrasted with the lighter sand on the volleyball court. The prisoners solved this problem by wetting the clay and mixing it with the court sand before spreading it. The mixture dried to a uniform color.

Guards inspected the volleyball court twice, but noticed nothing unusual. By December 15th, the tunnel measured 178 ft long and reached a point 15 ft beyond the camp fence. Watenberg scheduled the escape for the night of December 16th. Weather conditions were optimal. No moon, temperature around 55°. The 25 men gathered in the barracks at 2100 hours.

Watenberg reviewed the plan. Each man carried a canteen, a small pack with food from the canteen, a compass made from magnetized razor blades, and a map drawn from memory of Arizona geography as shown in camp library materials. Three prisoners had built a collapsible boat from materials smuggled out of the camp workshop.

They planned to float down the Salt River to the Gila River to the Colorado River to the Gulf of California. The blue lines on their handdrawn maps indicated these were navigable waterways. The escape began at 2230 hours. The first man entered the tunnel. The tunnel was narrow, 2 ft wide, 2 ft tall. The men had to crawl.

It took 14 minutes for the first man to reach the exit point beyond the fence. It took 3 hours for all 25 men to clear the tunnel and gather in the desert outside the camp. Watenberg divided the group. The three men with the boat headed west toward the Salt River. The remaining 22 men split into groups of two or three and headed south toward Mexico. Verer paired with another prisoner named Klaus Becker.

They walked south through the desert using their compass and the stars for navigation. The first problem appeared at 0400 hours on December 17th. Verer and Klouse had been walking for 5 hours. They had covered approximately 12 m. They were looking for water. The map showed a creek that ran parallel to their route. They found the creek bed. It was dry.

Not damp, not muddy, completely dry, red rock and sand. Klouse examined the creek bed and concluded they had made a navigation error. They must be in the wrong location. Verer checked their compass heading. They were in the correct location. The creek simply had no water. Clouse suggested they continue south and find water at the next creek shown on the map.

They walked for another 3 hours. The second creek bed was also dry. By noon on December 17th, Verer and Klouse had finished their canteen water. The temperature was 71°. Not extreme by desert standards, but warmer than either man had anticipated. They had expected Arizona winter to be cold. Instead, it felt like a mild autumn day. They rested in the shade of a rock outcropping and discussed options.

They could continue south and hope to find water or they could return to the highway they had crossed earlier and try to flag down a vehicle. Klaus wanted to continue south. Verer wanted to return to the highway. They argued for 20 minutes before compromising. They would walk south for two more hours. If they found no water, they would return to the highway.

At 1530 hours, they found the third creek bed, also dry. Verer insisted they return to the highway. Klouse agreed. They reversed course and walked north. They reached the highway at 1820 hours as the sun was setting. They had been walking for 19 hours with no water for the past 6 hours. Verer’s lips were cracked. His mouth tasted like copper.

Klouse was breathing through his mouth and coughing. They sat beside the highway and waited for a vehicle. At 18:47, a pickup truck appeared. Verer and Klouse stood up and waved. The truck stopped. The driver was a Mexican farm worker named Miguel Hernandez. He worked at a cotton farm 8 mi east.

Miguel saw two men in ragged clothing covered in dust. He asked in Spanish if they needed help. Verer did not speak Spanish, but he understood the tone. He said in English that they were German prisoners who had escaped from Camp Papago and needed water. Miguel gave them water from a jug in his truck. Verer drank until he felt sick. Klaus drank more slowly.

Miguel asked where they were trying to go. Verer said Mexico. Miguel laughed. He explained that Mexico was still 110 mi south. He explained that the desert between here and there had no water this time of year. He explained that men died in that desert regularly. Miguel offered to drive them back to Camp Papago.

Verer and Klaus discussed this option in German. Klouse wanted to continue. Verer wanted to accept the ride. They argued beside the highway while Miguel waited. Finally, Klouse agreed to return to the camp. They climbed into Miguel’s truck. Miguel drove them back to Camp Papago Park and dropped them at the front gate at 1920 hours on December 17th.

They had been free for 21 hours. The three prisoners with the collapsible boat had worse luck. They reached the Salt River at 0600 hours on December 17th. The river was dry, not reduced flow, not shallow, completely dry, just sand and rocks where their map showed a wide blue line indicating navigable water. The three men stood at the riverbank and stared at the empty channel.

One of them, Oberrighter Hans Schmidt, began laughing. He laughed until he had to sit down. The other two men asked what was funny. Hans explained that the Americans had not faked the Grand Canyon photographs. If they were willing to let German prisoners see maps showing rivers that did not exist, they had no reason to fake geological formations.

The Grand Canyon was probably real. Germany was losing the war to a country with so much water in some places that they carved canyons a mile deep and so little water in other places that entire rivers disappeared for half the year. The three men collapsed their boat and walked back toward Campi Papago.

They surrendered at 14:30 hours on December 17th. The guards asked about the boat. Hans explained their plan. The guards laughed. One guard explained that Arizona rivers only flowed during monsoon season. December was the dry season. The Salt River would not flow again until July. Hans asked if the Grand Canyon was real. The guard said it was real.

Hans asked how deep it was. The guard said over a mile in some places. Hans sat down and did not speak for the rest of the day. By December 20th, 19 of the 25 escaped prisoners had been recaptured. Most surrendered voluntarily after running out of water or food. Two were found unconscious from dehydration and taken to a civilian hospital. The remaining six prisoners were still at large. Watenberg was among them.

He had traveled farther than the others. He had reached a point 67 mi south of Phoenix before a sheriff’s deputy spotted him walking along a county road. The deputy stopped and asked where Watenberg was headed. Watenberg said Mexico. The deputy asked if Watenberg had any water. Watenberg admitted he did not. The deputy offered him a choice.

Ride back to Camp Papago in the police car or continue walking and probably die within 24 hours. Watenberg chose the police car. He was returned to the camp at 1620 hours on December 21st. Verer had spent 3 days back in the camp before seeing the Christmas menu. The menu had been posted on December 23rd. Wernern was walking past the mess hall when he saw it.

Roast turkey 18 lbs per 100 men. Mashed potatoes with gravy. Sweet potatoes with marshmallows. Green beans. Cranberry sauce. Dinner rolls with butter. Apple pie, pumpkin pie, peacon pie, coffee with real cream and sugar. Verer read the menu three times. He looked for signs that it was propaganda. Exaggerated portions.

Impossible ingredients. obvious lies, but the portions matched what he had been served at regular meals for the past 16 months. The ingredients matched items he had purchased at the camp canteen. The menu was probably real. Verer found Klouse and showed him the menu. Klouse said it was obviously propaganda designed to demoralize prisoners who had attempted escape. Verer disagreed.

He pointed out that the regular meals at Camp Papago already included meat, vegetables, bread, and dessert. This menu was only slightly better than normal. Klouse argued that normal camp food was also propaganda. Verer asked how the Americans could maintain a propaganda operation that fed 3,69 prisoners three full meals per day for 18 months. Klouse had no answer.

The Christmas meal was served at 1,800 hours on December 25th, 1944. Vier and Klouse entered the messaul with 400 other prisoners from their compound. The tables had been decorated with paper snowflakes made in the campcraft workshop. The guards had set up a small Christmas tree with tinsel and lights. A record player was playing American Christmas music.

Verer sat down at a table with Klaus and four other men. Servers brought the food. Actual roast turkey sliced and plated. Actual mashed potatoes with gravy that was still hot. Sweet potatoes that had been baked with a layer of caramelized marshmallows on top. Green beans with butter. Cranberry sauce. Fresh dinner rolls. Verer picked up his fork and began eating.

The turkey was moist. The potatoes were smooth. The gravy had real turkey fat in it. Verer ate slowly. He was trying to identify anything false or artificial about the food. The taste was genuine. The texture was right. The temperature proved it had been freshly cooked, not reheated from storage. After the main course, servers brought pie. Verer chose apple. The crust was flaky.

The filling was sweet and warm with cinnamon. Verer had not tasted apple pie since 1939 in Germany. This version was different. More sugar, more cinnamon. The apples cut thicker, but it was real pie made with real ingredients by people who knew how to bake. Verer finished his slice and sat back. Klaus was eating pumpkin pie.

Klaus’s face showed the same expression Verer felt. Confusion mixed with something close to grief. If this food was real, if America could serve Christmas dinner to 3,69 enemy prisoners while fighting a war on two continents, then Germany had already lost. Not because of superior tactics or better soldiers because the Americans had so much of everything that they could afford to be generous to their enemies. The camp commander was Colonel William Holden.

He had been assigned to camp Papago in May 1943 when the camp opened. Holden’s job was ensuring the prisoners were treated according to Geneva Convention standards while preventing escapes and maintaining order. The escape on December 16th had been the largest breach of security in the camp’s history. Holden had ordered a full investigation.

The tunnel had been discovered on December 17th when a guard noticed the shower drain cover was loose. The tunnel impressed even the army engineers who were brought in to examine it. 178 ft long, 2 ft wide, 2 ft tall, proper shoring with wood planks salvaged from shipping crates, ventilation shafts improvised from rolled paper. The tunnel represented over 300 hours of labor.

Holden wanted to know how 25 men had dug for 4 months without being detected. The investigation concluded on December 28th. The prisoners had exploited two weaknesses in camp security. First, the volleyball court had provided a perfect cover for dirt disposal. Second, the guards had been conducting inspections during daylight hours when the tunnel entrance was sealed and invisible.

Holden ordered new security measures, random inspections at night, daily counts in all barracks, closer monitoring of prisoner work details. But Holden also recognized something else. The escape had failed not because of superior American security, but because the prisoners had fundamentally misunderstood Arizona geography. They had escaped into a desert they believed would be like North Africa.

Instead, they found a landscape with no water, extreme temperature variations, and distances that could not be covered on foot without proper preparation. Holden interviewed Watenberg on December 29th. Holden wanted to understand the escape plan’s assumptions.

Watenberg explained the map they had used, the rivers that had appeared to be navigable waterways, the distances that had seemed manageable on paper. Holden asked about the boat. Watenberg admitted the boat had been based on the assumption that Arizona rivers flowed year round like European rivers. Holden asked if Watenberg had considered asking the guards about local geography. Watenberg said he had not trusted the guards to provide accurate information.

He had assumed anything they said would be propaganda designed to discourage escape attempts. Holden pulled out a photograph from his desk drawer. The photograph showed the Grand Canyon, bright angel point. The canyon stretched for miles in every direction. The Colorado River was visible as a thin line at the bottom. Holden asked Watenberg if he had seen this photograph in the camp library.

Watenberg said he had. Holden asked if Watenberg believed the photograph was real. Watenberg hesitated. He had spent two years believing the photograph was fake. But after walking through the Arizona desert and discovering that river shown on maps did not actually exist, he was no longer certain what was real and what was propaganda.

Holden told Watenberg the photograph was real. The Grand Canyon was 277 mi long, up to 18 mi wide, over a mile deep. It was located 220 mi north of Phoenix. Holden offered to arrange a trip for Watenberg and the other escape participants to see the canyon in person. The trip was organized for January 14th, 1945.

23 of the 25 escape participants agreed to go. Two declined, saying they did not want to see American propaganda in person. The group traveled in two army buses with an escort of eight guards. The drive took 6 hours. They stopped for lunch at a roadside diner in Flagstaff. The prisoners were allowed to eat inside the diner with civilian customers. Verer ordered a hamburger and a Coca-Cola.

The hamburger was large, a quarter pound of beef with lettuce, tomato, pickles, and onions on a toasted bun. The Coca-Cola came in a glass bottle with ice. Verer ate slowly, watching American civilians at other tables eating similar meals without any apparent sense that this was unusual or special. A family at the next table had ordered steaks. The father was cutting a piece of meat that looked to be at least 12 oz.

His children were drinking milkshakes. Verer had not seen a milkshake since before the war. They reached the Grand Canyon at 1540 hours. The buses parked at the south rim visitor area. The prisoners were allowed to exit and walked to the canyon edge. Verer stepped up to the rim and looked down. The canyon was real. The photographs had not captured the scale.

The depth seemed impossible. The colors were more vivid than any picture could show. Red rock, orange rock, layers of white and tan and purple. The Colorado River was visible at the bottom over a mile below. Verer could see rock formations that looked like temples and pyramids.

He could see shadows that indicated side canyons branching off from the main gorge. He stood at the rim for 11 minutes without moving. Klouse stood next to Verer. Klouse was crying, not sobbing, just tears running down his face. Verer asked what was wrong. Klouse said nothing was wrong. He was just understanding for the first time that Germany had lost the war, not lost a battle or lost territory, lost the war completely and permanently.

Because a country that could create a national park out of a geological formation this massive and then allow enemy prisoners to visit it for educational purposes was not a country Germany could defeat. Verer asked if Klouse thought the Americans had created the Grand Canyon. Klouse laughed. He said, “Obviously, the canyon was natural, but the decision to preserve it and make it accessible to the public was not natural.

It was a choice that only a wealthy nation could afford to make.” Watenberg stood 20 ft away, staring into the canyon. Holden approached and asked what Watenberg thought. Watenberg said the canyon was impressive. Holden asked if Watenberg still believed the photographs had been fake. Watenberg admitted he had been wrong. Holden asked what had convinced him.

Watenberg pointed to a sign near the rim. The sign explained the canyon’s geological history. 1.8 billion years of rock layers carved by the Colorado River over 5 to 6 million years. Watenberg said no propaganda operation would include geological timelines that contradicted standard historical understanding. The sign was clearly meant for scientific education, not political manipulation.

Therefore, the canyon was real and the Americans had been telling the truth. The group returned to Camp Papago at 2330 hours. The guards expected the prisoners to be subdued or depressed after seeing proof of American resources and natural wealth. Instead, many of them seemed energized.

Verer explained to one of the guards that seeing the Grand Canyon had resolved a fundamental question. For 18 months, the prisoners had been uncertain whether camp conditions represented genuine American abundance or elaborate deception. The canyon proved it was abundance. America was exactly as wealthy and powerful as the camp condition suggested. Verer said this was actually a relief.

It meant he could stop questioning everything and simply accept that the war was over and Germany had lost. Camp Papago Park held German prisoners until the end of the war in May 1945. After VE Day, the prisoners were processed for repatriation. The process took 9 months. Verer was among the last groups to be returned to Germany. He arrived in Hamburg on February 3rd, 1946.

Germany was destroyed. Hamburg had been bombed repeatedly during the war. Entire neighborhoods were rubble. Food was scarce. Heat was scarce. Housing was damaged or destroyed. Verer spent his first night in Hamburgg in a displaced person center. The center served dinner at 1,800 hours.

Watery soup with potatoes and a small piece of bread. Verer ate the soup and thought about Camp Papago Park, the Christmas turkey, the apple pie, the hamburger and flag staff. The abundance that had seemed like propaganda but had been completely real. Verer settled in Cologne after his return to Germany. He found work as a translator. English to German.

His time at Camp Papago had improved his English significantly. He had learned the language by reading American newspapers and magazines in the camp library and watching American films in the camp theater. In 1948, Verer was hired by the American occupation authority as a liaison officer.

His job was helping German civilians navigate American bureaucracy during reconstruction. Verer was good at this work because he understood how Americans thought. He had spent two years watching them, studying them, trying to determine if they were lying to him. He had concluded they generally were not lying.

They were simply operating from a baseline of abundance that Germans found difficult to comprehend. In 1952, Verer applied for immigration to the United States. His application was approved in 1953. He arrived in New York on August 12th. He traveled by train to Phoenix, Arizona. He wanted to see Camp Papago Park again. The camp had been deactivated in 1946. Most of the buildings had been demolished. The land had been returned to the city of Phoenix.

Verer found the location where his barracks had stood. The volleyball court was gone. The tunnel entrance was gone. The entire compound had been erased. But the desert landscape was exactly as he remembered it. Dry, hot, beautiful in its own way. Verer took a bus to the Grand Canyon. He stood at the South Rim and looked down into the gorge.

It was exactly as he remembered from January 1945. The same impossible depth, the same vivid colors, the same sense that nature could create something beyond human comprehension. Verer thought about Vottenberg’s committee meetings, the elaborate theories about American propaganda, the certainty that nothing could be as good as it appeared.

Verer had spent two years of his life believing lies because the truth seemed too impossible to accept. Verer returned to Phoenix and found work as an engineer. He married an American woman in 1955. They had three children. Verer became an American citizen in 1958. He lived in Phoenix for the rest of his life. He never returned to Germany.

When asked about his experiences during the war, he would tell people about Camp Papago Park, the tunnel, the escape, the dry rivers, the Christmas turkey, the Grand Canyon. He would explain that he had learned more about America during his two years as a prisoner than he could have learned in 20 years of freedom.

He learned that abundance was not propaganda, that generosity was not weakness, that a country could afford to treat its enemies well because it had so much of everything that sharing did not create scarcity. Verer died on March 17th, 1994 in Phoenix, Arizona. He was 74 years old. His obituary mentioned his service in the Vermacht, his time at Camp Papago Park, his work as an engineer.

The obituary did not mention the tunnel or the escape or the Christmas menu. But at his funeral, one of his children told the story. The story of a young German soldier who escaped from a P camp and surrendered 6 days later because he could not stop thinking about pie.

The story of a man who learned that the Grand Canyon was real and understood what that meant about the war and his country and his future. The story of a prisoner who became a citizen because he had seen both the worst and the best of what America could be and decided the best was real. If this story moved you the way it moved us, hit that like button.

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