File:German POWs Working In Clay County MN, 1944-1945.jpg

A photo of German POWs working on the Paul Horn Farm in Clay County, MN, in 1944 or 1945. The image's caption reads:

German prisoners of war from the U.S. Army's POW camp at Algona, Iowa, were brought to Moorhead to work on Clay County farms during World War II. Here several of the men harvest carrots in a field owned by Paul Horn Farms, Inc. (Note the large letter "P" of the POW insignia on the back of the jacket of the man in the left foreground)

The accompanying story reads:

Anyone who lived in Fargo-Moorhead during World War II probably remembers when German POWs were brought to Clay County to help with field work during this period of intense farm labor shortage.

Paul Horn was a member of Clay County's Farm Labor Advisory Board, and since he spoke German fluently, figured he was in a good position to arrange for POW labor for his and other farms in the county.

With a neighbor, Henry (Hank) Peterson, he visited a U.S. government prosoner of war office at Omaha,Neb., where they secured permission to bring 150 men from a POW camp at Algona, Iowa, here to work during the summers of 1944 and 1945.

"These men had served with Hitler's elite African Corps — they were the real tough guys," Horn explais," ...all husky young fellows who hoes onions, drove tractors topping beets, and worked in the vegetable and grain fields. Since there was practically no local labor available because most able-bodied U.S. men were in the service, they did a lot of good for this community although some people didn't like the arrangement very much."

The POWs were quartered in one of Horn's north Moorhead onion warehouses which the Army equipped with bunks, latrines, and kitchen facilities. Daily, they were transported to area farms — Horn's, Peterson's, Ed Benedict's and others — where there was work to be done, generally in the back of grain trucks.

"A commanding officer and four guards were stationed here too," Horn explains," so they were always supervised. Farmers who used the men paid the government 35 cents an hour — the going rate for farm labor at the time — of which each POW earned 10 cents for spending money."

The POR contingent worked in Clay County from May to November of 1944 and again during the summer of 1945.

A tragic footnote to the story is that one of the men drowned in a gravel pot at the Benedict farm. "Some of them had asked me if they couldn't go swimming," Horn recalls, "so I took them out to Benedict's where there was this large pool of fresh clear water. One guy developed a cramp and drowned before we could rescue him."