Through His Eyes: The Life of American POWs in Germany and Ben Phelper’s Diary

Authors

Bianca Shah, Baylor UniversityFollow

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the treatment American prisoners of war experienced at the hands of their German captors during World War II. Ben Phelper, a US Airman who was taken captive by the Germans from 1943-1945, wrote a diary detailing his daily life while living in the stalags. This research uses Phelper’s diary to understand what life was like for Americans in German POW camps and compares Phelper’s experience to existing literature on how Germans treated their American POWs. This paper specifically focuses on four aspects of Phelper’s life in relation to the provisions of the Geneva Convention, the significance of the Red Cross, his complaints about food, and recreational activities, exploring how German treatment of prisoners in these areas impacted the overall POW experience. By analyzing Phelper’s firsthand account of the war, this work seeks to contribute an additional perspective to a broader understanding of what life looked like for POWs during World War II and hopes to open up further research using POW diaries.

First Page

79

Last Page

94

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Shah, Bianca (2025) "Through His Eyes: The Life of American POWs in Germany and Ben Phelper’s Diary," Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History: Vol. 15: Iss. 2, Article 3.
DOI: 10.20429/aujh.2025.150203
Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/aujh/vol15/iss2/3