Episode 29: Red-Blooded American in the Red Army: The True Story of Joseph Beyrle - The Only Soldier to Fight for Both American and the Soviet Union in World War II, Part III

 

Shortly after receiving a telegram that said Joseph Beyrle was a prisoner of war, the Beyrle family received the above telegram saying that he was actually killed in action. This mistake likely occurred when remains in a US uniform wearing the dog tags were recovered following the D-Day invasion. It turns out that Joe's dog tags were taken and worn by a German soldier also wearing a US uniform. If the German had been caught with these on he could have been executed as a spy. Instead he was killed in action. The remains were so devastated that the dog tags were used to identify the remains. The misidentification was only discovered when the Germans got Joe to a POW camp in Germany more than a month after D-Day and he was registered as a POW with the International Red Cross. By this time his family had already held a funeral.

After (more or less) recovering from a fractured skull he received at the hands (or rifle butt) or his captors following several unsuccessful interrogation sections, Beyrle was moved to the first of three permanent prisoner of war camps: Stalag XII-A.

This was the largest camp Joe was held in. During the war, it would routinely house anywhere from 5,000 - 10,000 prisoners.

The second camp Joe was sent to, Stalag IV-B, was supposedly the original prisoner of war camp built in 1939 just south of Berlin after the invasion of Poland. The reason prisoners were transferred was to prevent escape, which Beyrle had been thinking of even before reaching his first camp.

He came to the attention of the escape committee as a good escape candidate but he was transferred again before an escape could be planned.

The final camp Joe was transferred to, Stalag III-C, was located just across the Oder river from Germany in Poland. He was one of the first Americans transferred to the camp that was divided into American and Russia half. Before the Americans arrived, European POWs had  been housed there but also separated from the Russians. For the most part, American POWs were treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention. For the most part, the Russians were left with next to no food or medical care and exposed to the elements. After the war, a mass grave with more than 12,000 Russian remains was found  in the surrounding area. Today a cross stands where the camp once was.

Records indicate that before Joe escaped from Stalag III-C no one ever had. He successfully escaped with two confederates, Brewer and Quinn. Their plan was to hop onto a train that passed the camp each night, heading east, and link up with the Russians. Unfortunately, before reaching the Eastern Front the train car was connected to another engine and changed directions. Now the fugitives were heading west. When the train stopped, they were in Berlin. Not where escaped American POWs wanted to be in 1944.

Long story short, the POWs were betrayed to the Gestapo, take to Gestapo Headquarters on Prinz Albrercht Strasse, and tortured. Unlike most Gestapo prisoners, the POWs were not killed, but only because a German army officer came to the headquarters, armed, took them from the Gestapo, and returned them to Stalag III-C. Unstratified by their failure, Beyrle, Brewer, and Quinn devised another escape plan. During their second try, both Brewer and Quinn were shot - Joe thought the wounds did not seem life threatening - and started making his way east on foot.