From the CCC to the POW Camps

The same log barracks that sheltered Depression-era CCC boys in the Chippewa National Forest housed captured German soldiers ten years later, and two of them tried to float home down the Mississippi.

These are the research notes behind the Sota Explore episode. Every fact here was checked against at least one source, and all of them are listed at the end. Where sources disagree, the text says so and the "Where sources disagree" section explains the details.

The Great Depression and the New Deal

The Depression took the country from near-full employment to one worker in four out of a job in four years.

The crash. The market broke on Black Thursday, October 24, 1929, and collapsed further on Black Tuesday, October 29, when about 16 million shares traded. By 1932, stocks had lost roughly 90 percent of their value.
The slide. Unemployment rose from about 3 percent in 1929 to about 25 percent in 1933. More than 5,000 banks failed. Family incomes fell by almost half. The 25 percent figure is for 1933, the peak year, not the average for the decade.
Northern Minnesota. The north was hit especially hard: unemployment on the Iron Range was reported as high as 70 percent, a figure from contemporary accounts rather than official statistics. Logging and mining towns around Grand Rapids and Deer River had little left to fall back on.
Roosevelt. Franklin D. Roosevelt won the November 1932 election with 57.4 percent of the vote and was inaugurated March 4, 1933. By then, states had closed nearly every bank. He proclaimed a national bank holiday on Sunday, March 5, which took effect Monday, March 6. Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act on March 9, Roosevelt gave his first radio fireside chat on March 12, and banks began reopening March 13.
The New Deal. The "First 100 Days" focused on relief, recovery and reform: banking rescue, work programs and farm aid, and a whole alphabet of new agencies, among them the CCC, PWA, TVA and, a couple of years later, the WPA. One of the very first programs grew out of a work program Roosevelt had started as governor of New York, where unemployed men planted trees and restored state land. It put young men to work in the woods.

The birth of the CCC

The CCC went from proposal to first camp in under four weeks.

Speed. Roosevelt discussed the plan, called Emergency Conservation Work, with his Cabinet on March 9, 1933, and proposed it to Congress on March 21. Organized labor objected and the plan was revised, but Congress passed the Emergency Conservation Work Act by voice vote and he signed it March 31. Executive Order 6101 formally set up the organization on April 5, the same day Roosevelt named Robert Fechner, a labor union leader from Boston, to lead it.
First enrollee and first camp. Henry Rich was sworn in as the first enrollee on April 7, just 37 days after the inauguration. Camp Roosevelt opened April 17, 1933, in the George Washington National Forest in Virginia. By July 1, 1933, there were about 1,460 camps and roughly 250,000 young enrollees.
An unusual partnership. The Labor Department chose the men. The Army ran the camps. The Forest Service and the Interior Department planned the work.
Who could join. Unmarried, unemployed men 18 to 25, mostly from families on relief. Ages later expanded to 17–28, and World War I veterans and Native Americans enrolled in separate divisions.
The deal. $30 a month, with $25 sent home to the family. The enrollee kept $5, plus food, clothing, shelter and medical care. Enlistments ran six months, renewable up to two years.
How it ran. Companies of about 200 men lived by Army routine. The Forest Service and other agencies directed the work, and locally experienced men ("LEMs") taught woods skills.
National scale. About 3 million men served nationwide from 1933 to 1942. Some sources say 3.5 million.

The CCC in Minnesota

Minnesota was one of the CCC's busiest states.

A fast start. The state's first allotment was 61 camps and 6,000 men. Company 701 opened Minnesota's first camp at Lake Gegoka near Isabella, in the Superior National Forest, on May 8, 1933. Within weeks, the CCC's Indian Division opened its first Minnesota camp at Nett Lake.
The peak. In 1935, Minnesota had 104 camps running at once, with about 18,500 enrollees.
The totals. More than 77,000 Minnesota men served, and together they planted 123,607,000 trees. Counts of the total number of camps over the program's nine years vary: 145, 148 and about 160, depending on the source. Some websites claim 145 camps and 84,000 men; the figures here follow the Minnesota Historical Society.
The end. All Minnesota camps closed in 1942.

The CCC in the Chippewa National Forest

Twenty-three CCC camps operated in the Chippewa National Forest.

The forest. Created in 1908 as the Minnesota National Forest, it was the first national forest east of the Mississippi. It was renamed in 1928 to honor the Chippewa (Ojibwe). About 90 percent of the Leech Lake Reservation lies within its boundary.
Local camps. Cut Foot Sioux (Camp F-14, Company 707, near Deer River) operated from 1933 to 1941. There were also camps at Squaw Lake (Company 1762), Sand Lake (Company 4707) and Inger (Company 4709), Camp Rabideau (Camp F-50, Company 708) near Blackduck, and camps near Bena and Remer, which come back into the story below.
The work. Tree planting, fire fighting and fire lanes, roads, campgrounds, and buildings in a rustic log style.
What still stands. The Forest Supervisor's Office in Cass Lake, a three-story log building of local red pine built in 1935–36 by CCC and WPA crews, is still the forest's headquarters. Norway Beach Visitor Center also survives, as does Camp Rabideau.
The Indian Division. The CCC's Indian Division (CCC-ID) ran separately on reservations, including Leech Lake, and helped more than 2,500 Native American families in Minnesota.

Camp Rabideau

Camp Rabideau, about six miles south of Blackduck, is one of the best-preserved CCC camps in the country.

Built in 1935 by Company 3749, which came up from Missouri. In January 1936, Company 708 moved in from the camp at Bena and stayed until the program ended. The men reportedly rode in open trucks in temperatures as low as 45 below zero.
The camp housed about 200 men at a time in around 25 buildings: barracks, a mess hall, a hospital, officers' quarters, an education building and a recreation hall, spread around a glade in the pines beside Benjamin Lake.
A second life. Most of the roughly 4,500 CCC camps across the country were torn down, hauled away or left to rot. Rabideau sat empty through the war, then was leased to the University of Illinois for engineering and forestry students for nearly three decades.
Today about a dozen original buildings stand, and the camp is a National Historic Landmark. A one-mile trail winds through it, and in summer visitors can walk into the old barracks.

The end of the CCC

Defense plants began hiring again, and starting in 1940 the draft called young men up, so fewer of them needed the CCC. After Pearl Harbor, on December 24, 1941, a committee of Congress recommended shutting the CCC down. In May 1942, Roosevelt asked for money to keep 150 camps going one more year. Congress said no, and the CCC ended in July 1942.

From CCC camps to POW camps

When the CCC closed in 1942, its empty camps became ready-made housing for German prisoners who were sent north to cut pulpwood.

Why prisoners came. The war drained the woods and farms of workers, and the pulp and paper mills needed wood. At the May 1945 peak, the U.S. held about 425,000 POWs: roughly 372,000 Germans, 50,000 Italians and 3,900 Japanese.
The system. Minnesota had no base camp, only branch camps. Most were run from Camp Algona in Iowa, though records also tie Bena, Remer and Cut Foot Sioux to Camp Concordia, Kansas, at times. Counts of Minnesota branch camps range from 15 to 21 depending on the source. In the south, prisoners canned sweet corn and worked the fields; in the north, they cut pulpwood.
Who they were. The northern logging camps held Germans. Many, like the Bena escapees, were veterans of Rommel's Afrika Korps, captured in Tunisia in May 1943.
The Geneva rules. The U.S. followed the 1929 Geneva Convention closely, partly hoping for the same treatment of American POWs. Prisoners got food comparable to the guards' and earned 80 cents a day in canteen coupons, not cash.
Scare stories. The camps had wire fences, a few guards and miles of forest in every direction. Guards told prisoners the woods were full of timber wolves, bears and "dangerous Indians" to discourage escape. The camps sat on and beside Leech Lake Reservation land. Ojibwe author David Treuer grew up hearing about the Bena camp and the escape, and his 2015 novel Prudence draws on it.

The northern camps

Camp	Algona no.	Housing	Dates	Prisoners
Remer	3	Abandoned CCC camp, Chippewa NF	Jan 31, 1944 – Jan 1945	247 (Feb 1944); 237 (Nov 1944)
Bena	4	CCC camp near Lake Winnibigoshish	Jan 31 – June 1944; Oct 1944 – Oct 1945	204–208 (fall 1944); 40 (Sept 1945)
Deer River (Cut Foot Sioux)	6	Old CCC camp (sources differ on which one)	Apr 5, 1944 – Dec 26, 1945	145 (Nov 1944)
Grand Rapids	18	22 miles north of Grand Rapids	Jan – Apr 1945	Built by men moved from Remer

Camp life. The Algona camp newspaper, the Drahtpost, reported at Christmas 1944 that the Remer prisoners had turned a barracks into a theater. Records from Remer also note prisoners fraternizing, and drinking, with the locals. When Remer closed, most of its men went to build the Grand Rapids camp.

Were they all German? In the four northern logging camps, yes, as far as every source shows. Italians were in Minnesota only briefly and in the south: the Olivia camp held Italian prisoners in September–October 1943, before switching to Germans in 1945. No source places Japanese POWs in Minnesota. After Italy surrendered in September 1943, many Italian POWs joined "Italian Service Units" working for the U.S. Army.

The Bena escape

Walter Mai, 21, and Heinz Schymalla, 22, escaped from Algona Branch Camp No. 4 at Bena on Saturday night, October 28, 1944, and were caught six days later on Jay Gould Lake.

The men. Both were captured in Tunisia in May 1943 and were among roughly 208 Germans cutting pulpwood at Bena. Mai was an Obergefreiter (corporal). Schymalla is described as both a corporal and an Obergrenadier (private first class); sources differ.

The motive. Letters from home said Schymalla's 60-year-old father and his brother had been called up as Germany's army collapsed (one source says his grandfather). He resolved to get back and fight, and Mai agreed to go with him. Mai left a note on his bunk, in German. As the Star Tribune translated it: "Our Fatherland, our homeland, are now in a very difficult position, and need all available sons."

The plan. Their small map showed Lake Winnibigoshish connected to the Mississippi. They hoped to float to New Orleans and find a neutral ship home. In testimony they also floated going to Mexico, or to the Bering Strait and Japan. Historian George Lobdell later judged their hopes absurd, since their maps gave no sense of the distances.

The boat. Camp officials let prisoners build small boats from scrap wood to use on the lake. The pair hid one, named Lili Marlene No. 10, after a popular wartime song that was a favorite of the Afrika Korps.

The preparation. They took unmarked clothing from a supply room and saved bacon, sausage and bread from their rations (Schymalla's testimony: 28 strips of bacon, 2 pounds of sausage and a few loaves). The camp gate stayed open until 10 p.m., so over several nights they carried gear to the boat: a suitcase, blankets, pillows, matches, aspirin, a dictionary, a cigarette-rolling machine and a chess set.

The escape, day by day

Sat., Oct 28, about 11:15 p.m. After the 11 p.m. bed check and the lone guard's rounds, they dig under the wire fence, pull strands apart and reach the lake. The boat is so overloaded they must push it.
Sun., Oct 29. There is no Sunday morning head count, so nobody notices. The empty bunks are found at 9:45 p.m.
Mon., Oct 30, 2:30 a.m. The FBI and local officers are searching, more than a day behind. Mai's note mentioning the Bering Strait sends searchers the wrong way, and a boat count wrongly shows none missing.
Oct 29–31. Traveling by night, they cover more than a dozen miles down the Mississippi in three nights. Late on Oct 31 they pass under the Highway 2 and Great Northern Railway bridges to a bend south of Ball Club Lake, still nearly 1,500 miles from the Gulf.
Thu., Nov 2. A windy snowstorm slows them; they make just 4 miles. That day's Duluth Herald headline: "Nazis Still Are Hunted."
Fri., Nov 3. They miss the river channel and turn into Jay Gould Lake, south of Cohasset. Resort owner J. G. Shoup finds them cooking sausages and calls Itasca County Sheriff Otto Litchke. The men hide in brush about 15 yards from the sheriff, then stand with their hands up and call out "Hello, Hello. We are here."

Aftermath. They were held in the Grand Rapids jail, then returned to the Army. At a hearing at Camp Algona on November 4, 1944, they were sentenced to 30 days' confinement, 14 of them on bread and water. One arresting officer, George O'Clock, said their only weapon was a slingshot for hunting squirrels.

The bigger picture. They were 2 of only 13 German POWs who escaped from Minnesota camps during the war, and all were recaptured quickly. Not every escape was as dramatic: in August 1945, three escapees from Owatonna went to the Steele County Fair and rode the Ferris wheel before being caught.

A second escape? A second, less-documented escape from Bena reportedly happened April 27, 1945. Neighbors called the camp twice, but officials checked the roster and found no one missing. This comes from a single source.

After the war, and what you can visit

Full circle. CCC boys planted the pines in the 1930s; about a decade later, German prisoners cut pulpwood from the same forest while living in the same kinds of barracks.
After the war. The prisoners were repatriated, and the northern logging camps closed by late 1945 (Deer River on December 26). The Moorhead camp ran into 1946. Some former prisoners later spoke warmly of their time in Minnesota.
Places to visit. Camp Rabideau (south of Blackduck), the Forest Supervisor's Office in Cass Lake, Norway Beach Visitor Center, Lake Winnibigoshish at Bena, and the Camp Algona POW Museum in Algona, Iowa.

If your father or grandfather served in a CCC camp, or your family remembers the POW camps up north, please share the story in the comments on the Sota Explore YouTube channel.

Where sources disagree

Everything else in these notes matched across sources.

Topic	What sources say
Escape date	Escape on Sat. Oct 28, 1944 (MPR, Michigan Tech); bunks found empty 9:45 p.m. Sun. Oct 29 (Star Tribune)
Schymalla's rank	Corporal (Star Tribune) vs. Obergrenadier, private first class (Ortonville Independent)
Who was drafted	Schymalla's father, 60, and brother (Star Tribune) vs. his grandfather (Michigan Tech)
Did other prisoners help?	Gave food (Star Tribune) vs. a surviving prisoner said no one knew (Pioneer PBS)
Who ran the camps	Algona (most sources) vs. Concordia, Kansas, at times (GenTracer; Pioneer PBS says supply shifted to Algona)
Deer River camp site	Algona museum: "CCC Camp 707 near Squaw Lake"; MNHS: Company 707 was Cut Foot Sioux, and Squaw Lake was Company 1762. The camp's own wartime label was Cut Foot Sioux
Number of Minnesota POW camps	15 (Buck); 19, 20 or 21 (GenTracer)
POW pay	80 cents a day (Star Tribune, the Geneva rate); one article says per hour, which is wrong
"Lili Marlene"	The Star Tribune calls it a folk ballad; it's a 1930s popular song
Second Bena escape, April 1945	A single source (Ortonville Independent reprint)
Camp Rabideau details	Surviving buildings: 15 (Forest Service brochure, 2007) or 13 of 25 (MNHS, 2019). End of the CCC camp: 1941 or 1942. University of Illinois lease: 1945 or 1946 to 1973. National Historic Landmark date: Feb. 17 or Feb. 21, 2006
Total Minnesota CCC camps	145, 148 or about 160, depending on the source
CCC companies at Bena and Remer	Not found in the sources checked. Barbara Sommer's appendix or the Itasca County Historical Society may have it

Key published sources

George Lobdell, "Minnesota's 1944 PW Escape," Minnesota History, Fall 1994 (built on the Algona hearing transcripts of Nov 4, 1944)
Edward Pluth, "Prisoner of War Employment in Minnesota During World War II," Minnesota History, Winter 1975
Anita Buck, Behind Barbed Wire (1998)
Barbara Sommer, Hard Work and a Good Deal (MNHS Press, 2008)