A German Odyssey: The Journal of a German Prisoner of War

Horner, an enlisted man in Hitler's army, served on both the Eastern and Western fronts and was wounded four times before being captured in 1944. After a highly unpleasant stayok? in a French POW camp, he was turned over to American authorities and sent to the U.S., where he spent a comparatively comfortable 14 months in several POW camps--earning money working for sugar-beet farmers in Colorado and harvesting peaches in New Jersey. However, on the psychological level his sojourn in the States was an ordeal: Horner coped with homesickness, accepting or `accepting'? aa Germany's defeat in the war, his growing shock over the revealed lies and brutality perpetrated by the Third Reich, and his seemingly dismal prospects in postwar Germany. The author's observations on Americans are his journal's least interesting feature, but he has noteworthy things to say about maintaining dignity, pride and hope as a prisoner of war. Repatriated in 1948, Horner worked as a dental technician until his death last year. (Apr.)