Nazis in the U.S. . . .

Confined at Fort McClellan, Ala. are 2,736 troops of the Lujtwaffe and Rommel's once great Afrika Korps. There are other Nazi prisoners in sprawling Fort Dix, N J. The U.S. Army last week gave newsmen a look at these two prison camps.

Most of the prisoners at McClellan are Bavarians, blond, stocky and young. Except for four doctors, a dentist and a tall, hatchet-faced pharmacist, there are no officers among them. Dressed in faded blue denim P.W. uniforms or, occasionally, the patched-up uniforms which they had on when they were captured, they looked arrogant, meaty, well-fed.

They watched with interest as the uneasy inspection party tramped up the sandy hills of the tree-shaded slope where their camp is laid out, in the Choccolocco Mountains. When the visitors turned into a barracks there was a scramble within, a roared Achtung. A noncommissioned officer swung his leg, clicked his heels and flung his arm up in the Nazi salute (which the U.S. conducting officer acknowledged, American-style). Beside their cots blue-shirted prisoners stood stony-faced, rigidly at attention.

The prisoners were obviously proud of their spotless barracks, cultivated rock gardens, weedless patches of green grass, a soccer field which they had leveled out of a hillside, an open-air theater which they built themselves.

P.W. Art. The Nazi spirit was strong everywhere. In a recreation hall was an art exhibit put up for the occasion. A denim-clad curator goose-stepped visitors in, goose-stepped them back to the door, giving them the Nazi salute. The pictures on show included charcoal drawings of hefty nudes, portraits of young, haughty Nazi soldiers (Adolf Hitler was not on display), sardonic drawings of Alabama shanty homes, scenes of the African battlefield, sketches of their stockade.

In the canteen, which resembled any Army Post Exchange, with shelves of U.S. cigarets, candy, peanuts, toilet articles, hung an oil painting of a sentimental reunion in the Bavarian Alps, labeled in German, "The Homecoming P.W."

In the barbershop, presided over by a boyish-looking blond with marcelled hair, was a lush display of Hollywood leg art, clipped from U.S. magazines.

Whether they work or not, all prisoners receive coupons worth 10-c- a day, to buy things at the canteen. In addition, 80-c- a day is paid to those who work at the post's sawmill or auto-maintenance shop, or in the vegetable garden, where they grow food for their own use. Out of their wages they have bought instruments for an orchestra; some of them are good musicians. Their favorite U.S. songs: Pistol Packin' Mamma, Mairzy Doats.

The Nazis are allowed radios, can get U.S. newspapers, but most do not believe what they hear or read. They think that the stories of Russian victories and the destruction of German cities from the air are propaganda. Since visitors are prohibited by the Geneva Convention from speaking to war prisoners, all the newsmen could do was stare in silence at the waxwork faces of the young Nazis, who silently stared back at them. Around a big concrete sun dial which they built they have inscribed: "For us the sun never goes down."

"Who Will Win the War?" Much the same sort of thing was found by the visitors who went through the prisoner camp at Fort Dix. There, however, the Geneva Convention rule was circumvented by Army officers, who put questions to a spokesman for the prisoners--a blond young mining engineer wearing a peaked Afrika Korps cap.

It appeared that many of the young Nazis (average age: 25) thought that New York had been left a shambles by German bombs, that practically any day now Hitler would invade the U.S. On one wall was a sign in glaring German capitals:

WHO WILL WIN THE WAR? WE!

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