[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, guys, it's Jill.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: Jen and I wanted to give you.
[00:00:03] Speaker A: A heads up about the content on today's episode. It may be triggering for more sensitive audiences. Refer to the show notes for more specifics and take care while you listen.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: On this episode of Common Mystics, we uncover the this astounding story of the people held in a curious location for even more curious reasons during wartime.
I'm Jennifer James.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: I'm Jill Stanley.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: We're psychics.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: We're sisters.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: We are common mystics. We find extraordinary stories in ordinary places. And today's story takes us to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: That's right, Jen. And do you want to explain to everyone what we were doing on this very unique trip?
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Sure.
Our headquarters for this trip was Chattanooga. We were there for a family wedding, and we had explored Huntsville, Alabama. And after leaving Huntsville, we ventured into Georgia, where we made an assembly. Astounding discovery.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: That's right. And can you please remind our listeners what our intentions were on that day?
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Our intention was, as it always is, which is to ask the spirits to lead us to a verifiable story previously unknown to us that allows us to give voice to the voiceless spirits.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: That's right. So let's get over some of our hits that we were getting in the car.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Okay.
So right away you started feeling soldiers everywhere, like military people everywhere.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Do you remember that?
[00:01:56] Speaker A: I do remember that.
And it wasn't Civil War people either. It felt more modern.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Very good. I remember that. And also I was picking up on rocks. Like, rocks that you. Mine.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes, yes. I was picking up. Oh, I remember telling you this. The smell of old urine.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: Like.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: Like the Chicago blue line urine smell. Like it's been bacon for a while.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Old urine. Yeah, I remember you saying that. I wrote it down. And at that point, that's when we saw signs for a Civil War battlefield.
Remember Chickamauga? I'm not even going to let you try it.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: I wanted to try so bad, too. I was like, chickamauga.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: No Maga.
That's cute, though, because you're. You're interpreting the U as an N. That's your dyslexia.
There's no N. It's an. It's a U.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: Well, I'm so glad that excites you.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Well, it does kind of, but Chickamauga say maga.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: Maga.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Chicka morga. Yeah, The Chickamauga battle. Now look who's been speaking.
Chickamauga battlefield. We were seeing signs, but it was.
[00:03:13] Speaker A: Weird because we thought we were turning into the battlefield. But we weren't. We turned into this very odd street called Barnhart.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Yes.
Yes, thank you.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Barnhart Circle.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: And it was really weird. First of all, people were living there. There were people, like, on a porch living in this area. But it was, like, thick with depressing feeling. Like, we were like, what is going on? Like, I felt literally depressed energy.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: It was. It felt thick with, like, spirits. So there were, like, the living people who were sitting around on the porches looking at us like. Like, we. Like, they recognized we were out of towners, and they were like, what are you doing here?
Valid. 100% valid.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: But it's so weird how they were living, because the street is literally like a circle. It almost reminds me of a track. Right. It's shaped in this oval, and it's huge. And these houses are around this oval, and people are, like, sitting on their porch. There's one that looks like almost like a barracks. That was an apartment building that we were like, oh, you haunted. Yo, yo, why you so haunted? And then there was, like. Like, literally, like, residential homes. So it was very peculiar. And then in the far end of this field, there was a huge building that we would stumble upon. But tell me a little bit about this circle and this, like, giant cul de sacs with old buildings.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you did a really good job just describing it. That's exactly what it was.
Whereas a cul de sac doesn't have a park in the middle. This circle had a big park in the middle.
And the current park has, like, ball diamonds, like, you know, baseball diamonds, where I suppose you could play baseball or softball or kickball if you have, you know.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: Plus, I love the kickball.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: Less athleticism. Kickball is a go to love kickball. But anyway, there was also this covered, raised building, kind of like in the Sound of Music, when Lies Lil is dancing with the gazebo. Yes. Kind of like a big gazebo, but it's bigger than that.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: And it looks like the gazebo from the Gilmore Girls.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: Okay. Yes, Yes. A bigger court, sort of bandstand, outdoor structure with a roof that you would expect to have parties and. And music.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: Giving me bandstand energy, for sure.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: Absolutely.
We discovered pretty quickly that we were in a historic place, not only because of the look of. Of the buildings, which were clearly built over a hundred years ago, but also because we were seeing signs.
Some signs were like, for rent. Do you remember that?
[00:06:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I wouldn't live there. No offense.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: No. And other signs were telling you about the historic building. So we pulled over on the circle and we started walking around.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: I love.
Jennifer wrote this outline. And in the outline it says the entire place felt haunted, as scary and not welcoming. Layers of residual energy lingering there.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Didn't it feel that way?
[00:06:27] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's scary as. Yeah, yeah, you're right.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: But also, like, layers. Like, it wasn't even clear what era you were picking up on because you felt so many layers.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: And it didn't help that the. That fork. Chickamauga was. Chickamauga was so close. It was, like, perpendicular to where we were.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: And we were so confused because we were trying to get to the fort. And instead we end up on this weird circle with this weird energy where we weren't wanted. Let's just be 100% clear.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: Yeah, we weren't wanted by the living or the dead. 100%.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: But we were walking around and we were kind of looking at the buildings, and we were reading at the. At. We were reading the signs. You, like you said, were drawn to the band stand in the center of that park.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Everyone likes a good bandstand.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: Also, you were picking up on something else really creepy.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Trigger warning. Maybe we should let people know now. I was picking up on the feeling of suicide. The feeling of needing, not even wanting, but believing, the need to commit suicide.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. So dark and tragic. And then as we're looking at these buildings, I remember us being drawn to a particular area of the circle. And I remember you in particular saying, that's a hospital. And it was, like, raised up, but you could still see it. Do you remember? And you're like, I know people were there. That's a hospital. And.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: And then we were able to look at the map that was.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: Yeah, we got a map. When we went to the historical, like in. As you turn into this Bernard Circle, or is that what it is?
[00:08:10] Speaker B: Barnhart.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: Barnhart Circle. There's that little historical site building, and you can walk up to it, and it had, like, you know, a realtor's box with a map. Yeah, yeah. And we took a map out, but we didn't. We weren't looking at the map. We looked at the map only after we wanted verification and what our feels were feeling.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: Right.
So we got that right after consulting the map. Because you were like, that's a hospital. We looked at the map, and you were absolutely right. That was a hospital.
But there was another building that we were drawn to, and we did not.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: Get this one right.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: It was building number five. Tell me about that.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: Building. Number five Felt.
It felt curious. Not only to us, but it felt curious about us, There was definitely an exchange of energy we were getting, and we did not know what it was like. We did not have the words. There was no way spirit was going to be able to tell us this is what this was used for. So we had a look on the.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: Map, and what it was was a house that was used to. To house German internees during the war.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: What's an internee, Jennifer?
[00:09:32] Speaker B: Someone who is interred in a camp against their will during wartime.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: Huh? Yeah.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Our grandparents were internees.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: Yes. They were in Germany, but this was in the United States of America.
And I was also getting the feeling that the people interned were treated really well. Do you remember me saying that?
[00:09:58] Speaker A: Yes. In building five, you said these people were. Felt like.
It felt like camp, what you said.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: Anyway, which. Which you wouldn't expect, it seems. I didn't expect it seemed. I mean, all of this was so unexpected.
We were trying to find a battlefield. But I think that saying it sounded weird for me to even say that. Like, that can't be right. But I wrote it down anyway, and.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: It seems counterintuitive to what it was that we knew we were looking at. Right. We're looking at a building that held people during war times. And you're like, good times.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, it feels like camp, like, they're treated really well. And I think that's going to make sense later as we get into the outline.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: I'm super excited.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: Jennifer, do you like that foreshadowing?
[00:10:45] Speaker A: I do.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Build a little bit of, you know, suspense.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: Maybe tune in to find out what that means. Jen, tell me a little bit about the circle. Yeah.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: Barnhart Circle. Okay, so here's the story.
Barnhart Circle is actually located within a historic fort called Fort Oglethorpe. Okay.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Mm. It was German.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: It was a former key US Cavalry post.
And over the years, the site, Fort Oglethorpe, has served various purposes and witnessed the stories of a very diverse.
Different. Diverse groups of people who have interacted with the. This place. And so his history is surprisingly rich.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: And I think that we felt that that day. It did feel very. Yeah, it did feel very layered.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Very layered.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Yeah, It's. It's thick there. It's thick. Okay, Jennifer. Okay, tell me about the location. Yes, tell me about the location and how it dates back. Like, where did it start? Where was it born?
[00:11:56] Speaker B: Right. Okay. So at the very, very beginning, we have to go back to the Civil War.
Okay. So located in northern Georgia and southeastern Tennessee. That area there that. That we were traveling around, there were two major Civil War battles fought there in 1863.
One was the battle of Chickamauga, and the second, the siege of Chattanooga. And they're connected to each other.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Okay, so tell me about the first one. Break it down.
[00:12:29] Speaker B: Okay, so there used to be nothing here except for field, but then In September of 1863, there was a significant conflict there during the American Civil War, and it also happened to be one of the bloodiest battles of the entire conflict.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: I did not know that.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: So here's what happened.
As you know, the north, the Union, was fighting the South. Right.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: And Chattanooga called the Civil War.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: Right, right, exactly. And the city of Chattanooga was really, really important because it had the railroads, and so it was important to the south, to the Confederacy. Okay. And so the Union was like, nuh, you can't keep. Like, we want that because we want to use the railroads there, and we don't want you to have it.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: So it's just fun to say Chattanooga.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Chattanooga is fun to say. Right, exactly. So the Union army attempted to attack and secure the city of Chattanooga, which was a really important transportation hub, but the Confederates were on it. The south was like, nuh. And so they launched a counter attack on the U.S. army, on the North. They were able to break the Union lines on the second day of the battle, and the Union forces had to retreat.
So it was a big win for the South. They were.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: Is this true, or am I making this up? Was this the. The second deadliest battle in the Civil War after Gettysburg? Am I making that up?
[00:14:07] Speaker B: I want to say you're right, but I'm not sure.
I think the way they count, like, bloodiest battles is.
Is a little different. I think it kind of depends on the sources, But I do think Gettysburg or Antietam. I know Antietam was really bloody, too.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: But anyway, I think you're right.
So, anyway, huge win for this, for the South.
[00:14:30] Speaker A: Right, Right. Only that was a Confederate victory.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: Confederate victory. However, the Union didn't give up. They just regrouped. So, like, they lost land, but then they settled in Chattanooga anyway, and they.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: Regroup, get knocked down, dig it up again.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And if you know anything about this conflict, you'll know that the Union had more.
More men and more resources than the South.
So whereas the south, it was harder for them to regroup and keep going. The north had so much more. They were just able to do that. So what happened was they settled down in Chattanooga, and they're like, okay, we're just going to settle down here. Like, you.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: You.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: You pushed us back, but we're not leaving. And so they regrouped and during that time, the south organized a siege, which is basically like a big wall around it. Right. So like no resources can get in or out.
So they're trying to starve them. Basically. Like you. You people forget that when you have an army that's really hard to maintain. You have to feed your army, you have to water your army. You have to take. You need like new shoes, you need new boots. You can't just like have an army and expect it to perform. If you can't, like, you take care of it.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: Or ammunition. You need ammunition. You need so many things. Yes. So many resources.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: Yes. So they're hunkered down, but the south is like, haha. And so they. They create this like siege situation where nothing can get in or out. And so now the union army is starving. Right. And this is all in the same location. Right.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: Makes me hungry just thinking about.
[00:16:07] Speaker B: So it was a big problem for the union and their. Their army is starving until major general Ulysses s. Grant, sometimes known, have you heard of him, as the future president of the United States and one of our worst.
Ulysses s. Grant was a terrible president, as it turns out, but he was really good on the battlefield and he was able to open a supply route.
So he saved the union army. They were able to get food and get everything they need. And they ended up launching a successful assault against the southerners. They broke the siege and ultimately they secured a victory at Chattanooga.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: And it was a hum for the union forces then.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: Yes, that's exactly right. And it was one of the battles that turned the tide of the entire war.
So all that happened right in the area where we were the future area of folk, Fort oglethorpe.
So then here's what happened next. Okay, so then the war is over. We know the north wins by the 1890s.
U. S. Congress is like, you know what? We lost a lot of men in these battlefields. A lot of happened. What we should be doing is commemorating this. Like these big areas that were battlefields, we shouldn't forget that. We should make them into national military parks.
And so there was a big push in the 1890s to do that.
[00:17:37] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate that, to be honest.
[00:17:40] Speaker B: For sure, for sure. We shouldn't forget all of the blood spilled in these places.
But as it turns out, the very first of these national military parks and the largest was at the site of the battle of chickamauga and the siege of Chattanooga.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: That's insane. Yeah. So where we were stumble upon the biggest.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: The first and it actually turned out to be, like, the blueprint for future national military parks.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:11] Speaker B: It was authorized in 1890 and dedicated in 1895. Okay. And it was a really important and significant step in preserving our nation's history, our military history.
But then.
But then.
So you have this park. It's finally dedicated 1895 and then. But, you know, we're in other wars, too, after that. Right?
[00:18:35] Speaker A: Huh.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: So the military is like, well, where are we going to train all these horses for our cavalry in 1898? Right. Because we're in the Spanish American War and then World wars one and two. And so the United States military is like, well, we have this big space right next to Chattanooga, which is still a major transportation port. We should just put the military there.
And so that's what they did. It's kind of like recycling, which is, as you know, a really good idea.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: It is a very good idea.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: So that's what they did. They basically recycled this area. And during the Spanish American War and World Wars I and 2, they use the same area to train cavalry, to do training of other types of troops and things. And this military post was named Fort Oglethorpe. The name came from the founder of the colony of Georgia.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: Okay, but are we still talking about Barnhart Circle?
[00:19:34] Speaker B: Yes, because Barnhart Circle is or was the very heart of Fort Oglethorpe. And by the way, the circle itself sits very close to the Chickamauga battlefield.
[00:19:49] Speaker A: They're adjacent. Literally, they're, like, touching borders, which is.
[00:19:53] Speaker B: Why we got lost trying to get to the battlefield.
So I think that alone is significant because you get, I believe, the vibes of that bloody, bloody battle in the heart of the fort, where, as it turns out, other shit's gonna go down.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: Well, tell me historically about the circle.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: Okay, so historically, Barnhart Circle formed the heart of the Fort. Fort Oglethorpe. It was completed in 1904, and it was hailed as the largest and finest cavalry post in the United states.
There were 74 buildings built.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: At a cost of a hun. Not 100 million, 1 million.
It housed 50 commissioned officers. And, you know, the officers houses are going to be nice.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: Mm.
[00:20:49] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: And back then, I'm sure over a.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: Thousand enlisted men also lived there.
And a thousand horses. This was super, super impressive. So you have all of this building going on. Barnhart Circle was the heart of it now.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: The largest and the finest.
[00:21:07] Speaker B: Barnhart Circle had been the site of cavalry training. So that space in the middle, training horses. Training mounted horse whisperers, horse. What do you call Jockeys Kind of. Not really. Jockeys, Cavalry people. Cavalry men.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: Okay, okay.
Mm.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: Go to our YouTube channel to watch Jennifer be ridiculous.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: No, but also, over the years, polo matches. Because what else are you gonna do if you're on a horse? You have to have some fun.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: I mean, if you're on a horse, what are you gonna do? You. What? You can do the.
[00:21:43] Speaker B: The joust. Oh, you could do the joust.
[00:21:45] Speaker A: I would have been so. I would have watched a joust.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: They could have had, like a medieval time sort of situation.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: Oh, that would have been great.
[00:21:52] Speaker B: So. So what is polo? Is that with the big, long mallets? Do you, like, hit.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: You hit balls.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: Is it like.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: What do you call the mallets that they were.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's like croquet on horses.
[00:22:04] Speaker A: Is it croquette?
[00:22:07] Speaker B: I think the French would say croquet.
[00:22:09] Speaker A: Okay, well, yeah, it's exactly that on horses.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: All right. And it's annoying also.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: They would do, like military parades, military marches. So that big space that we saw in now that has baseball diamonds on it used to be used for military exercises.
And it would house all the officers around in those big distinctive homes that are still there.
And then don't forget the bandstand.
The bandstand was created to hold a 28 piece band and called it.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: I was like, that is a band stand if I've ever seen one.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: Bandstand. Bandstand.
And in 1920, it was fitted with electric lights.
We're moving on up.
So, of course, today there are ball fields and there's also spaces for community events. They use that.
That field for community events today.
But Barnhart Circle, as we know, still features 21 of the original officers quarters that were built in the early 1900s, as well as the original bandstand building.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: Okay.
So there obviously isn't all the old structures there today. We just seen, like, you said 21 of them.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: Right.
[00:23:35] Speaker A: So what other structures were there and are they commemorating them the way?
[00:23:42] Speaker B: Yeah, that's an interesting question.
So I was doing a little research online about Barnhart Circle for this outline.
[00:23:53] Speaker A: You did a fantastic job, by the way.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: Oh, thank you. Really?
[00:23:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: I'm so glad you like it. Barnhart Circle is also home to other historic buildings, but they often go unmentioned on official tourism websites and online resources.
[00:24:12] Speaker A: So these structures weren't on the map that we were looking at.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: They were on the map, some of them, but they're not, like, come and see this sort of thing. Like, if you go to the tourism websites, if you Go to, like, the historic Barnhart Circle, you know, like.
Like the.
What is it called? Official marketing. Like, you know, official tourism marketing. They don't mention some of the structures and the ones they don't really mention and are, like, come see. Are the surviving structures still there?
Still there.
That served to contain prisoners of war and, quote, alien enemies? When Fort Oglethorpe served as an internment.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: Camp, I did not see this coming.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: Okay. When did the fort serve as an internment camp?
[00:25:09] Speaker B: So glad you asked, Jill.
At the start of World War I in Europe, it was August 1914, the United States started detaining Germans under certain international rules.
Okay, so now, in 1914, the United States hadn't joined World War I yet.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: No, we were trying to be, like, legit neutral.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: Neutral, exactly. But there were still rules in the international community of how neutral countries needed.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: To act towards the certain nationalities.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: Right. The warring. The countries at war.
And so the United States was forbidden to harbor hostile forces.
Okay, so what does that mean? You can't, like, keep them safe?
[00:26:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: Okay. All right.
[00:26:09] Speaker A: So, I mean, that's fair.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: I mean, I would think so.
When. Okay, so the British and the Japanese were fighting the Germans, and when the British and Japanese navies forced German warships into American ports, the United States couldn't, like, keep them safe, but they were obligated to, like, hold them in American waters.
And basically, they're very complicated. Their crews were stuck on the ships. So they had. It was just like, stay where you are. Don't move. Like, we're not gonna, like, take you and imprison you or do anything, because not really part of this, but you can't go anywhere, so you're just gonna stay where you are.
And at that point in April 1917, here's where things change, because you have had German warships, like, just in. In American ports that, honestly, they were kind of okay with it in a way, because to go back out in the ocean waters meant that then they would be attacked by the British and Japanese. They're kind of all right. You know what I mean?
[00:27:14] Speaker A: They would have to engage.
[00:27:15] Speaker B: Right. So they were kind of okay with it until April 1917. That's when the United States enters the war and declares war on Germany. And then at that point, all of the crews from the German warships that were sitting in the ports for years, now, suddenly they're prisoners of war. And now the United States has to take them and treat them according to the rules of prisoners of war. Got it.
[00:27:41] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: So suddenly we have all of these German naval people, so sailors and officers.
[00:27:48] Speaker A: Well, you really don't want them. You don't want your, your warring country sitting at your port in a warship.
Yeah. Prepared to like some shit up. So I think, you know, it's not pretty, but that makes sense.
[00:28:01] Speaker B: Right. But the other thing is, it wasn't just warships that were like, on our ports. There were also like luxury German ships and merchant ships. So you have commercial ships also in our ports from Germany. And German luxury ships that have like, rich people, German rich people on their luxury ship.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: They were sitting there for the very same reason because they did not want to engage with the forces at sea. So they were like, nope, we're just going to, we're just going to hang.
[00:28:29] Speaker B: Out in America until, oh, America declared war on us too. And now, now they weren't prisoners of war because it was a different, like it wasn't the military in the United States that was in charge of them. It was a different government body. But the point was, now you're the enemy. Now you're enemy civilians. And now we need to deal with you.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: So at first, now the thing is, at first, before America joined the war, these merchants and luxury crews and people were able to come into U.S. port cities. They were able to move around. But then after 1917, the United States authorities detained and confined over 2,000 of these German crewmen from the merchant ships and the luxury liners. And they sent them to internment camps because they didn't know what else to do with them. Like, what do you do with them? You have to put them somewhere.
[00:29:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:26] Speaker B: But now here's the kicker, because you can almost, I don't know, what do you think? Can you almost understand, like, logically? Like, yeah, that makes sense so far.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: No, it's not pretty, but it makes sense.
[00:29:38] Speaker B: It makes sense. Like we're at war. You're literally the enemy.
[00:29:42] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: We have to do something.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: You can't just sit on our, our docks. You can't just sit in the dock of the bay wasting time when your country and our country are fight. You can't do that. Right. So I mean, it's not pretty, but I understand it. It's logical.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: Right?
But then there was a third group of Germans, third group that were also targeted for incarceration after America entered World War I. And these were civilian enemy aliens.
[00:30:13] Speaker A: What does that mean?
[00:30:14] Speaker B: That means they weren't part of the German military, but they were Germans, either German or German Americans who had, who had broken the law or if they didn't break the law, they were still judged, quote, Unquote, too dangerous to be free.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: So we're potentially talking about German Americans. We are American citizens.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: Potentially, yes.
With.
[00:30:44] Speaker A: Still.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: Who are German.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: Who are German ethnically.
The same way we're Polish ethnically.
[00:30:51] Speaker B: Yeah. I think that's arguable, but yes.
So on the day.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: Okay, better. Our mom.
[00:30:58] Speaker B: Our mom would be a much better example because we were, like, born and raised here. We're kind of American, legit. But mom would be suspect if.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: If, you know, if we were at war with Poland.
[00:31:08] Speaker B: If we were at war with Poland and she was here. Speaks Polish, lives in a Polish neighborhood.
Okay. Clearly Polish customs. Okay. So on the day Congress declared war on Germany, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation, and it imposed strict restrictions on these alien enemies. And here were the prohibitions. Here were the rules.
These alien enemies were prohibited from possessing firearms, bombs.
Well, explosives.
[00:31:41] Speaker A: You don't need a bomb or an explosive.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: Yeah, not for anything good so far. I'm with you, Woodrow. I'm with you.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Although the Second Amendment. If these people were American citizens. Yes. If they were American citizens at this point, the Second Amendment would be violated if you took or would forbid them to have firearms. But that. I mean, I'm not a fan of the Second Amendment, but I'm just saying, technically, you are going against. Against the Constitution.
[00:32:09] Speaker B: Yeah, technically. Valid argument.
They were also forbidden from operating airplanes.
They were forbidden from operating any wireless communication devices, like radio.
[00:32:23] Speaker A: I can see that.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: Or any order, sort of signaling equipment like telegraph or anything like that.
[00:32:30] Speaker A: Well, I mean, to be honest with you, if I were German at this time and people were just freaked out by the fact that I'm German American, I wouldn't want any of that shit by me. I'd be like, nope, I am vanilla. I am American. I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy. I don't need any of that stuff by me. I don't want you to suspect me at all.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: Right.
Agreed.
Now, additionally, they were barred from entering within a half mile of any fort, again, or arsenal or aircraft station, navy yard, munitions factory, or any other location the president deemed as prohibited. So, basically, these are war locations of warfare. You know, supplies.
[00:33:15] Speaker A: I'm. I'm okay with all of it. This seems reasonable.
[00:33:18] Speaker B: And if they already lived in one of these zones, near a Ford or a municipal factory, etcetera, they had to move. I mean, that sucks.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: That. That really does suck. But again, if I were German American at the time, I would be like, well, this sucks hard, but I don't want to.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: I get it.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: Be thought right. Exactly.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: I don't want your.
Yes.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: Alien enemies could face immediate arrest if there was any reasonable suspicion that they were aiding, intending to aid the enemy or violating criminal laws or presidential regulations or posing a threat to public peace and safety, could be immediately arrested if there was reasonable suspicion of this.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: You know, that. That seems very vague, and I think there may be other constitutional liberties that are being squashed with that one. I'm not. Not liking that.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: That does seem rather vague.
It's the suspicion. Reasonable suspicion. Who's doing the.
[00:34:29] Speaker A: The deciding, like, the analysis.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: Right. Are there. The neighbors. Are their neighbors suspicious? And then they could just call it in, like. And what's reasonable? I don't know, but that's pretty vague. Now, by the end of the war, federal authorities had arrested over 6,000 people under these provisions.
[00:34:48] Speaker A: And again, these are German Americans.
[00:34:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
Under suspicion of breaking laws or intending to aid the enemy or threatening public peace and safety.
Now, here's what you need to know.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: I just want to clear something up, because we are posting this on YouTube. The woman in green, dark green, like an army green. That is Jennifer.
That is Jennifer James. Yes, I am Jill Stanley.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: Yes. Because the names say Jill and Jill.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: Okay. I'm glad we cleared that up. Okay, so I do want to talk about this one thing, because in this setup, your neighbor could report you.
[00:35:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:40] Speaker B: If they didn't like you and you were German, they could just report you and be like, hey, my German neighbor is suspicious. I think they're in cahoots with the enemy. And then the authorities would have enough reason to. To pick them up and detain them.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: Yeah, that's absolutely sus.
And I can't.
1900s in America. This is what we're doing again, a lot of freedom. And we're not talking about immigrants. We're not talking. But we are talking about people that are American citizens that went through the process correctly.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: Well, immigrants could. Could become America. Yes. Immigrated.
[00:36:20] Speaker A: Right. But we're not talking about, like.
We're not talking about illegal that. Exactly.
[00:36:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: We're talking about illegals already been vetted. Could have been here for 30, 40 years already. And they speak with an accent.
[00:36:34] Speaker B: Now, these days, we're still talking about immigration for obvious reasons. Right. Big hot topic in the United States today. The groups that are most targeted by these arguments against immigration are those from Latin American countries and Mexico. Right?
[00:36:53] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: But at this time, it was the Germans. German American citizens faced widespread harassment, discrimination, and acts of violence. Even before the war, Germans were the single largest ethnic group that immigrated to the United States. Between the time of the Civil War and the start of World War I, it was Germans.
250,000 Germans immigrated in 1882 alone.
This was a huge wave of immigration, and it strained certain local economies, sparking criticism, resentment, and discrimination. So when the US Attorney General gave power to local unpaid volunteers to round up, quote, disloyal German aliens, guess what? They did so with gusto.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: This is a very timely story.
Holy.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: Right.
All right, just hold on, hold on.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: Really, really bad.
[00:38:01] Speaker B: That's really, really bad.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: That's scary bad.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: That's really, really bad.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: That's witch hunt bad.
[00:38:07] Speaker B: That's witch hunt bad.
Because now it's the law.
Yeah, the law.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: Now it's expected of you.
Just bad. So let's.
[00:38:16] Speaker B: Let's talk about how this worked.
These individuals, these legitimate German immigrants, were often detained without evidence of any wrongdoing. Because, remember, you just needed to be under suspicion, reasonable suspicion.
And it was part of a widespread anti German sentiment that was growing German during the war.
And these targeted in individuals included. Okay, so here's some of the people that were targeted.
Members of this radical labor union party, the Industrial Workers of the World. So if you were part of this labor union party, you were already suspect.
[00:38:57] Speaker A: Jesus.
[00:38:59] Speaker B: Because it doesn't. Doesn't surprise you perhaps that the people who are leading these local witch hunt organizations are the business owners, right?
[00:39:11] Speaker A: Huh. Doesn't surprise me at all, it seems.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: No, no. So they're rounding up. They're rounding up members of the labor union.
Also, if you were German and. And in the Socialist party. Yeah. You would be picked up. Because that's sus.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: Yeah, because just that word will give you hives in America.
[00:39:30] Speaker B: Any member of an anti war group. So any peace group member, you're gonna be picked up.
[00:39:37] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:39:38] Speaker B: Any member of any pro German groups or clubs.
[00:39:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm trying to think of a pro German club. I don't know one.
[00:39:46] Speaker B: I don't know of any German pastimes. Like, if there was a German dance troupe, you'd probably be rounded up.
[00:39:54] Speaker A: My God.
German sausage making German butcher being a little.
[00:40:03] Speaker B: What's the word?
Stereotypical German.
They didn't all make sausage and eat pretzels.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: Some of them did.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: I know some Germans were detained simply because they held positions of prominence or power, including wealthy businessmen, journalists, academics, artists. And it seems like any German who is too smart or too skilled in any area would have been rounded up because that would have been dangerous.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: I have to say that we gave the second wave of Germans in World War II a lot of ideas Just fucking saying.
[00:40:41] Speaker B: Here are some examples of the enemy aliens who were arrested and detained and sent to internment camps. Okay? There was a man named Jonathan Zenik who was a radio specialist. He was way too skilled to remain at large, and so he was picked up and detained.
[00:40:58] Speaker A: That sucks to be good at your job.
[00:41:00] Speaker B: He was too good at his job.
[00:41:01] Speaker A: He slayed too hard, bro.
[00:41:03] Speaker B: You can't slay that hard making the rest of us look bad.
Count Albrecht. Monte Glass.
He was a former newspaper editor for the San Francisco examiner and the Chicago Examiner. But he was German.
[00:41:18] Speaker A: He sounds really important. And I would totally marry the Count. And I call him Al.
[00:41:23] Speaker B: Yeah. No, he was a newspaper editor and therefore had to be picked up, although he was for two United States papers.
[00:41:33] Speaker A: Well, again, like, this is somebody who is Americanized. This is not somebody who's like, go, German. Go German. This is someone who's living his life and has been living here as an American citizen for years. Wow.
That's, like, really messed up.
[00:41:49] Speaker B: So then there was Dr. Carl Oscar Bertling.
He unfortunately held a master's degree from Harvard. He's too smart. I'll tell you already.
Dude's too smart for his own good.
[00:42:02] Speaker A: Dude.
[00:42:03] Speaker B: He was considered dangerous because he had written books on the military systems of Germany and German American relations.
And because of that, he knew too much.
[00:42:15] Speaker A: Yep. You don't want to do that. I would capture him to be like, we need your help. You know what I mean? Like, help us. Help us understand what's going to happen.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: No, it's not what happened. They're like, you're too smart, bro.
Getting locked up.
[00:42:28] Speaker A: You got to be so smart. You go to Harvard, bro. You go to Harvard.
[00:42:32] Speaker B: What?
[00:42:33] Speaker A: Nerd? Why you got to be a nerd?
[00:42:35] Speaker B: And then Carl Muck. Carl Muck was the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
[00:42:42] Speaker A: I can't even believe it.
[00:42:43] Speaker B: He faced accusations because he refused to perform the Star Spangled Banner at a concert.
No, bro.
God. You know, it's like, you're making us arrest you. Why? This is, like, out of the Sound of Music.
[00:42:58] Speaker A: This is. That's what I'm saying. Like, America did it first.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: Stop.
[00:43:02] Speaker A: We were. No, I'm serious.
[00:43:04] Speaker B: Stop.
[00:43:05] Speaker A: I'm serious.
I'm serious.
[00:43:07] Speaker B: You can't say we did it first without knowing the rest of the. Of what was going on in other places.
In the other places in the world.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: I'm talking about when we look at World War II and we think of the things that were happening, it just seems that this is really equivalent to some of the Ways that they segregated and othered. You know what I mean? Like otherized groups of people and cultures. Yeah.
[00:43:40] Speaker B: I wouldn't say we did it for first. We did not invent this.
We certainly did it. We certainly did it. Let's keep going. Because you don't expect America to act like this.
[00:43:50] Speaker A: I. I'm in shock. I'm really like.
[00:43:53] Speaker B: So you didn't read the outline? Is that what you're telling me? Let's keep going. Don't answer that twice. I skimmed it twice.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: What do you want from me?
[00:44:00] Speaker B: You Jill skimmed it twice. That means you are not prepared. If you Jill skimmed it, I think.
[00:44:06] Speaker A: No one would know. I wasn't scared until.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: Skimming is basically like.
It's like.
[00:44:13] Speaker A: Honestly, it's like you put your head.
[00:44:15] Speaker B: On the outline for a couple hours.
[00:44:17] Speaker A: No, you have to rub it.
[00:44:19] Speaker B: Okay.
All right.
Okay. So you might ask, so where were these detainees sent?
[00:44:27] Speaker A: Well, Jennifer.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:44:28] Speaker A: Because I'm a smart cookie. I know where they sent these detainees.
[00:44:32] Speaker B: Where'd they send them?
[00:44:34] Speaker A: To detention centers.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: The U.S. war Department selected three army posts in the United States that served as internment camps. And these were for not only prisoners of war, in other words, German sailors and German officers, but also the alien enemies who were civilians deemed dangerous. Okay. And most of the naval prisoners of war, most of the German soldiers and officers were sent to Fort McMillan Fearson in Georgia. But the civilians or alien enemies, most of them were sent to one or two of the remaining forts. Fort Douglas in Utah, and of course, our fort, Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia. Although Fort Oglethorpe would get some POWs during its operation. So I want to make that clear.
[00:45:26] Speaker A: The inmates at our fort were mostly civilians. Yes. German businessmen.
[00:45:33] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:45:33] Speaker A: German American businessmen, journalists, academics, artists, musicians.
[00:45:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:45:38] Speaker A: Like everyday people.
[00:45:39] Speaker B: Yes. Smart? No, the best. Better than everyday people. They were the smartest. And like the most educated German and German Americans that they could round up and put them at our fort. Yeah.
[00:45:53] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:45:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
Huh? Yes.
[00:45:56] Speaker A: Oh, my Lord. And then, of course, anyone under suspicion of being too German at the time.
[00:46:02] Speaker B: Right. Anti American.
Any socialists, Any pro labor, union. Yeah. You would also be there.
[00:46:08] Speaker A: Okay, so what kind of internment camp was Fort. What's the name of the Fort?
[00:46:14] Speaker B: Oglethorpe.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: I don't know if I can say it. Let me say it. Fort Oglethorpe.
[00:46:19] Speaker B: Oh, lovely. And I love the accents, too. You sound 10 smarter for to Oglethorpe. Well, let me tell you what life was like.
Please, it might surprise you.
So the internment camp at folk. Why do I keep saying folk?
Fort. Fort Oglethorpe. Was.
Okay, so it was an accent.
[00:46:43] Speaker A: Because it's easier to say Fort Oglethorpe.
[00:46:46] Speaker B: Fort Oglethorpe, yes. It's like Maggie Smith has just walked into the room.
10% smarter.
Fort Oglethorpe. Okay. So it was basically a vast field surrounded by barbed wire fences that were 10ft high.
[00:47:03] Speaker A: That's never good. Barbed wire is never a sign of something good.
[00:47:07] Speaker B: And guard towers. Guard towers with machine guns were on the perimeter.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: Okay, that's unsettling. I don't like that.
[00:47:17] Speaker B: So like a prison, basically.
[00:47:18] Speaker A: Yeah. I would have anxiety just seeing that.
[00:47:22] Speaker B: Right. Also, the search lights constantly were sweeping over the area throughout the night.
[00:47:28] Speaker A: Oh, my God. This is like.
[00:47:30] Speaker B: Yeah, this is prison.
[00:47:31] Speaker A: Like, yeah, timey prison stuff. Like, this is, like, for real now.
[00:47:37] Speaker B: The population, of course, would go up and down.
[00:47:40] Speaker A: Right.
[00:47:40] Speaker B: This isn't a. You know, it just depend on who was sent there at the time. But according to the War Department's 1919 annual reports, the camp housed approximately 3,600 internees.
[00:47:55] Speaker A: That's a lot.
[00:47:56] Speaker B: Life within the camp was very strictly regimented.
So you couldn't do what you wanted to do. Exactly. Like prison. Each day began at 5:45am that sucks. With a bugle call.
[00:48:10] Speaker A: That sucks so hard.
[00:48:11] Speaker B: A roll call.
Your meals were served at set times, lights out at 10pm and it was a rigid daily routine. You were not in charge of your own time.
[00:48:24] Speaker A: Yeah. That is prison.
[00:48:26] Speaker B: That's a long day for you. I'm just thinking about you personally.
[00:48:29] Speaker A: I know. I was thinking 10pm I was like, that's a little late. I mean, how are we feeling? About eight? Yeah, give me eight.
[00:48:35] Speaker B: No, you would have been exhausted.
[00:48:37] Speaker A: What did they do all day? My God.
[00:48:40] Speaker B: Well, all of the internees at the camp were not treated the same.
And it was actually divided into three separate camps. Camp A, Camp B, and Camp C. And there was friction between the camps.
[00:48:57] Speaker A: Okay, I. Well, if you're not treating everyone equally, I can see why other people would be pissed.
[00:49:01] Speaker B: Okay, so Camp A, that was nicknamed the Millionaires Camp.
[00:49:06] Speaker A: That's the one that, if I had to be there, I want. I want to be Camp A. Camp A.
[00:49:11] Speaker B: There were only 90 internees in this camp, and all of them could afford to pay for their own care.
[00:49:19] Speaker A: I couldn't be in Camp A.
[00:49:20] Speaker B: No. So this camp included those individuals who were just too influential, too powerful, too knowledgeable to remain at home.
[00:49:28] Speaker A: This is the Harvard guy.
This is Harvard.
[00:49:33] Speaker B: And their food was purchased, prepared, and served by private cooks.
[00:49:37] Speaker A: Oh, that's nice.
[00:49:40] Speaker B: Dinner music was played in their Dining hall by a pianist.
Sounds dirty, but it's not.
It's pretty dirty.
No one in Camp A was required to work.
[00:49:55] Speaker A: I wish. I can afford Camp A.
Okay, give me my second option.
[00:49:59] Speaker B: All right. Camp B. Okay. Camp behind door number B, by comparison, was very crowded and very uncomfortable.
So Camp B had 670 internees at the time of this assessment, and those internees occupied seven barracks.
So you're talking about a little under a hundred men per barrack.
Each barrack was two stories, and it held a capacity of 100 men.
It was a very open concept. Ahead of its time in that regard.
[00:50:35] Speaker A: I was going to say probably noisy. Open concepts are so noisy.
[00:50:38] Speaker B: So noisy. I'm over it.
[00:50:40] Speaker A: Any privacy?
Not at all.
[00:50:43] Speaker B: When I go to sleep at night, I make my husband turn off all electronics in the entire house and turn off all the lights. He literally walks around in the dark using his cell phone as a flashlight when I go to sleep at like, 9:30.
[00:50:58] Speaker A: Wow. Ms. Hannigan.
[00:50:59] Speaker B: Because my house, Joy. My house is open concept. So you hear happiness out there.
You see every light. It sucks. Open concept. Not a good idea. And it's like a waste of heat. I could go on. We need to go back to, like, the Victorian times where there were smaller, cozy rooms, but a lot of them. And you could, like, stay in one heated room and not waste your heat on the rest of the house.
[00:51:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I like a Chicago bungalow myself.
[00:51:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Anyway, so the barracks were very open concept, and the men slept very close together in a large unpartitioned area.
[00:51:36] Speaker A: Men are already gross then. You get that many men close together.
[00:51:38] Speaker B: Could you imagine the smell?
[00:51:40] Speaker A: The smell.
[00:51:41] Speaker B: Bo alone.
[00:51:43] Speaker A: Well, I know where the old urine's coming from.
[00:51:45] Speaker B: The men were always complaining about the comfort level in the barracks in Camp B. It was too hot in the summer and it was way too cold in the winter. So they were never comfortable.
[00:51:57] Speaker A: That's quite a disparity.
Like, disparaging gap from private cook, pianist. And then like this, because B pretty much sucks.
[00:52:08] Speaker B: B pretty much sucks. Now, the food, it was adequate, but there was a lot of complaints about the quality of the food. It often didn't have meat. It often didn't have wheat.
So basically like gruel, you know what I mean? But I mean, they're feeding them, but no meat, no wheat. A lot of times.
And if you were in Camp B, you would be forced to do the mandatory camp work for maintenance of the camp.
Okay, now the.
There was extra money to be had if you wanted to do extra work. And the only two options would be working on the access road to the camp. So working on a road, what does that look like to you?
Hard work. Like a chain gang. Right. Like, you see, I just see in my head pickaxes and digging up rocks. Like, that's not. Oh, that's hard work. Or there was a nearby rock quarry. You could work in the rock quarry. So you might. You might have the mandatory jobs of working on the road or the rock quarry, but you could earn extra money if you signed up for extra shifts.
[00:53:19] Speaker A: Absolutely not.
[00:53:20] Speaker B: But those are the only two types of work you could do.
[00:53:23] Speaker A: And this is. I. I was gonna say this is Camp B. So we still got C and can't be already sounds like hell. So see me, what's happening in C?
[00:53:31] Speaker B: C was for people who were being punished. It was the punishment barracks when there was an inspection.
[00:53:38] Speaker A: Already seems like B is a punishment.
[00:53:42] Speaker B: There was an inspection in June of 1818, and it found that there were 83 inmates in Camp C at the time of this particular inspection.
If you were in Camp C and you were being punished, then you only got half rations, and you weren't permitted the option to earn extra money by doing any extra work. So you didn't have that privilege.
In fact, the 83 inmates that were in the Camp C at the time of this inspection in June of 1918 were there because they refused to work in the rock quarry.
[00:54:22] Speaker A: To volunteer.
[00:54:24] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:54:24] Speaker A: In Bunny Ears in the rock quarry.
[00:54:27] Speaker B: Yeah, volunteer. So it wasn't like they wanted extra work. They were told, you need to volunteer to work in the rock quarry. And they were like, hell, no, we're not. We're not doing that. And so they were being punished and kept in Camp C.
And they only.
[00:54:41] Speaker A: Had half of the gruel.
[00:54:43] Speaker B: They only had half of the rations. Yeah, okay. Yeah.
[00:54:47] Speaker A: I don't like it.
[00:54:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:50] Speaker A: It must have been an unhappy place.
[00:54:53] Speaker B: I think that the people there would have rather been somewhere else. However, it actually became, surprisingly, a thriving community with a vibrant culture, if you can believe that.
[00:55:07] Speaker A: I cannot believe it, because I'm depressed. I'm depressed hearing about this.
[00:55:12] Speaker B: Well, I can understand that. But the internees were free to organize sports clubs, recreational competitions, and they even had their own school where they offered courses in Italian, Arabic, physiology, physics, Spanish, and Japanese.
That's way cool, because, remember, you have, like, really smart, talented people as the internees.
[00:55:39] Speaker A: What a waste.
Like, such a waste.
[00:55:42] Speaker B: Not only that, there was a regular schedule of public lectures that they had on a variety of subjects.
[00:55:48] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh, Harvard, shut up.
[00:55:50] Speaker B: Right, right. Like, really, Again, they held chess tournaments at three different class levels. So they assessed your level of chess, and you were in, like, one of three leagues.
[00:56:03] Speaker A: I would be a spectator.
[00:56:04] Speaker B: Yeah. You would not be playing chess, nor would I.
[00:56:06] Speaker A: Like checkers, anyone?
[00:56:08] Speaker B: Jill? They even formed theatrical groups there. I know there was one for serious dramatic subjects as well as a comedy production group.
They. Yes. And they also formed choral societies, so singing groups, three orchestras, and they put together a regularly published literary journal.
[00:56:38] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. These prisoners are funny.
[00:56:42] Speaker B: There was a camp magazine also.
[00:56:44] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:56:45] Speaker B: The camp magazine put out 10 editions total between October 1918 and 1919. I love that. It took up a little while to organize this because the first edition didn't come out until May of 1918.
The editor was, of course, the only professional writer that was in the camp.
And it was printed on very poor quality paper, but they were able to sell the 100 copies of each edition. Each edition was 30 pages.
They sold the magazine for 25 cents.
Huh. And then profits were used to aid the inmates that didn't have any financial means.
[00:57:24] Speaker A: Wow. Well, that's. You know, I kind of love these guys. They're like, we'll help you. We're going to sell the magazine.
[00:57:29] Speaker B: Right.
[00:57:30] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[00:57:31] Speaker B: It really is amazing that they were able to pull this off. And the magazine, of course, it was censored, so you had, like, the. The US Authorities in charge censoring it, so you couldn't say whatever you wanted. But still, some of it survives. And it's a very important source still today about the life of these internees during World War I at Fort Oglethorpe.
[00:57:52] Speaker A: I was gonna ask you if any were still surviving. That's really cool. Okay. I'm not saying life would be easy, especially if I were insane. See? But they had a lot of freedom and a lot of fun, too, especially.
[00:58:04] Speaker B: If you were in Camp A. I feel like a lot of this was driven by the academics and the skilled people who had the money and the free time in Camp A. But they didn't just keep it to themselves.
They opened it up to, obviously, Camp B, Camp C. They would have been in trouble. And I think you bring up a really good point. I want to say this. Compared to what the Germans were doing to American POWs in Europe during the same war, as well as what would happen during World War II for Japanese Americans and, of course, the Jewish people throughout Europe.
This is a very unique situation happening in Fort Oglethorpe still.
It wasn't all games and roses.
What's the expression roses games. And I don't know what the expression is. It wasn't all.
[00:58:55] Speaker A: I don't even know what you're going for.
[00:58:56] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:58:57] Speaker A: Okay. It's fun and games.
[00:58:58] Speaker B: Yeah. It wasn't all fun and games. There were a lot of. A lot of risks associated with being at this internment camp.
[00:59:06] Speaker A: I can see that, but be specific. Like what?
[00:59:08] Speaker B: Okay, so you could get physically sick or psychologically ill.
[00:59:14] Speaker A: I. Well, if you had to work on the quarry, I would be sick as I would be dry heaving.
[00:59:18] Speaker B: Right. Well, work on the quarry, of course.
Even work on the road. But remember, conditions were often too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, and then you had the monotonous diet, so you weren't getting, like, the best nutrition and sanitation facilities.
[00:59:33] Speaker A: Oh, God, that. Don't. I'm.
[00:59:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that was not the best. And then you had incompetent and sporadic medical care for the internees. And so all of this could certainly lead to illness.
Oh. But I have to say this. And this isn't in the outline, but there was an outside group. I think it was the Swiss, because, you know how the Swiss were, like, neutral, and they came and they, like, inspected from time to time the camps in the United States. And then the intern. The internees would, like, write angry letters to them, like, hey, you know, like, this is what's happening. And they would come, and the authorities at Fort Oglethorpe would respond.
And so they did take action to address some of these dire, dire conditions. There was this big typhoid outbreak that happened at a different internment camp. And they recognized that it was the poor water source. And so they completely redid the indoor showers, the latrines, and they even put in an emergency hospital barracks for the inmates. So they were able to improve things.
Still. There was that global influenza pandemic, and it was it in 1918. It hit every part of the world, but people who were sleeping right next to a hundred other people were particularly at risk. And so 26 men died in 1918 due to the influenza epidemic.
[01:01:01] Speaker A: Epidemic.
[01:01:02] Speaker B: And hundreds more were hospitalized. So physical illness was a thing.
But arguably, it was the psychological illnesses that were the most troubling.
[01:01:16] Speaker A: What are you talking about?
[01:01:18] Speaker B: Well, after a period of being confined, even if it's in a cushy camp like Camp A, many internees started to experience symptoms that pointed to mental illness, later known as barbed wire sickness.
[01:01:32] Speaker A: I did a lot of research on this.
[01:01:34] Speaker B: Do you want to talk about it?
[01:01:36] Speaker A: No, I want you to. I'm Just telling you, like, it's.
[01:01:39] Speaker B: It's heartbreaking.
[01:01:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it's heartbreaking. It's creepy, too, to think. Yeah, no, go on.
[01:01:44] Speaker B: So these symptoms were varied. Like, they looked really different from person to person. But basically, it's. These internees developed severe anxiety, suspicion, impatience, moodiness, lack of concentration, lack of interest in anything, lack of interest in life.
And so far, like, that sounds like you or me on a bad day.
[01:02:14] Speaker A: Literally, I was just like, check, check, check.
[01:02:17] Speaker B: Okay. But it also included delusions, hysteria, raving. So they would get raving mad.
I mean, again, on a bad day.
[01:02:32] Speaker A: I've been there.
[01:02:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And betrayal of each other. Like, if someone was planning an escape, like, they would betray each other and there'd be, like, suspicions and hallucinations amongst themselves.
And dozens and dozens of men were transferred to St. Elizabeth's Asylum for the Insane in Washington, D.C.
from Fort Oglethorpe. And some men took their own lives.
And one of the most. One of the most troubling things about that, Jill, is I can't find any data. And I was reading scholarly journals on this, and there was very little data.
Very little data.
[01:03:14] Speaker A: Cheap data at the time. Yeah, that was one of the things that I, I.
You can't get a clear answer no to how many people were actually committing suicide at the time in this area.
[01:03:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:03:26] Speaker A: So did any of the men come through in your research, Jill?
[01:03:30] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. Who? During this research, a Dr. Weber came through. Now, Jill, you had initially found a very short blurb in a newspaper about his death, but it didn't really say anything about him aside from he took his own life.
But I was obsessed with finding out more about Dr. Weber and Heartbreaker after an exhaustive search where I ended up, like, signing up for these academic journals.
You know, the kind where it's like.
[01:04:02] Speaker A: Exactly.
[01:04:03] Speaker B: They give you, like, two paragraphs and you're hooked. And then they're like, now, in order. This pop up. Now, in order to keep reading, you need to sign us up. Well, I bought a subscription because I needed to know. And so I found a thesis paper out of the Georgia Southern University.
And still I don't know everything about Dr. Weber. But here's what I did find out.
You ready?
[01:04:25] Speaker A: Go on. I know. Go on.
[01:04:27] Speaker B: Dr. Albrecht. Weber was a man who had been known for his joyful nature before the war.
He was interned early in the conflict and was initially held at Hot Springs, North Carolina, before he was transferred to Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia.
His time in the camps left a profound impact on him and his fellow internees noted a noticeable shift in his demeanor, a transformation that unfolded over the course of his detention.
On April 28, 1919, Weber was discovered lying in a pool of his own blood on the bathroom floor of his barracks, his throat slashed with a razor.
His death prompted camp authorities to assemble a panel to investigate the circumstances.
Was it tragic suicide or was it an act of foul play?
Well, the board convened and conducted an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Weber's death.
And they called multiple witnesses to testify about the events leading up to and immediately following his passing, including the officer who responded to the prisoner's call for help.
Testimonies painted a picture of a man who had once been happy before the war, but whose spirit had been worn down by his experiences in the American internment camps.
Witnesses described Weber as increasingly agitated and deeply depressed, with some recounting remarks made by him about suicide being his only escape.
Despite his struggles, Dr. Weber was noted to have no apparent enemies on camp.
The panel determined that Dr. L. Bruckt Weber's death was caused by self inflicted injuries from a razor carried out with suicidal intent.
And they concluded that he was mentally competent at the time of his death, but reached no conclusion regarding the motive behind his actions. As if he needed more of a motive.
He died at Fort Oglethorpe on April 28, 1919. 19.
[01:06:50] Speaker A: 19, 19 19.
Didn't the war end already in 1918? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
[01:06:58] Speaker B: Yes, Jill, the war did end in November 1918. And at the time. Yeah.
[01:07:06] Speaker A: Well, why was he still in the camp?
[01:07:09] Speaker B: Exactly.
[01:07:10] Speaker A: I understand why he went crazy. Like that makes sense if you're like, the war is over, why am I still here? And like every day you're anticipating getting out and you've been there like a year, like, yeah, I would be depressed and fucking crazy too, especially if I had to hear Harvard speeches and chess playing all day like, oh, my God, get me out of here.
[01:07:29] Speaker B: Yeah. When the war ended in 1918, the inmates were like, all right, great, let's, let's, let's go home. Like, shit's over. But the United States government had to wait until all the peace treaties were signed.
[01:07:42] Speaker A: Jesus.
[01:07:43] Speaker B: And so that took some time to sign all the peace treaties.
It took six months, but then still weren't released after six months because there were transportation shortages and administrative red tape. And, you know, there was a lot of lingering anxieties about letting all these prisoners of war and alien enemies free.
[01:08:07] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[01:08:09] Speaker B: Finally, a repatriation agreement was signed in May 1919, and the US passed a deportation act, a plan to Deport all of these internees yet, Jill. Yet hundreds would remain in the camps until April of 1920.
[01:08:33] Speaker A: That's crazy. Insane.
[01:08:35] Speaker B: That's criminal at that point.
[01:08:38] Speaker A: Well, how are you gonna deport some American citizens too? Like literally like. Well, we got them round up. We just gotta put them on a plane, get them out of here.
1920.
Who do you think are voiceless is?
[01:08:51] Speaker B: I have to go through to Dr. Albrecht Weber.
I feel like I was obsessed with finding out more about him after that three sentence article in the paper about him.
[01:09:03] Speaker A: I feel bad because.
Did I not put that in there?
[01:09:06] Speaker B: You did.
[01:09:08] Speaker A: No, no, I mean the rest of it. Because I knew, like I had research on all that.
[01:09:13] Speaker B: No.
[01:09:14] Speaker A: Oh, sorry. No, I printed it.
[01:09:17] Speaker B: No, that's fine. Now I'm. Now I belong to this scholarly journal where I can read as much scholarly thesis as I want.
But Dr. Weber was a prisoner at the internment camps and he took his own life because of how his experience, that experience changed him for the worst.
And also like the war was over and he still wasn't released.
And he's buried at Chattanooga National Cemetery in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And Jill, his grave is so simple. It's just a white headstone that says 60.
[01:09:55] Speaker A: And his name, I never know that was him. Oh, okay.
[01:09:58] Speaker B: It says albrecht Weber. And 60. 60 is just the name of the plot. That's the number of his plot.
[01:10:05] Speaker A: That's it.
[01:10:06] Speaker B: There's no date of birth, there's no date of death. There's nothing about was he a husband, a father, what kind of doctor was he? I have no idea.
Incidentally, there are 78 German prisoners of war from World War I that are buried at the Chattanooga National Cemetery in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
[01:10:25] Speaker A: Were they actually prisoners of war or were they internees?
[01:10:28] Speaker B: That's a good question. According to the website, it says prisoners of war.
Now also, it's not only Dr. Weber, I think, but all of the internees who took their own lives because of their internment at Fort Oglethorpe that we don't even know about. I know their plights were not documented and their stories completely lost.
[01:10:53] Speaker A: Not only that, but we're also calling them alien enemies.
[01:10:57] Speaker B: Yeah, all the so called alien enemies. How about who did nothing wrong, who were just too smart or too skilled or like unliked by their neighbors.
There's so many voiceless here, it's hard to pick just one.
[01:11:15] Speaker A: Well, and there's so many voiceless and so many undocumented names and people and lives that were snuffed out because really stupidity this like at first when we Were going over Woodrow Wilson's like, yeah. Explanations of, like, what you can do, what you can't do. It was getting a little sus. Like, I was like, you know, that's a constitutional right. But then it's like, you guys went way too hard. And the real crime is that some of these people could have helped in the war effort. That's the real crime. Like, you should have sat down, Harvard, and been like, okay, tell me about how Germans strategize and what we can do to fight back. Or, you know, catch him off guard.
[01:11:52] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think part of the problem was the United States government literally giving the power to locals to round up who they deemed, quote, unquote, suspicious.
[01:12:06] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[01:12:07] Speaker B: That. They literally did that.
[01:12:09] Speaker A: They created a witch hunt.
[01:12:11] Speaker B: They did.
So if we look over our hits really quickly, a lot of these are super obvious.
You were feeling military. Military all over the area.
Obvious as we were driving in, which I think is. It was a huge area, you know, So I think that's a good hit.
[01:12:29] Speaker A: Mining.
[01:12:30] Speaker B: Mining rocks. It was one of two jobs that the men were forced to do or could do more of for pay.
[01:12:36] Speaker A: So, yeah, Barnhart Circle was insane. Just to drive through and to walk around. But being drawn to the bandstand in the center.
[01:12:45] Speaker B: Concerts were literally played there. Jill, when you were picking up on that joyous sort of energy, that party energy.
[01:12:53] Speaker A: Not only that.
And I had this in my notes, but they said that they employed bands to participate in playing music to prevent suicide. To make it more jolly there. Yeah.
[01:13:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
Old urine. I think that's obvious. That would have been bad suicide. Again, we don't even know how many men committed suicide.
[01:13:23] Speaker A: And feeling the need to have to.
[01:13:25] Speaker B: Due to the psychological harm.
[01:13:29] Speaker A: Really knowing that the war is over.
[01:13:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:13:34] Speaker A: And that prolonged period is really what would drive me crazy.
Truly. I was thinking I would be like, every day, are we getting out now? Are we getting out now?
[01:13:46] Speaker B: Right. And having no end date in sight.
[01:13:49] Speaker A: And what's really sad is Dr. Weber, he committed suicide on the 28th of April, when he was. So he might have gotten out in March or March in May when they signed that last treaty.
[01:14:01] Speaker B: He might have. But remember, a lot of them weren't released until May of 1920, which would have been another year.
And that. That feeling that I was getting that they were treated really well.
[01:14:15] Speaker A: You were at Camp A.
[01:14:16] Speaker B: Camp A, Camp A. They were treated really well.
[01:14:20] Speaker A: You weren't wrong.
[01:14:22] Speaker B: For prisoners. I have to qualify that they were still in prison, but still in prison.
[01:14:28] Speaker A: But, like, I want A private chef. I mean, that would be great. Get Gordon Ramsay's ass over here.
[01:14:35] Speaker B: So I also want to mention in closing that When World War II comes around, Germans were interred at Fort Oglethorpe during that war as well.
[01:14:47] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[01:14:48] Speaker B: So talking about the layers of energy we were feeling, I think that's part of it.
[01:14:53] Speaker A: And then are these German Americans or actual, like, German prisoners of war?
[01:14:58] Speaker B: Well, Jill, I did not research that because it is outside the scope of this outline.
[01:15:02] Speaker A: I am so sorry.
[01:15:03] Speaker B: That's okay.
Getting back to the outline. After the end of World War II in 1947, the land was returned to the civilians, so it was no longer the fort owned by the military.
And it formed the nucleus for a town today, the town of Fort Oglethorpe.
And it was incorporated in 1949.
And as of the 2020 United States census, there were 10,000, 423 people residing in the city of Fort Oglethorpe. And the community remains connected to the history of the fort.
Now, I was looking online at an article on Chattanooga.com entitled Remembering Fort Oglethorpe.
And so I started reading it and it was a brief history regaling the military importance of the fort.
And did you know that it makes absolutely no mention of the internment camp that was there during the World Wars?
[01:16:12] Speaker A: I bet they didn't.
[01:16:14] Speaker B: And to me, I think that really sums up why we were called to talk about this story.
[01:16:19] Speaker A: I knew about the Japanese internments.
I did not know anything about German Americans being interred during the wars.
[01:16:28] Speaker B: Yeah. So anyway, that is our story. I hope you liked it.
[01:16:34] Speaker A: Well, you guys, so we're doing a thing. Jen and I are going to experiment with YouTube and putting our unedited video on YouTube of us recording so you can see how all the sauce is made and you can see what Brian takes out and leaves in.
[01:16:50] Speaker B: So we're posting this on YouTube?
[01:16:52] Speaker A: Yes. Aren't we? Yes.
[01:16:53] Speaker B: Great. Enjoy. Yes.
So what's going on? Like, what are we doing?
[01:16:59] Speaker A: We're doing readings.
[01:17:00] Speaker B: We're doing.
[01:17:01] Speaker A: Yeah. So you guys are really sweet and you have been contacting us to do readings and to create classes for you. So thank you. Keep it up. And for inquiries, please email
[email protected] I.
[01:17:16] Speaker B: Am looking to create a class, a psychic development beginners class, in October, around October 1st or so, but it depends on interest.
So I would like a minimum of eight people. If you are interested, please email us@common mysticsmail.com and let me know you are interested in joining a psychic development class.
And we can talk through the details to that.
Were we also going to offer our services in the Midwest Jill area?
[01:17:52] Speaker A: Oh, I'm so glad. For our Halloween episode, Jennifer and I are asking for a listener who has paranormal activity to invite us to come to their house to check out what the spirit wants and maybe either settle it down, ask it to leave, or just chill out with the family. So please let us know if you were inside.
[01:18:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:18:17] Speaker A: Because we can't be going all far. We have to know, like, if you are in the tri state area. Michigan, lower Peninsula. We ain't trying to go north.
[01:18:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Michigan, northern Indiana, Northern Illinois, Chicago land, sort of. Yeah. Just look at the. The bottom of Lake Michigan. If you are in the smiley face bottom.
[01:18:39] Speaker A: Oh, my God, her hands right now.
We will go to YouTube.
[01:18:43] Speaker B: We will come to you. We will. We will come to you. And we will use.
[01:18:48] Speaker A: And we will use that experience. Experience as the episode for our Halloween episode. So bring it.
[01:18:53] Speaker B: We hope there's someone out there listening who would not be afraid to have us come to their house. And I mean, it's not weird.
[01:19:01] Speaker A: Is it weird?
[01:19:01] Speaker B: It's probably a little weird. We come on pretty strong.
[01:19:05] Speaker A: I know. I'll sedate myself before I get there.
[01:19:08] Speaker B: I'll sedate you. Thank you. Take out that dark gun. Exactly.
[01:19:14] Speaker A: Well, you guys follow us on all the socials at Common mystic subscribers pod. Check out our website and email us for readings and inquiries on a class. Thank you so much.
[01:19:24] Speaker B: Hey, check us out on Patreon. We are going to be discussing on Tier 2, our detours for this episode. We'll be talking about haunted locations in Huntsville, Alabama, correct?
[01:19:36] Speaker A: Actually, that is our. Yeah, that's our detours for, well, the last episode.
[01:19:41] Speaker B: So that's okay because that will be posted there.
[01:19:44] Speaker A: You're going to tell me a story about the Bib family.
[01:19:46] Speaker B: We don't know what the hell we'll be talking about, but come join us on detours.
[01:19:49] Speaker A: We're going to be talking.
[01:19:50] Speaker B: Hear us and see us talk about, I don't know, something. And is there anything else?
[01:19:56] Speaker A: No, we just love you.
[01:19:57] Speaker B: We just love you. And if you don't, if you can't, for whatever reason, join our Patreon that really supports us, but share us with your friends and family. We right now have about326.6followers.
It's so weird.
[01:20:12] Speaker A: I don't trust the analytics. It's a weird the way. The way.
[01:20:17] Speaker B: If we use that as baseline, let's just ask people to help us grow. So if you are a listener, you Guys, no kidding.
[01:20:25] Speaker A: Let me do it. Let me do it. Let me do it. Let me do it. You're already too long. You're already too long.
[01:20:28] Speaker B: You're too long.
[01:20:30] Speaker A: I didn't even start yet.
[01:20:31] Speaker B: Okay, well, you were just gonna end it without.
[01:20:33] Speaker A: Okay, okay, okay, okay. You guys, this is the real thing. We don't. We are. We don't have money. We honestly don't have money.
And we are spending a lot of money on subscriptions and trying to keep this going. And we want to keep it going.
[01:20:52] Speaker B: Really, I'm just.
[01:20:52] Speaker A: That's your thing.
[01:20:53] Speaker B: I'm telling the people.
[01:20:54] Speaker A: I'm telling the people.
[01:20:56] Speaker B: Help me.
[01:20:57] Speaker A: No, I'm serious. But, like, we're doing this, and if you like this and if you want this to continue. I know things are jacked up right now, and I know that you may not have any spare money, but if you can just Support us for $5, $10, $25 a month. I mean, really, in some cases. I went to Starbucks and I spent 17 on coffee. Yo, we're not asking for a lot. Did you order like a triple venti caramel macchiato? But then they. I had like a Swiss. A ham and Swiss.
[01:21:27] Speaker B: Oh, and water.
[01:21:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it was a. Anyway, you over.
[01:21:31] Speaker B: So please make your own sandwich at home.
[01:21:33] Speaker A: Please support us because we want to keep this going and we're afraid that we're not going to have enough money to do so long term. And we've already been doing this five years and you know, breaking even would be a goal, but just a goal. Just a goal for us. So please, like, subscribe and share us. Sharing's free. Tell everyone about sharing your mystics friends.
You need to listen to these needy mystics on Amazon.
[01:21:59] Speaker B: We come on real strong. They want to come to your house. It's a little off putting.
[01:22:03] Speaker A: They hug and they snuggle, whether you like it or not.
Thank you guys so much. We love you.
[01:22:09] Speaker B: Love you. Thank you for listening. Bye bye.
[01:22:12] Speaker A: This has been a common Mystics Media Production editing done by Yokai Audio, Kalamazoo, Michigan.
