Perhaps inevitably, there were prisoners who tried to escape from camp. If that ever happened, American guards were trained to shout “Halt” three times before shooting. And if a shooting did occur, assuming it was justified, the guard was to receive a carton of cigarettes and a transfer to another unit.34 The chances of successfully fleeing Camp Florence were slim, given its location. A former POW there, Paul Zürn, described the futility of trying: “Escape from Camp Florence was impossible. We were behind three rows of barbed wire with guards and guard dogs. We wore distinct POW clothes, U.S. Army clothes dyed black with ‘PW’ all over them. The heels of our shoes were notched in such a way that our footprints would be very distinct if we ever did get out. There was a large sign in our compound that said, ‘Where will you flee to?’ Mexico was over 100 miles away across the hot desert. Escape would have been suicide.”35 Camp Florence’s hopeless location notwithstanding, there were numerous reported attempts of prisoner escapes at camps throughout the United States, but they were overwhelmingly unsuccessful. By the end of the war, a total of fifty-six German POWs who tried to escape were shot and killed. A final report by the War Department in November 1947 revealed that out of the 371,000 Germans detained in the United States, 2,222 attempted to escape, and only 17 remained at large.36

It was no secret that Germany was losing the war. And the demeanor of the prisoners was constantly observed to see how many of them still maintained allegiance to Hitler. Most of the prisoners at Camp Florence signed a document that had been prepared by POWs at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, in which the German people were advised “to cease hostilities and oust the Nazis.” If they signed the honor statement denouncing fascism, they were rewarded with more freedom. The military interrogated POWs to determine which ones weren’t a threat to civilians or capable of escaping. Frederick was deemed nonthreatening, as were most POWs at Camp Florence, which was known to have the less fanatical German soldiers in its population. The uncooperative and unrepentant Nazis at Florence were housed in a separate compound, and many were transferred to Camp Rupert in Paul, Idaho, which had a population of approximately three thousand people.37 Camp Rupert received the German and Italian POWs with disciplinary problems. The prisoners who attempted sit-down strikes or tried to escape landed there, along with true Nazis who threatened any German POWs who denounced Hitler. Those who were part of the Waffen SS, the brutal security forces associated with the most heinous war crimes, were usually housed at Camp Rupert.38