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German POW Escaped His Camp — And Fell in Love With America

He escaped a POW camp — and spent 40 years living the American dream.

This astonishing true story follows Georg Gaertner, a former Afrika Korps sergeant who became America’s longest-fugitive prisoner of war. Captured in Tunisia in 1943, Gaertner was sent to Camp Hearne, Texas, where he witnessed a shocking contrast — German POWs enjoying 3,000 calories a day while civilians back home survived on a thousand or less.

When orders came for repatriation in September 1945, Gaertner faced being sent not to Germany, but to Soviet-occupied Silesia — a grim fate he refused to accept. On the night of September 21, he escaped from Camp Deming, New Mexico, and vanished into America.

Under the alias Dennis F. Whiles, he built a new life: ski instructor, factory worker, even a hero who helped rescue the stranded City of San Francisco train in 1952. He married, settled down, and lived undetected for four decades, until revealing his secret live on NBC’s Today Show with Bryant Gumbel on September 11, 1985.

In 2009, Gaertner finally became an American citizen, completing a journey that began behind barbed wire and ended in belonging. His story reveals how U.S. POW camps — built on respect, education, and humanity — turned enemies into believers in democracy.

Out of 425,871 Axis prisoners, only 2,222 ever tried to escape, proving that the most powerful weapon of all wasn’t force — it was freedom.