Enemies in war now rest together for an eternity 140 Axis POWs are buried in Fort Sam cemetery.

The headstone for World War II German prisoner of war Alfred P. Kafka includes a swastika etched in an Iron Cross and bears the slogan in German, “He died far from his home for the Führer, people and fatherland.” less The headstone for World War II German prisoner of war Alfred P. Kafka includes a swastika etched in an Iron Cross and bears the slogan in German, “He died far from his home for the Führer, people and ... more Photo: William Luther, San Antonio Express-News Photo: William Luther, San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Enemies in war now rest together for an eternity 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

Angela Martinez walked toward her father's grave on a nippy morning at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.

Little did she know that the section next to his grave, ZA, is home to 140 enemy POWs from World War II, most German. Two of the marble headstones bear swastikas and inscriptions praising Adolf Hitler.

“Wow. He's like five feet away,” said Martinez, 41, staring at the grave of Leo Fader, who died Feb. 2, 1944. “I think that's pretty awesome. I didn't know we had any prisoners of war here.

“It's an honor.”

Here, the dead on both sides of World War II are united in death, enemies no more. A German unteroffizier, or NCO, Fader is buried a short walk from the grave of Air Force Reserve Lt. Col. Joseph C. Wilkins of Nebraska, a World War II veteran. Just 20 yards away, Martinez's dad, Vietnam veteran Joe G. Martinez, rests with an infant daughter who lived for a day in 1971.

In all, 132 German, four Italian, three Japanese and one Austrian POW are in one section of the cemetery, which is home to 133,154 veterans, spouses or their children.

That is the highest number of Germans of 15 Veterans Affairs Department national cemeteries in the United States. All the other Japanese, 235, were cremated and buried at Fort Richardson National Cemetery in Alaska. A monument stands over a common grave containing the Japanese dead, only 18 of whom were identified.

The Japanese and Italians, as well as most of the Germans buried here, were held prisoner at Fort Sam's Dodd Field, but some came from seven other POW camps in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas.

“They had a double barbwire fence around the camp; there were the usual guard towers,” retired Fort Sam Houston Museum director John Manguso said of Dodd Field, which opened in April 1942 and held 1,000 or so POWs.

“Inside the camp, the prisoners were kept in tents with wooden frames,” he said. “You have a platform on the ground and they'd put the tent over it so you'd have a real floor in there, and there were mess facilities and athletic facilities inside the wire.”

POWs were buried at their prisons, among them Camp Polk, La., and reinterred at Fort Sam after the prison camps were closed. Many of their fallen comrades went home, as did survivors like Karl-Heinz Blumenthal, a paratrooper who was captured in 1943 in Africa. Those buried in the United States went unclaimed.

Blumenthal, 88, who returned to the U.S. decades ago and lives in Asheville, N.C., recalled one soldier's funeral.

“We were standing at attention, and we had a band that played some music and I remember one song, ‘Hatt Einen Kameraden.' I had a good fellow pass away. We all sing that song,” he said. “I felt, I hope I don't have to die here.”

The prisoners were enlistees like Karl Waldera, an obergefreiter or German lance corporal, and Guiseppe Slaviero, an Italian sergeant major. Most of the POW headstones are similar to those of the Americans here, listing their names, ranks and dates of death.

Defiance, pride and sadness, though, echo from the graves of Alfred Kafka and Georg Forst.

“He died far from his home for the Führer, people and fatherland,” headstones for both say, swastikas etched in an Iron Cross.

An award for valor, the Iron Cross first bore a swastika symbolizing the Nazi Party in 1933, Manguso said. The headstone for a third German has an Iron Cross, but no swastika or statement.

Army historical records say the POWs were buried in the cemetery's southeast corner starting in 1947. The Army spent $500 for a chain link fence with two swinging gates, and another $303 for a waterline.

“When they first buried the PWs out there, the section they were in was about as far from the active part of the cemetery as you can get and still be in the cemetery,” said Manguso, who retired from the museum Jan. 31. “But as time went on, the cemetery expanded out past where they're buried and so now they're about in the geographic center of it.”

Standing at Fader's grave, Martinez, a home-care provider, expressed amazement.

“Were they — did they die as prisoners? He's a hero,” she said. “He literally died for his country.”

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