A German Luftwaffe pilot and a Mississippi Delta farmer’s wife made a run for it in January 1946, eight months after World War II ended in Europe. Their brief escape captured headlines across the country and became one of the strangest prisoner-of-war incidents on American soil.
Lt. Helmut von der Aue, a 26-year-old pilot captured in Italy, had been working on Joseph Henry Rogers’ plantation near Beulah in Bolivar County when he and Rogers’ wife Edith fell in love and decided to flee together. The FBI arrested them in Nashville after they ran out of money.
How 20,000 Axis Prisoners Ended Up in Mississippi
Allied forces captured 267,000 Axis troops in North Africa in May 1943. Britain’s prison camps were already over capacity, so the United States agreed to take them. By August 1943, German and Italian prisoners started arriving—eventually more than 425,000 enemy combatants were housed in roughly 700 camps across the country.
Mississippi held more than 20,000 of them. Most of them were from the Italian 1st Army as well as the infamous Afrika Korps, including German Gen. Hans-Jürgen von Arnim—who took over from Erwin Rommel before the surrender in Tunisia.
Four main camps operated in the state: Camp Clinton near Jackson held 3,400 prisoners, Camp McCain near Grenada held 7,700, Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg held 5,300, and Camp Como in the northern Delta initially held 3,800 Italians before they were transferred out and replaced with Germans.
The Geneva Convention required fair and equal treatment. Prisoners got the same food, housing and medical care as American soldiers.
In 1944, there were 15 branch camps across the Mississippi Delta at Greenville, Belzoni, Leland, Indianola, Clarksdale, Drew, Greenwood, Lake Washington, Merigold and Rosedale. With American men overseas, Delta plantations needed workers. The Axis prisoners filled the gaps.
They worked in canneries, mills, farms and other places authorities deemed low risk. Because POWs were barred from working in support of the war effort, most were put to agricultural work. Farmers paid the government 45 cents per hour for each worker they requested.
The working enlisted men earned 80 cents a day—officers couldn’t be forced to work. Most of that pay went back to the government for camp operations, but prisoners could spend small amounts at camp stores.
Compared to their peers captured by the Russians, the prisoners were shocked and happy by the pay, as well as the hospitality they received. Von Arnim even took a liking to the conditions, frequenting a local movie theater as it was the only building with air conditioning.
Nevertheless, the work was brutal. In spring, prisoners chopped weeds from cotton plants with hoes under scorching heat and brutal Mississippi humidity. Fall meant cotton picking—backbreaking labor they particularly hated. They dragged heavy canvas sacks between rows, which got heavier as they worked. Sharp cotton bolls cut their hands. Everything was picked by hand with no machinery assistance.
Many Germans and Italians from rural areas of their countries found camp life better than what they’d left behind. Some had grown up in poverty in southern Italy or rural Germany. Most had endured years of harsh combat in North Africa. The camps provided regular meals, clean barracks, libraries, sports and educational courses. For many, it was the best living conditions they had ever experienced.
In Mississippi’s segregated society, Axis prisoners—under lenient and bored guards—could eat at restaurants and even visited ice cream parlors that Black American soldiers in uniform could not enter. After Italy’s capitulation in 1943, most Italian prisoners in Mississippi were transferred out as they were now legally allowed to voluntarily work in defense industries and factories which were predominantly in the north east.
A Luftwaffe Pilot with an Escape Record
Von der Aue stood over six-foot tall and spoke fluent English, French, Italian and German. He was shot down over Italy in September 1943. He first escaped from a temporary camp in Italy before being shipped to the United States.
Authorities sent him to Camp Breckinridge in Kentucky. On Jan. 18, 1944, while working a road detail, he escaped. He barely made it 10 miles before he walked into the local police station still in his prisoner uniform and stated he returned because he was hungry. Officials transferred him to Camp McCain in Mississippi, then to the smaller Rosedale satellite camp.
His record of escape attempts was apparently lost in the process. Despite these attempts, he was the exception when it came to Axis POWs in the U.S.
Despite the harsh working conditions and monotonous life as a POW, most prisoners didn’t try to run. Many were happy to be far away from the war, others were thankful to be alive and even earn wages while working, most found camp life bearable or even enjoyable.
Of the more than 425,000 Axis prisoners held in America during the war, only about 2,000 attempted to escape—less than 1 percent. Most were caught relatively quickly. The vastness of the American landscape, language barriers and the impossibility of reaching Europe discouraged most from even trying.
Escapes from Mississippi camps were exceedingly rare. Occasionally, prisoners would slip away from work details while their bored guards were distracted—usually to just explore or even go find ice cream or food.
At one point, more than 30 prisoners simply walked away from the Belzoni camp. Local police, FBI, state highway patrol and volunteers searched the area. Authorities found them walking through Belzoni’s downtown, looking in store windows. They said they were bored.
A Farmer’s Wife Falls in Love with a POW
When the war in Europe ended in May 1945, repatriation of the prisoners began, but some were held in the U.S. until mid-1946 to fill labor shortages. Von der Aue was one of these prisoners kept well after the war.
The Rosedale camp sent von der Aue to work on the Rogers’ farm, a massive 1000-acre cotton plantation. Joseph Henry Rogers, 43, traveled frequently for business. His wife Edith was 37 and was described in newspaper accounts as “pretty.” She managed the home and cared for their daughter Joan during those long work trips.
Edith developed a habit of inviting prisoners working her fields to the house for lunch. Over several months of these meals, she grew particularly attracted to the tall German pilot who spoke English. Their conversations eventually led to them confessing their love for each other.
One afternoon in early January 1946, von der Aue stayed behind when other prisoners returned to the fields. He and Edith Rogers shared drinks—possibly as much as a fifth of whiskey, according to later reports. Likely influenced by the alcohol, they decided to run off together.
Von der Aue later told authorities he was “tired of looking at fences, fences, fences.” He also said he had fallen in love with Edith, who had been kind to him. Though he claimed fondness for Joan, they didn’t take her with them.
Edith gave von der Aue some of her husband’s clothes. They got in her car with $10 cash and fled the Mississippi Delta toward Memphis.
The Plan Falls Apart in Tennessee
The couple drove through the night, reaching Memphis a few hours later before heading east. Von der Aue hoped to reach Washington, D.C., where he thought he could find work with some acquaintances. His goal during his previous escape attempt was to steal a plane and reach Greenland before heading toward Europe. It is unknown what the couple’s goal was here.
Reality hit near Winchester, Tennessee. They were nearly broke, with only $3 left and the gas tank half-empty. Edith sold her watch for $5 to buy food. She then made a bold decision to wire her relatives back in Rosedale for more money—a decision that may have tipped off authorities.
They continued on to Nashville and tried to check into a hotel. FBI agents appeared and arrested them immediately. Authorities had been alerted to the escape and knew the make and model of Edith’s car. It’s unclear whether her husband reported it, whether the wire transfer triggered the response, or whether camp officials notified law enforcement. But the FBI was ready.
The Story Becomes a National Scandal
Edith Rogers was charged with aiding and abetting the escape of an enemy of the United States. The Nashville jail held her on $2,000 bond. Military police turned von der Aue over to the Army to be returned to Camp McCain.
Then newspapers across the country picked up the story. The Kansas City Star and countless other publications ran numerous accounts of the Delta farmer’s wife who ran off with a handsome German pilot. The press didn’t hold back on details.
Reporters found and interviewed von der Aue. As a prisoner with nothing to lose, he spoke freely. “Her husband was seldom at home,” he told them. “I fell in love with her and I wanted to marry her. I still do.”
The coverage must have devastated Joseph Rogers. His wife had run off with an enemy prisoner, even abandoning their daughter at home alone to do so. Now, the whole nation was reading about it. Surprisingly, Rogers posted Edith’s bond and secured her return to Bolivar County to await trial in Clarksdale that May.
During her bond hearing, reporters noted she appeared “smartly dressed except for her bare legs.” She reportedly refused to allow photographs and stayed silent throughout the whole ordeal, breaking silence only once.
She allegedly laughed when someone asked, “Have you talked to your husband yet?” She later remained adamant that she only helped the German escape out of pure personal feelings for him.
Mississippi’s Most Powerful Politician Defends Her
Before the trial in May 1946, Joseph Rogers had hired Walter Sillers Jr.—Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives and one of the Delta’s most powerful politicians.
Sillers was born and raised in Rosedale to a large plantation family. They owned vast swaths of farms and land in Bolivar County. He had represented the region in the state legislature since 1916 and would serve as House Speaker for 22 years, becoming arguably Mississippi’s most powerful political figure of the time. His connections to the Rogers would be a great help to the family.
With Sillers’ assistance and his negotiations with Federal Judge Allen Cox, Edith Rogers was only slapped with two years’ probation. No prison time. The sentence was likely light to spare the Rogers family additional embarrassment.
Meanwhile, Von der Aue received 30 days of solitary confinement at Camp McCain—light punishment for another escape attempt with a civilian accomplice.
Both were lucky the attempt occurred after the war had ended. Such acts could have been handled with much harsher sentences.
What Happened After
What became of von der Aue remains unclear. With most POWs finally repatriated by the summer of 1946, Von der Aue likely returned to a devastated Germany.
There is no evidence that Joseph and Edith Rogers divorced after the scandal. The marriage apparently survived. Joseph Rogers died in 1974 and was buried in Cleveland, Mississippi. Edith passed away in 1991.
Not all prisoners left America behind forever. Roughly 4,000 German prisoners refused to be repatriated at the end of the war. One prisoner, Georg Gaertner, hid under an assumed name until surrendering in 1985, then acquired American citizenship.
When the rest returned to Europe, many found their homes destroyed by bombings and their families dead or missing. Some likely could not or outright refused to return home if it was now under communist control.
Several thousand former prisoners held in America found conditions in post-war Europe so harsh that they eventually returned to the U.S., obtained citizenship, and even settled in places like Mississippi where they once were held as prisoners. Countless others stayed in touch with and later visited the locals they had met and worked for during the war.
Of the more than 20,000 Axis prisoners who worked Mississippi fields between 1943 and 1946, most went home with nothing more than memories of heat and hard work, lucky to be alive.
But for Lt. Helmut von der Aue, his captivity led to a cross-country flight with another man’s wife as FBI agents chased them from the Mississippi Delta to Nashville, Tennessee.
Story Continues
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