In 2016, correspondence began between Paul Rimovsky, president of the POW Camp Concordia Preservation Society, and Dr. Bernd Kuester, who lives in Potsdam, Germany. Bernd Kuester is the son of Franz Kuester, who was a Lieutenant in the German Army during World War II, and a former Prisoner of War (POW) confined at Camp Concordia from late 1944 to September, 1945.
Franz Kuester had kept a diary during his internment at Camp Concordia, and his son donated it to the camp's museum. The diary, along with sketches of the camp made by German POWs, became the book 'Pride and Honor: The Diary of Franz Kuester.'
The diary is of particular interest because of its insight into the daily activities of the German prisoners inside the camp, as well as a foreigner's views and analysis of America and Americans in the 1940s.
Written in German, the diary was translated by Jack Meister, a former instructor in the English Department and the Director of Radio Communication at Cloud County Community College (CCCC). Meister nows lives in Rochester, Minnesota, where he runs a music business. He and Paul Rimovsky were good friends for decades.
"I really appreciated all the work Paul did for the Camp," Meister said. "He and Sue Sutton put in a lot of hard work getting this book together."
Born into a German family, Meister began studying the language in junior high school. "I intended to major in chemistry at college, and I wanted to study at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, so I had to learn the language. But things changed, and I ended up majoring in German at Bowling Green University (Ohio)."
It took Meister almost a year to translate Lt. Kuester's diary from German to English. "I did most of it over the winter," Meister said, and then added with a laugh, "Up here in the Arctic Circle, you find things to do in the wintertime."
The Kuester diary was not the first book Meister translated for the Camp Concordia Museum. "I translated over 100 letters written by a Wehrmacht (German Army) soldier that became the book
'The Last Furlough.' The soldier fought in France and Russia. He was killed on the Eastern Front in 1944.”
Meister faced challenges translating Kuester's POW diary, written 75 years ago. "The language changed a little," he said. "All languages change. Americans don't speak the same way now that they did in the 1940s."
Meister was particularly struck by the intelligence and meticulousness of Kuester's diary entries. "This guy was very intelligent; very well-educated. Most of the soldiers at Camp Concordia had a high level of education."
Of particular interest to Meister was the humanness that showed through in Kuester's writings. "He was a lot like us. At that time, the Germans were built up to be savages, but he was just a guy fighting for his country. His view of America - especially his comments on the poverty he saw - were very interesting. Definitely a different point of view."
Being of German descent, Meister appreciated the numerous references to nature in Kuester's diary. "German people are very sensitive to nature. They are, at heart, an agrarian population. Kuester was always commenting on things like the cold, the heat, the rainfall, the crops."
Once Meister completed his translation, Sue Sutton spent the next several years editing the book and getting it ready for publication.
"For me," Sutton said, "the best thing about the COVID-19 lockdown was that it forced me to stay at home and deal with the diary."
Sutton was also taken by Kuester's writings; the perspective of America by a German POW. "Anytime you work on a project like this, it's a learning experience. With all the research involved, this really did become a life experience."
Sutton finished her work in July of this year, and the diary was transformed into a book complete with photographs and sketches.
"Paul (Rimovsky) didn't get to see the finished product," Sutton said, "but he knew we would finish it and sell the book as a fundraiser for the POW Camp. I think he would have been proud of the project."
Copies of the diary will be for sale after Labor Day at the POW Camp Museum, and at the Cloud County Tourism office. A copy of the diary will also be on permanent display at the Camp Museum and the Tourism office.
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