A made-up WW2 tall tale, or plausible incident?

by Luxus90

I've recently watched "The War", the 7 part PBS documentary by Ken Burns on the Second World War.

Among it's interviewees, is Ray Leopold. A former army medic who featured in several episodes and whom I found to be a tad more melodramatic than most other people in the documentary. To me, it seemed he had somewhat mentally rewritten his personal experiences in a more epic/literary way; which somehow made them less convincing/real to me.

Anyway, I thought most of what he said was at least plausible. One thing though, keeps me thinking:

--

  • I (Leopold) said, "Yes, what's on your mind?"
  • He said, "Where are you from?"
  • I said "I'm from the United States."
  • "Where in the United States?"
  • "The Northeast." I said.
  • "Where in the Northeast?"
  • I said "I'm from Connecticut."
  • "Where in Connecticut?" He was persisting.
  • I said "I'm from Waterbury, Connecticut."
  • "Ah, yes," he said, "Waterbury, at the junction of the Naugatuck and Mad Rivers."
  • Now, you have to know a bit about the area. The Naugatuck is a fairly substantial river. But the Mad River is a little stream that you can jump across without any trouble. Anyone who knew this...I was puzzled.
  • I said "How did you possibly know that?"
  • He said, "I was training for the administration."
  • "The administration of what?"
  • He said, "The administration of the Territories."
  • My blood went cold. I couldn't possibly imagine that Hitler, in his wildest imagination, not only had Europe in his grasp, but also figured that he would control America.

--

I mean, first of all the odds of him meeting this particular German POW seem staggering to begin with.

But as far as I know, the Germans barely had workable plans for the administration of their conquered Eastern territories. It seems weird that they would train people to administer territories of the USA when they had no invasion plan or overall strategy in fighting the United States.

So my question is, how plausible is this story?

throfofnir

You may be interested in the answer to "What was Germany's plan after WW2?" by /u/commiespaceinvader. The whole thing is well worth reading, but in particular it notes: Nazi Germany did not have the administrative manpower to directly administer even the conquered territories of Europe; plans for Great Britain seem to have only advanced to the point of a catalogue of troublemakers and places to loot; and plans for the US were hazy at best. Put together, this suggests that the idea of training administrators for the US even at the most optimistic point of the war would be unlikely at best. If such a conversation happened as reported, it seems more likely the German POW was putting him on.