Sounds like they were unescorted. I'm having difficulty thinking through why and how the powers-that-be allowed that.
I would imagine there was some screening going on. Ardent, arrogant Nazi SS types probably didn’t get that treatment. The regular Wehrmacht stiffs were OK. And as fso301 pointed out; where were they going to go?
After all, this was the United States of America. They had it better here as POWs than they had it back in Germany. That’s why so many tried to come back.
They probably segregate the officers, SS and give the non rated more slack.