I grew up near there. There are many stories about some of the prisoners "escaping" from the camp at night to go to the local watering hole...and then going back "home" to the camp. The local population was/is majority German ancestry & it would not have been uncommon for some of the older folks to still be fluent in the language. Don't get me wrong; many of these families had sons in the war FIGHTING the Germans and they were very patriotic.
But, many of the POW's, from what I gathered were pretty damn happy to be in the camp instead of the war, & would have found the local culture to be fairly familiar. Most were sent back to Germany...I suspect not all...it would have been easy to "blend in."
But, many of the POW’s, from what I gathered were pretty damn happy to be in the camp instead of the war,
A hard choice, a POW camp in Killeen Texas or Kolima in Siberia USSR.
I met a old German lady a few years back, she told me that when she was young Milwaukee has store signs that said English Spoken Here. There were that many there that spoke German.