Hitler's last soldier... in the US: How German tank commander evaded FBI for 40 years by building new life as all-American ski instructor after escaping PoW camp at end of WWII

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

To his friends, his wife and even local newspapers, Dennis Whiles was everything he claimed to be.
He was a dashing ski instructor and tennis pro, living it up in California and Hawaii and even mixing with Hollywood film stars.
But anyone who had reason to compare an FBI Most Wanted poster issued in 1945 for an escaped German prisoner of war with Whiles's face might have stopped in their tracks.
For as Whiles would tearfully admit to his wife in 1984 - nearly 40 years after he had fled an internment camp in New Mexico - he was really Georg Gaertner, a former tank commander in Adolf Hitler's Wehrmacht.
As a new Sky History documentary details tonight, Gaertner had built a new life from nothing, even as the federal authorities searched for him and his real family back in what had become Poland felt his absence keenly.
The German spent years perfecting an American accent and a back story that his parents' death in a car crash had left him an orphan.
But in September 1985, having told his distraught wife, he opted to 'surrender' on prime time NBC TV programme The Today Show.
Rather than deport him, US officials decided he had no case to answer and eventually let him become an American citizen.
Anyone who had reason to compare an FBI Most Wanted poster issued in 1945 for an escaped German prisoner of war with Whiles's face might have stopped in their tracks
Tonight's programme, Greatest Escapes of WWII: Hitler's last soldier in America who defied the FBI for 40 years, recounts his wife Jean's memory of her husband's admission.
She said: 'I remember him being in tears, I remember him sitting up on the kitchen counter, and he was sitting there crying and pouring out this story, just like an avalanche, a waterfall coming out, about what had happened.
'He told me the whole story'.
Born in Schweidnitz, Lower Silesia (now Świdnica, Poland) in 1920, Gaertner enlisted in the German army in 1940, aged 19.
Having been sent to fight with Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps in North Africa, he was captured by British troops in Tunis in 1943.
He was then sent to America to be held prisoner at Camp Deming in the town of the same name.
By September 1945, weeks after the Second World War had come to an end, Gaertner had decided that he did not want to grapple with the possible fate that awaited him back home.
Świdnica was now controlled by the Soviet regime and would remain under the rule of Poland's puppet Communist government for decades to come.
It meant that, as a former soldier, he faced arrest, persecution and even death.
So on September 22, Gaertner slipped under the fence of Camp Deming and boarded a freight train to California.
He had nothing but the clothes he was wearing.
Historian Matt Maclachan says in tonight's programme:'The story of Georg Gartner is almost the antithesis of the escape story.
'A man who was doing everything he could to stay in the country.'
The expert adds: 'He had seen the opportunities that America presented for a better life, and he simply didn't want to go home'.
Gaertner's first year on the run was perhaps his worst. He needed to make a living without revealing his real identity. And his spoken English was by no means perfect.
The FBI's Wanted poster included front-facing and side-on shots of Gaertner, plus a full physical description and scans of his finger prints.
So the former soldier kept his head down, finding work as a dishwasher and gardener.
Then, after getting a job as an architectural consultant in the construction industry, he assumed the identity of Dennis F. Whiles and perfected his English.
In the winter, he worked as a ski instructor in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
The fact that the authorities were still looking for Gaertner and dozens of other escaped German prisoners did not deter him doing things that would get him noticed.
In 1952, a huge blizzard left a train stranded. Gaertner was among those who took food, medicine and hot drinks to its stranded passengers.
He became a local hero, with his photo featuring in the newspapers. But, remarkably, he was not recognised.
Then, the following year, Gaertner was flicking through Colliers, a popular national magazine, when he saw a feature about German soldiers who had managed to hide themselves in America.
He was stunned to see that his mugshot was among the photos. But again, he remained undetected.
Worse was to come when he bumped into a fellow former German soldier who recognised him from North Africa.
Remarkably, Gaertner managed to bluff his way out by insisting that he was not who the man thought he was.
In 1964, the German met his future wife. Once married, he and Jean set up a tennis centre in Santa Cruz, California, and then moved to Hawaii.
Gaertner even played doubles with film stars including Lloyd Bridges.
But his wife began to have suspicions about his past, which were fuelled by Gaertner's refusal to expand on his backstory.
Historian Kate Vigurs says in tonight's show: 'She knew nothing at all about her husband's past.
'He had no childhood, no youth, he didn't tell her anything about his life, basically before he met her.
'This drove her to distraction. She got to the point where she was ready to leave him.'
Jean had even tried to find the orphanage where Gaertner claimed he was raised. But she found it did not exist.
Knowing that his wife was on the verge of quitting their marriage, Gaertner finally owned up to both his wife and the authorities.
Dr Vigurs adds: : 'He was essentially, four decades later, the last German soldier to surrender from the Second World War. And the story went wild.
'A biography was written, Hitler's Last Soldier in America, and finally, he was able to tell the truth.'
By then, the US authorities had no interest in Gaertner. He was never charged with an offence because he had been brought to the US against his will.
And all German prisoners of war had long since been repatriated.
He finally became a US citizen in 2009 and died aged 92 in 2013.