Lawrence E. Osswald Collection

Collection

Identifier: MS 012

Staff Only

The collection is from Lawrence E. Osswald’s time in Hays, Kansas where he served as Corporal in the US Army 480th MPEG Company in a American Prisoner-of War camp for Germans POW’s. The camp was located on the grounds of the Agricultural Experiment Station [currently the KSU Agricultural Research Center] South of Hays. Most of the photographs are copies of pictures that were taken by L. C. Aicher who was the superintendent at the Fort Hays Experiment Station during this time.

Film no. 2867C by L. C. Aicher (Information regarding Mr. Aicher is taken from "Ethnic and Historical research concerning the Volga Germans and Ellis County Kansas" located in the Special Collections.) The collection also contains a diary that has 3 pages written in German language. A Stars and Stripes Mediterranean edition newspaper rounds out the collection.

Digital Collections - FHSU Scholars Repository – Digitized Copies of Collection Materials

Dates

1943-1944

Creator

Osswald, Lawrence E. (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research.

Portions of this collection are available for viewing in digital format via the FHSU Scholars Repository at https://scholars.fhsu.edu/library/. Or via this link https://scholars.fhsu.edu/osswald/

Extent

.21 Linear Feet (1 box)

Additional Description

Biographical / Historical

Lawrence E. Osswald (12/11/1912-1/19/2003) was born in Jamaica, Long Island, New York. His parents immigrated to the US from Munich, Germany in 1905. They moved to Wilmington, Delaware in the early 1920’s. After high school, Lawrence attended the University of Delaware for two years. He married in 1939 and went into the Army in 1942. After his military service, he returned to Wilmington and continued a 30 year career with E. I. DuPont. He was transferred to Kinston, North Carolina in 1953 with the opening of a new DuPont Dacron Research Facility in eastern North Carolina. He had two sons. He passed away at the age of 90. His son, Tom Osswald, gave the collection to Forsyth Library.

Arrangement

The two primary series in the Osswald collection are Photographs and Manuscripts. Photographs consist of images of life and activities at the Hays POW camp. Manuscripts include the diary and newspaper.