
The Fifteen
Murder, Retribution, and the Forgotten Story of Nazi POWs in America
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Narrated by:
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Arthur Morey
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By:
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William Geroux
About this listen
The revelatory true story of the long-forgotten POW camps for German soldiers erected in hundreds of small U.S. towns during World War II, and the secret Nazi killings that ensnared fifteen brave American POWs in a high-stakes showdown.
“In the pantheon of American history, it’s very hard to find compelling, original stories, and even harder to find authors worthy of them. In The Fifteen, William Geroux delivers the goods.”—John U. Bacon, New York Times bestselling author of The Great Halifax Explosion
The American government was faced with an unprecedented challenge: where to house the nearly 400,000 German prisoners of war plucked from the battlefield and shipped across the Atlantic. On orders from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Department of War hastily built hundreds of POW camps in the United States. Today, traces of those camps—which once dotted the landscape from Maine to California—have all but vanished. Forgotten, too, is the grisly series of killings that took place within them: Nazi power games playing out in the heart of the United States.
Protected by the Geneva Convention, German POWs were well-fed and housed. Many worked on American farms, and a few would even go on to marry farmers’ daughters. Ardent Nazis in the camps, however, took a dim view of fellow Germans who befriended their captors.
Soon, the killings began. In camp after camp, Nazis attacked fellow Germans they deemed disloyal. Fifteen were sentenced to death by secret U.S. military tribunals for acts of murder. In response, German authorities condemned fifteen American POWs to the same fate, and, in the waning days of the war, Germany proposed an audacious trade: fifteen German lives for fifteen American lives.
Drawing on extensive research, journalist and author William Geroux shines a spotlight on this story of murder and high-stakes diplomacy, and on the fifteen American lives that hung in the balance—from a fearless P-51 Mustang fighter pilot to a hot-tempered lieutenant colonel nicknamed “King Kong.”
Propulsive and vividly rendered, The Fifteen reminds us that what happens to soldiers after they exit the battlefield can be just as harrowing as what they experience on it.
©2025 William Geroux (P)2025 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“With dogged research and a narrative that parachutes readers into some of the most dangerous corners of World War II, Geroux has brought to light a sweeping story from the homefront that was not just forgotten—most Americans never knew it even happened to begin with. A dynamic, high-stakes tale that will leave readers questioning not only their loyalties and beliefs but the value of life itself.”—Bradford Pearson, National Magazine Award winning author of The Eagles of Heart Mountain
“In the pantheon of American history, it’s very hard to find compelling, original stories, and even harder to find authors worthy of them. In The Fifteen, we get a surprising drama about 400,000 German POWs held at hundreds of camps throughout small-town America—and a series of murders that took place there. William Geroux unearths this off-beat subject and delivers the goods, including the high-stakes diplomatic showdown in the war's final months. Highly recommended—trust me!”—John U. Bacon, New York Times bestselling author of The Great Halifax Explosion
“A compelling exploration of the experiences of prisoners of war in WWII.”—Booklist
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Performance
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In the summer of 1995, at the largest Boy Scout camp in Ohio, a night of sexual violence ended with one counselor dead and another hospitalized. The death was ruled "accidental." It wouldn't be the last death associated with Seven Ranges Reservation. James Renner, too, was a counselor at Seven Ranges that year. He was always sure there must be more to the story of Mike Klingler's death, because Renner also knew firsthand that the 900-acre camp was not the safe getaway it was portrayed to be.
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The honesty
- By Shannon Waller on 04-30-25
By: James Renner
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The Next One Is for You
- A True Story of Guns, Country, and the IRA's Secret American Army
- By: Ali Watkins
- Narrated by: Jennifer Woodward
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Northern Ireland, 1975. Violence has erupted on the streets of Belfast. After years as a guerilla army, the IRA is clashing with Loyalist gangs and heavily armed British soldiers. But the Troubles have spilled beyond the island: An ocean away, in the heart of Philadelphia’s Irish enclave, a teenage girl finds a letter in her mailbox. Inside is a bullet, and the message is clear: The next one is for you or your family. As reporter Ali Watkins reveals, the conflict in Northern Ireland might have gone very differently had it not been for a small ragtag band of gunrunners in the United States.
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I knew people who supported IRA from the states
- By Michael M. McMahon on 05-27-25
By: Ali Watkins
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Story of a Murder
- The Wives, the Mistress, and Dr. Crippen
- By: Hallie Rubenhold
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 16 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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On February 1, 1910, the vivacious, diamond-adorned music hall performer Belle Elmore suddenly vanished from her home, causing alarm among her friends, the entertainers of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild. Their demands for an investigation would lead to the unearthing of a gruesome secret and trigger a fevered international manhunt for Belle’s husband, medical fraudster Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen.
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Great but none of the heart of The Five
- By S. Armor on 04-13-25
By: Hallie Rubenhold
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Integrated
- How American Schools Failed Black Children
- By: Noliwe Rooks
- Narrated by: Noliwe Rooks
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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On May 17, 1954 the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education determined that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. Heralded as a massive victory for civil rights, the decision's goal was to give Black children equitable access to educational opportunities and clear a path to a better future. Yet in the years following the ruling, schools in predominantly Black neighborhoods were shuttered or saw their funding dwindle, Black educators were fired en masse, and Black children faced discrimination and violence from their white peers.
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The voice was great This book point of departure is the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education
- By Darrell Turner on 05-21-25
By: Noliwe Rooks
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Rain of Ruin
- Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan
- By: Richard Overy
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1945, US air attacks in Japan killed 300,000 civilians in three hours of night bombing and two nuclear strikes. The firebombing of Tokyo in March burned almost the entire city, killed some 85,000 residents, and left more than 1 million homeless. The atomic blast in Hiroshima in August killed some 119,000 civilians and 20,000 soldiers. After a second nuclear attack days later in Nagasaki and a declaration of war by the Soviet Union, Japan accepted defeat.
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The Voice ruins the book.
- By Bryce on 05-28-25
By: Richard Overy
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Bagration 1944
- The Great Soviet Offensive
- By: Prit Buttar
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 20 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout the war on the Eastern Front, there were two consistent trends. The Red Army battled to learn how to fight and win, while involved in a struggle for its very survival. But by 1944 it had a leadership that was able to wield it with lethal effect and with far more effective equipment than before. By contrast, the Wehrmacht had commenced a slow process of decline after the invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler became increasingly unwilling to delegate decision-making to commanders in the field, which had been crucial to earlier success.
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Impressive amount of detail, as expected from the author.
- By Zoran Jovic on 03-30-25
By: Prit Buttar
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Ghosts of Iron Mountain
- The Hoax of the Century, Its Enduring Impact, and What It Reveals About America Today
- By: Phil Tinline
- Narrated by: Phil Tinline
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A compelling work of investigative journalism that explores the surprising origins and hidden ramifications of an epic late 1960s hoax, perpetrated by cultural luminaries, including Victor Navasky and E.L. Doctorow. For readers curious about the surprising connections between John F. Kennedy, Oliver Stone, Timothy McVeigh, Alex Jones, and Donald Trump.
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Audio quality
- By Chas30166 on 03-29-25
By: Phil Tinline
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A Better Ending
- A Brother's Twenty-Year Quest to Uncover the Truth About His Sister's Death
- By: James Whitfield Thomson
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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On a summer evening in 1974, Jim Thomson arrived home from a baseball game to the news that his younger sister, Eileen, had taken her own life. To Jim, his parents, and brother, the loss was unexpected and devastating. Only twenty-seven, Eileen had been living in California with her high school sweetheart, Vic, a cop. She had a circle of close friends and a job she loved. But details soon emerged that Eileen had been depressed, her storybook marriage plagued by infidelity and guilt.
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Kept us rapt!
- By HogWare on 05-18-25
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Savage Skies, Emerald Hell
- The U.S., Australia, Japan and the Ferocious Air Battle for New Guinea in World War II
- By: Jay A. Stout
- Narrated by: Rich Miller
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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While the Marine Corps island-hopped across the Pacific from Guadalcanal to Saipan to Iwo Jima, the U.S. Army was locked in a grueling, multiyear fight for the jungle island of New Guinea, which in Japanese hands threatened both Australia and the vital supply lines stretching to the United States. Forces under Douglas MacArthur intended to deny the Japanese this opportunity and use New Guinea as a stepping stone on the road back to the Philippines and, beyond it, Japan.
By: Jay A. Stout
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The Prosecutor
- One Man's Battle to Bring Nazis to Justice
- By: Jack Fairweather
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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At the end of the Nuremberg trials in 1946, some of the greatest war criminals in history were sentenced to death, but hundreds of thousands of Nazi murderers and collaborators remained at large. The Allies were ready to overlook their pasts as the Cold War began, and the legacy of the Holocaust was in danger of being forgotten. In The Prosecutor, Jack Fairweather brings to life the heroic story of Fritz Bauer who survived the Nazis as a gay Jewish man to force his countrymen to confront their complicity in the genocide.
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Story
- By janine on 03-25-25
By: Jack Fairweather
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Guilt by Matrimony
- A Memoir of Love, Madness, and the Murder of Nancy Pfister
- By: Daleen Berry - contributor, Nancy Styler
- Narrated by: Courtney Patterson
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Fewer than twelve hours after her body was found and without any evidence, police decided a married couple from Denver had killed her. Within a few days, they arrested and charged Nancy Styler, a friend of Pfister's who'd had a falling out with her after a business deal went sour, and Dr. Trey Styler, Nancy's disabled husband, who recently lost the family home, his medical practice, and any hope of a peaceful retirement for himself and his wife. Eleven days later, police also arrested and charged Kathy Carpenter, Pfister's underpaid and overworked personal assistant and closest friend.
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How unlikable everyone is in this situation
- By gas girl on 04-16-25
By: Daleen Berry - contributor, and others
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The Mesopotamian Riddle
- An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman and the Race to Decipher the World's Oldest Writing
- By: Joshua Hammer
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, The Mesopotamian Riddle whisks you on a wild adventure through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand our past.
By: Joshua Hammer
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The Invisible Spy
- Churchill's Rockefeller Center Spy Ring and America’s First Secret Agent of World War II
- By: Thomas Maier
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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As a tough but smart Italian American kid, Ernest Cuneo played Ivy League football at Columbia University and was in the old Brooklyn Dodgers NFL franchise before becoming a city hall lawyer and “Brain Trust'' aide to President Roosevelt. He was on the payroll of national radio columnist Walter Winchell and mingled with the famous and powerful. But his status as a spy remained a secret, hiding in plain sight. During this time, Cuneo began a close friendship with British spy Ian Fleming and helped inspire Fleming's James Bond novels.
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Incredible read
- By Customer007 on 06-12-25
By: Thomas Maier
On the first subject, there were almost 400,000 German POWs in the U.S. Most were treated well and many worked, mostly in agriculture. Many wanted to stay here after the war. However, the U.S. authorities, especially at first, left the German prisoners to their own devices within the camps. This led to a number of German on German reprisals and murders or coerced "suicides." The book chronicles the U.S. investigations and trial of the alleged culprits, which resulted in a number of death sentences.
On the second subject, the Germans subjected a number of U.S. prisoners to largely sham charges and "trials" that also resulted in death sentences, with the apparent aim of using the condemned in a prisoner exchange.
The lack of any due process on the German side is not surprising. The investigatory methods and proceedings on the U.S. side--not to mention the severity of the sentences in some cases--are perhaps even more shocking and somewhat disgraceful. I write this as a lawyer, and a rather conservative one at that. Of course, you can draw your own conclusions.
How does it all turn out? Well, no spoilers here. Read the book.
There are some nits. First, the book is a little plodding at points. Second, there is at least one glaring--and repeated--factual error. The author repeatedly refers to German prisoners having "transistor radios"--which were not invented until after the war. A small error, but it makes you wonder about the other material. Third, the narration is very monotone.
Interesting and Largely Forgotten History
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A part of American history I’d never heard about
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Very Interesting and a Great Book
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A Great Read
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