Harry J. Collins

Harry John Collins (December 7, 1895 – March 8, 1963), was an decorated Army Major General, who commanded 42nd Infantry Division (Rainbow) during World War II.

Biography
He was born on December 7, 1895 in Chicago, Illinois. He attended the Western Military Academy and University of Chicago where, upon graduation in 1917, he received commission into the United States Army and assigned to the 3rd Infantry Regiment. He subsequently served on the Mexican Border at Eagle Pass, Texas.

Served in a variety of assignments in the US and overseas during World War I, most notably on staff at the Infantry School at Fort Benning. In August 1942, was named assistant division commander of the 99th Infantry Division at Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi. In April, 1943, assumed command of the 42nd Infantry Division (the famed Rainbow Division) at Camp Gruber, Oklahoma.

In December 1944, the division arrived in France and played a major role in stopping the last German drive into Western Europe, known as the Battle of the Bulge.

He was credited with the liberating of the Dachau concentration camp at the end of the war. Following V-E Day, the 42nd assumed occupation duty in western Austria, with Collins serving as military governor. In July 1948, he was appointed commander of the 2nd Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, Washington, and later assumed command of New York-New Jersey area headquarters at Fort Totten, New York.

In January 1951, he was assigned to command the 8th Division at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. A year later he got assigned to the office of Military Attache in Moscow, USSR and then back to the US to command the 31st Infantry Division in Camp Atterbury, Indiana.

He retired in 1954 and moved to Salzburg where he was an honorary citizen of Salzburg and Linz, where many Dachau survivors were initially transported after the liberation of the camp, along with his wife Irene Gehmacher. Irene was Austrian so he could not marry her being a US citizen and a general. Harry had his aid marry Irene, bring her to the US and divorce her so he could marry her as a new US citizen after divorcing his wife. He died on March 8, 1963 and was buried at the Saint Peter's churchyard cemetery in Salzburg.

Humanitarian
At war’s end, Collins was assigned the US Military Governorship of Austria. The Prisoner of War (POW) camp at Mauerkirchen, Austria also fell under the control of Collins and the 42nd Infantry Division.

This camp housed German POWs – 30,000 women and 130,000 men. The German soldiers came largely from the Eastern Front, including the 1st Mountain Division, and some from the remnants of the German Balkan Army. The many women in the camp came from supply and communications units, as well as nursing units.

In early May 1945, Collins flew over the camp in his Piper Cub liaison plane, and told the POWs via loudspeaker that he would discharge them as soon as he could find newsprint to print discharge papers. He also told them that he had no food to feed them and that discharge would depend on their good behavior. Collins managed to keep the camp in good order without barbed wire and without guards. His promise of an early release if the POWs kept within the limits of the camp was enough to make things work.

After ten days in camp, Collins began to process POWs out, as per the Geneva Convention. Collins had discharged 30,000 women, and perhaps 30,000 men, when U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower intervened, and ordered Collins to hand the remaining 100,000 POWs to the Soviets.

In 1955, German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer went to Moscow, to buy back the survivors of the camps in the Soviet Union. Ninety-five percent of the German POWs that Collins was forced to turn over to the Soviets did not survive those ten years in captivity. Without Collins’ intervention ten years earlier, 60,000 additional POWs may have met this same fate.

Controversy
Recent writers have found fault with Collins and other officers who performed occupation duty after World War II, suggesting that they requisitioned luxury items, from the Hungarian Gold Train, for furnishing their offices and quarters—items allegedly taken from Jewish families by the Nazis during the war. Many items were not returned to their original owners, who could not be located, but were later sold at auctions, with the proceeds used to aid war refugees.

Popular culture
Was featured on the History Channel's segment of History's Mysteries on “GI Looting” during the Second World War.

Decorations
Here is the ribbon bar of Major General Collins: