Camp Sharpe

Camp Sharpe (formally Camp George M. Sharpe) was a U.S. Army training camp for psychological warfare on the Gettysburg battlefield in Adams County, Pennsylvania, during World War II. It was set up as a subcamp of Camp Ritchie, about 15 miles away in Maryland, and prepared men for combat propaganda in the European Theater: morale analysis, leaflets, radio broadcasting and front-line loudspeaker appeals. Many of its students were Ritchie Boys, and the men who trained there are sometimes called the "Camp Sharpe Boys" or, as in the title of Beverley Driver Eddy's book, the "Psycho Boys".

Overview

Historian Beverley Driver Eddy says that where Camp Ritchie taught interrogation and other intelligence skills across the board, Camp Sharpe "concentrated just on psychological warfare." She first heard of it from Ritchie Boy Guy Stern, who told her that "there was a subcamp of Ritchie in Gettysburg called Camp Sharp." That was when she realized its story had never been told.

Eddy estimates that "about 800" men passed through Camp Sharpe. Camp Ritchie trained about 20,000 men. Camp Sharpe's students also interrogated prisoners, but in her words "they did it for a different purpose… the Camp Sharp Boys were interrogating in order to study morale." In the field, she says, they were the ones who "got the prisoners in many cases to surrender by going out in front of the front of the lines and speaking by microphone directly to the enemy troops."

Site

The camp used a former Civilian Conservation Corps camp (NP-1) next to a second CCC camp (NP-2) in McMillan Woods on the Gettysburg battlefield. Leon Edel remembered it in his memoir as lying "in a muddy hollow at the bottom of a slanting road." A USO facility for Camp Sharpe soldiers was in the former Hill house on Chambersburg Street in the town of Gettysburg.

Training

The Wikipedia article gives May 1944 as Camp Sharpe's construction date and lists the 2nd through 5th Mobile Radio Broadcasting Companies (MRBCs) and the Psychological Warfare Division as its occupants in 1944–1945. Dan Gross's research, as imported to the profile of Arthur H. Jaffe (commanding officer of the 2nd MRBC), describes the camp as a kind of postgraduate school in psychological operations for selected graduates of the eight-week Camp Ritchie course and for other soldiers with skills in radio and broadcasting.

Men usually reached Camp Sharpe through Camp Ritchie. Profiles on this wiki typically record a soldier being assigned to an MRBC at Camp Ritchie and then sent to Camp Sharpe for a psychological warfare or combat propaganda course. The dates they give are often the MRBC assignment dates, not dates for the course itself. The 3rd MRBC was activated at Camp Ritchie on 29 December 1943, and Emil Lehman was assigned to the 2nd MRBC at Camp Ritchie on 31 December 1943. Two sources on this wiki do place the camp in 1943: the Dan Gross research on Jaffe's profile gives 9 November 1943 as its opening date, and Leon Edel's profile says he transferred to Camp Sharpe and joined the 3rd MRBC "at the end of 1943". Neither gives a record or page reference for that date.

Several profiles, drawing on Austriansoldiers biographies, Dan Gross's research, interviews and personal papers, put the Camp Sharpe course in the first months of 1944, before the men sailed for Europe in March or April 1944. That is earlier than Wikipedia's May 1944 construction date, and the two have not been reconciled:

Philip Pines was assigned to the 2nd MRBC on 19 February 1944 and sent to Camp Sharpe for about six weeks of training.
Jacob Isaak Tennenbaum was assigned to the 2nd MRBC on 8 February 1944, took the psychological warfare course at Camp Sharpe and embarked for Glasgow on 31 March 1944.
Maximilian Lerner spent about two months at Camp Sharpe before shipping out from Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, in March 1944.
Boris Krass studied propaganda techniques and strategic interrogation at what his papers call the Psychological Warfare School, Camp Sharpe. His profile dates this from February or March 1944; he left for overseas on 12 May 1944.

Later groups are recorded there from May 1944. Howard K. Marr was assigned from 31 May 1944 to the 5th MRBC at Camp Sharpe; Bernhard Hans Reijmers joined the 5th MRBC on 12 May and the 4th on 12 June 1944 and took propaganda training at Camp Sharpe; and Arthur Hadley was assigned on 21 July 1944 to the 5th MRBC, a company "scheduled to train at Camp Sharpe". Many Camp Sharpe men went on to the Psychological Warfare School at Brondesbury Park near London before going into action in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany.

The émigré writer and editor Hans Habe was an instructor. Edel, Walter Kohner, Albert G. Rosenberg, Bert Walther Anger and Peter H. Weidenreich all name him. Edel recalled Habe describing opposition within the Army to psychological warfare: "Old army hands regarded us as superfluous." Not every memory is flattering: Lerner remembered the camp as cold and disorganized and told an interviewer, "We did nothing."

Eddy says the writer Stefan Heym "went through training at Camp Ritchie and then went to Camp Sharp for more training in psychological warfare."

After the training years

According to the Wikipedia article, the camp closed as a training site in 1944. Around January 1945 the USO operation moved to the recreation center for the guards of the Gettysburg prisoner-of-war camp, and the former camp housed migrant workers in the summer of 1945. The buildings were removed and the land became part of Gettysburg National Military Park.

The site today

In a video interview, Eddy described the site as "now a youth camp site," where "the youth that stay there have absolutely no idea what the place is or what it was." The barracks are gone, but "there's rows of evergreens outlining where the barracks were." The motor pool area "is now the horse trailer parking lot," and "where the commandant's office was is now the trailer for where the youth leader camps." At the time of the interview there was no historical marker. Eddy said she was collecting signatures "to approach the National Park Service of Gettysburg to try to get a sign put up."

Research and books

Eddy set aside her work on the Manns for two years to study the camp ("I set my work on the Manns aside for 2 years and interviewed intensely 10 of the men that had gone through that camp"). The result was her book Camp Sharpe's "Psycho Boys": From Gettysburg to Germany, which follows German refugees who joined the Mobile Radio Broadcasting Companies at Camp Sharpe through the war in Europe; a lecture she gave on the book is on Ritchie Boy Programs. She later wrote Ritchie Boy Secrets about the parent camp (see Books and Contributors). Florian Traussnig of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, whose Austriansoldiers biographies are cited on many profiles here, wrote Die Psychokrieger aus Camp Sharpe: Österreicher als Kampfpropagandisten der US-Armee im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Böhlau, 2020) about the camp's Austrian-born soldiers.

Ritchie Boys on this wiki connected to Camp Sharpe

These lists include only people whose profiles on this wiki (or the sources cited below) connect them to Camp Sharpe. They are not a complete roster.

Officers and instructors

Hans Habe — "In 1944 he became an instructor of psychological warfare at Camp Sharpe"
Arthur H. Jaffe — commanding officer, 2nd MRBC
John T. Jarecki — roster research note: "Commander; Camp Sharpe"

Trained at Camp Sharpe (according to their profiles)

Bert Walther Anger — joined the new 2nd MRBC at Camp Ritchie, January 1944; "Assigned to Camp Sharpe, PA. Instructor was Hans Habe."
Albrecht Paul Barsis — assigned to the 3rd MRBC on 5 January and the 2nd MRBC on 11 February 1944; combat propaganda training at Camp Sharpe
Rudolf Baum — "Trained at Camp Sharpe, PA. Served with MRBC 3." (undated)
Jules Jerome Bond — assigned to the 3rd MRBC on 15 January 1944; psychological warfare course at Camp Sharpe
Leon Edel — transferred to Camp Sharpe and joined the 3rd MRBC "at the end of 1943" (his profile's summary of his memoir The Visitable Past)
Paul Alfred Eisler — assigned to the 2nd MRBC at Camp Ritchie in January and the 3rd MRBC in February 1944; psychological warfare course at Camp Sharpe
Stefan Heym — per Beverley Driver Eddy (video interview)
Walter Klinger — Camp Ritchie from February 1944, assigned to the 2nd and then the 3rd MRBC; combat propaganda training at Camp Sharpe
Walter Kohner — memoir page on psychological warfare training at Camp Sharpe under Hans Habe; 4th MRBC by 28 March 1944 (roster note)
Boris Krass — Psychological Warfare School, Camp Sharpe (his papers); overseas from 12 May 1944
Emil Lehman — assigned to the 2nd MRBC at Camp Ritchie on 31 December 1943; propaganda course at Camp Sharpe (undated); sailed April 1944
Maximilian Lerner — about two months (interviews); shipped out March 1944
Howard K. Marr — 5th MRBC at Camp Sharpe from 31 May 1944
Philip Pines — assigned to the 2nd MRBC on 19 February 1944 and sent to Camp Sharpe (about six weeks)
Bernhard Hans Reijmers — 5th MRBC from 12 May and 4th MRBC from 12 June 1944; propaganda training at Camp Sharpe
Albert G. Rosenberg — 4th MRBC; worked under instructor Hans Habe at Camp Sharpe
Rudolph Schattner — "probably in early 1944" assigned to the 2nd MRBC; propaganda training at Camp Sharpe; sailed April 1944
Jacob Isaak Tennenbaum — assigned to the 2nd MRBC on 8 February 1944; psychological warfare course at Camp Sharpe; embarked 31 March 1944
Joseph Wechsberg — continued psychological warfare training at Camp Sharpe (Ritchie History Museum essay); served with the 4th MRBC
Peter H. Weidenreich (Peter Wyden) — "sent to Camp Sharpe in Gettysburg PA where he studied Psychological Warfare under Hans Habe"
Friedrich Wolinsky — assigned to the 2nd MRBC on 26 January and the 3rd MRBC in February 1944; propaganda training at Camp Sharpe
Arthur Hadley — assigned on 21 July 1944 to the 5th MRBC, a company "scheduled to train at Camp Sharpe"

Other profiles that mention Camp Sharpe

These profiles mention Camp Sharpe only in roster research notes, which do not say what the connection was:

Bruno Alessandrini
Edward W. Bieghler
Frank R. Brooks Jr.
Igor L. Cassini
Francis A. Comeau
Frank Henry Duncombe
Harry A. Jacobs
Gunter Kosse
Joseph A. Lazarich Jr. (note is queried)
Arthur J. Manzi
Gaston C. Masson
Hans Mayer
Thierry L. McCormick
Alfred New
James D. Newton
Robert D. Pfeifer
Leon Poteshman
Curt Upright

Also mentioned

Guy Stern — told Beverley Driver Eddy about the camp. He also suggested that Klaus Mann may have trained there, which Eddy found was not the case.
Jack Travis Collette — a caption under review on Facebook OCR review says he trained with the 3rd MRBC at Camp Sharpe; not yet confirmed on his profile.

Sources

Beverley Driver Eddy, video interview on Camp Sharpe (YouTube) — speaker Beverley Driver Eddy; quotations above are hers (accessed 25 September 2026)
Wikipedia: "Camp Sharpe" (revision of 12 July 2026; accessed 25 September 2026). The article in turn cites:
- Gettysburg Times, "Tells How War Prisoners Are Treated Here," 14 July 1944, p. 4
- Star and Sentinel (Gettysburg), "Here and There," 22 July 1944
- Gettysburg Times, "Teen-Canteen gets USO Room to January 1," 13 December 1944
- "Fire Company Has Trouble With Truck," 19 October 1946 (Gettysburg newspaper)
- Tom Ford, "Good Ol' Times: Readers Reminisce About Days Gone By," Gettysburg Times, 12 January 2007
- Leon Edel, The Visitable Past: A Wartime Memoir (2000), p. 22
- Peter Hutchinson, Stefan Heym: The Perpetual Dissident, p. 39
- Further reading: Florian Traussnig, Die Psychokrieger aus Camp Sharpe (Böhlau, 2020), ISBN 9783205210191
Soldier profiles on this wiki linked above, including Dan Gross's timeline research (Jaffe, Pines, Anger, Hadley, Baum), Austriansoldiers / Ludwig Boltzmann Institute biographies (Barsis, Bond, Eisler, Klinger, Lehman, Marr, Reijmers, Schattner, Tennenbaum, Wolinsky), memoir and interview material (Edel, Kohner, Lerner), Krass's personal papers and Camp Ritchie Museum roster research notes
Camp Ritchie (3rd MRBC activation, 29 December 1943; Camp Ritchie training numbers)
Beverley Driver Eddy, Camp Sharpe's "Psycho Boys": From Gettysburg to Germany (book; listed on Books and Featured books pool)
Contributors: Beverley Driver Eddy