Almost half a million enemy soldiers were held prisoner in camps across the United States during World War II.

Kumpel (German for buddy) is the story of one such camp; Otto Becker, a German soldier being held there; and a 15-year-old boy who works alongside the German prisoners on a West Texas cotton farm near the prison.

Otto's war has not ended, for each day he must deal with SS Obersturmführer Werner von Hoffman and his Nazi followers who have taken over internal control of the camp.

Otto's days in the fields with the delightfully naive J.T. Graham (his kumpel) and J.T.'s wacky friend, Beu, are a pleasant reprieve from the violence and intrigue that permeate the prison scene.

Murder and suicide ramp up the camp tension making escape the only answer for Otto and his beleaguered prison mates. But to where? The camp is six hundred miles from the ocean, three hundred from Mexico.

Left with the choice of dealing with von Hoffman, waiting out the war in the prison, or setting out onto the vast West Texas plains, Otto turns to his kumpel for help.