how were german pows treated in ww2

This policy, which amounted to deliberately starving and working to death Soviet POWs, was grounded in Nazi racial theory, which depicted Slavs as sub-humans (Untermenschen). The 16 survivors were picked up by an American destroyer and, like hundreds of thousands of other German soldiers, sailors and fliers, were placed in a stateside POW camp for the duration of the Second World War. Since the Geneva Convention allowed prisoners to be assigned nonmilitary duties, the prisoners were put to work. Roughly 379,000 were German military personnel. Like many of the others, he'd been a keen. For those serving in Europe, being in the fight came with added motivation and also added risk should they be captured. population within the U.S. stood somewhere in the neighborhood of 340,000 and was growing at a rate between 25,000 to 30,000 each month. "I had the impression the prisoners were happy to be out of the war," said Kelly Holthus, 76, of York, Nebraska. on april 13, 1945, the us infantry entered the village of spitze near cologne and made the village inhabitants gather in front of the church. . The vast majority of them (300,000) were from the German Army and 51,000 were from the Italian Army: Most of the deaths occurred during the war years, when there was a serious lack of food, warm clothes and adequate housing . Vladimir Grebnev/TASS Over four million Germans were. At the time of the German surrender, on 8 May 1945, approximately twenty nations allied against former Nazi-controlled territories, held German POWs. Their strength was shown in their efforts to help themselves as well as others to thrive and to escape against the odds. The United States, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union held the vast majority of the eleven million who surrendered. In custody, we adhered to. The German government assumed the cost of disinterment and transportation to Chattanooga, and erected a monument to commemorate the POWs. (Arkansas National Guard Museum) Huntsville was the first camp to open, built from scratch and fully outfitted to comply with Geneva Convention requirements for warm and hygienic living quarters, access to medical treatment, provisions for libraries and other intellectual activities, and open spaces that encouraged physical activities. Many Soviet soldiers, including many wounded, died on the way to the prisoner collection centers and transit camps; others died during transit to camps in occupied Poland or the German Reich. May 26, 2021. How Allied POWs Survived German Camps in WWII. The Red Cross took care of communicating with families. The Western front. If double forced labour wasn't bad enough, during their time as POWs Soviet soldiers were among the worst treated in WW2. Germany treated their enemies with extreme inconsistency depending on who the enemy was. Hans Siegfried Vallentin was one of these. Answer (1 of 5): For the most part, pretty well. On the Western Front, barring a few massacres and torturings, Geneva Convention protocol was usually followed. The justification was that Soviet Union did not sign the international convention about POW's. Of course, this was the official point of view, but actual treatment depended on commanders in the field. Britain's farms were crying out for more manpower, and the strong young men of the Italian army more than fitted the bill. British and American POW's were treated as POW's. Soviet Jewish POW's were usually treated as Jews, if their national origin could be determined. They were segregated from the latter, and were treated even less humanely. Most of those still held had been convicted as war criminals and many sentenced to long terms in forced labor camps - usually 25 years. By the time 1945 came around, the P.o.W. Most PoWs lost at least 40 pounds (18 kilograms) in weight. In WWII the U S Treated Nazi POWs Better Than Black. He used . The Soviet army raped over two million German women. On December 23, 1944, 25 German POWs broke out of Camp Papago Park in Arizona by crawling along a 178-foot (54 m) tunnel. During World War II, Nazi Germany engaged in a policy of deliberate maltreatment of Soviet prisoners of war (POWs), in contrast to their treatment of British and American POWs. Approximately 5 million were released almost immediately, and the last . Members from Nazi Germany's diplomatic mi Eden was one of 487 PoW camps hastily thrown up across Britain to house more than 400,000 incoming prisoners during the Second World War. Their Jewish identity was a source of both pride and peril. German POWs sit for mealtime at a camp in Hearne, Texas. The prisoners were held in some fifty German POW camps, of several types. "I'd raise my . These included the Stalag (Stammlager, permanent camps for noncommissioned officers and enlisted men), Stalag . American Pows In Wo World War II prisoners of war POWs country trends. These came under the inspection of the Red Cross and all the evidence suggests that German POW's held in Western Europe were well treated - accommodation was adequate as was food. Around 500,000 American Jews served in World War II. Many of them died in concentration camps such as Mauthausen, where they were sta. Special Projects Division 8 Incredible WWII POW Stories of Survival and Escape. On May 13, 1940, the German army invaded France, crossing the River Meuse at Sedan. Upon France's capitulation, the Franco-German armistice was signed on June 22, and a portion of France was placed under . Many were relegated to German prisoner of war camps. Meanwhile on the Eastern Front, it was a whole other story. INGLORIOUS AMERICANS Killing German POW During WW2. The most spectacular breakout occurred in December 1944 at Papago Park on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona, where 25 U-boat crewmen dug a 200-foot tunnel and escaped into the barren mesquite country. In total Some 95,000 American and 135,000 British and Commonwealth servicemen were incarcerated in prisoners of war (POW) camps in Germany during World War II. In German military tradition, war was an endeavor of gentlemen with clearly established rules and procedures. The war had created a crippling labour shortage on the home front. A British or American prisoner was generally well treated by the German army, unless he was a commando, in which case he was liable to execution under Hitler's Co. In a 1995 interview, John Hope Franklin described a segregated train, where he and scores of Black. The most elaborate escape attempt occurred in 1944, at one of the more spartan camps in Texas. How the SS prisoners And German POW were treated Blogger. That added element—the Germans' smug sideline voyeurism—stung Black soldiers in its own way. Deaths among French, British, or American prisoners was not common, typically around 1-2%. German POW's captured in campaigns in Western Europe, were held in Allied POW camps. Allied POWs captured by Axis were, by and large, treated in accordance with Geneva Convention (a peacetime agreement compiled in Switzerland in 1929), but only if they were Western; Soviet and Eastern European POWs were treated with intense cruelty. Answer (1 of 19): I agree overall with the other answers, but I would add that one needs to specify which Germans and which prisoners. Goering was a fighter pilot in WWI and had somewhat romantic views of chivalrous combat among airmen. Most of the prisoners captured in 1941 had to march to . Approximately 5 million were released almost immediately, and the last . Serving at POW camps was considered a . Some 500 POW facilities were built, mainly in the. Over 240,000 women died because of rapes . German POWs sit for mealtime at a camp in Hearne, Texas. 1,200 U.S. soldiers escape from POW camp at Limburg, Germany. By January the escapees were caught, in part because a river they intended to cross by raft turned out to be a dry river bed. An estimated 9,000 American Jews were held as POWs by the Germans. Dreams of food became a major topic of conversation around the camps. Like many works of fiction, Summer of My German Soldier was loosely based on historical events. By the winter of 1941, starvation and disease resulted in mass death of unimaginable proportions. According to data, almost 15% of Axis POWs died in Soviet captivity. (Arkansas National Guard Museum) Huntsville was the first camp to open, built from scratch and fully outfitted to comply with Geneva Convention requirements for warm and hygienic living quarters, access to medical treatment, provisions for libraries and other intellectual activities, and open spaces that encouraged physical activities. With the creation of a pro-Soviet German state in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany - the German Democratic Republic - in October 1949, all but 85,000 POWs had been released and repatriated. At the time of the German surrender, on 8 May 1945, approximately twenty nations allied against former Nazi-controlled territories, held German POWs. In the end, U.S. authorities failed to account for just one escaped prisoner, a former German draftsman named Georg Gartner. The way those prisoners were treated differed greatly dependently on the nation of a prisoner and the country of imprisonment. In the 1944 poem "Mad Song," Cullen imagined the racist Mississippi Congressman John E. Rankin, and those of like mind, pledging loyalty to the Nazis over Black Americans. Nebraska State Historical Society . And Russians were treated much worse. From 1942 through 1945, more than 400,000 Axis prisoners were shipped to the United States and detained in camps in rural areas across the country. All were recaptured. Answer (1 of 32): Without a doubt, the Japanese. By 1944, only 300 Black women served in the entire Army Nurse Corps, compared to 40,000 white nurses. The 425,036 Axis captives who flooded America—378,156 Germans, 41,456 Italians, and 5,424 Japanese—represented a huge manpower windfall for a nation struggling with the wartime decimation of its workforce. Food became a huge preoccupation for prisoners. "The Nazis did not care how many Poles were killed" (Levine, 2000: 85). The German national mentality was also one of tradition and honor, meaning that rules of . Treatment of us pows by the germans in world war II , , 1262 420 One of the significant features of World War II was a great number of prisoners of war (POW's) to be kept both by Allies and Axis. Black POWs Under the Nazis. Using a secret 60-foot tunnel equipped with lighting and air bellows, 12 German officers slipped away from their barracks and, armed with tissue-paper maps, went separately toward Mexico. By comparison, they were treated well compared to combat troops. On measure of how well POWs were treated in WW2 is percentage deaths, as shown below: Russian POWs held by Germans 57.50% German POWs held by Russians 35.80% American POWs held by Japanese 33.00% German POWs held by Eastern Europeans 24.80% British POWs held by Japanese 24.80% British POWs held by Germans 3.50% German POWs held by French 2.58% During the (1944) battle of Warsaw, as reported in "Rising 44", when Polish prisoners were captured, the German General von dem Bach-Zalewsi told his men to treat them "as if they were British." In World War II, the Germans reserved their best POW treatment for captured men from America, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Each man had food and a change of clothing. He said the Russians were good to trade with, but the French sometimes took the stuff you threw over without throwing anything back. 20 german soldiers among them, members of an anti-aircraft unit stationed in the village, were separated and marched several hundred yards to a field just outside the village where they were lined up and … The United States, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union held the vast majority of the eleven million who surrendered. During World War II, the United States was home to approximately 400,000 Prisoners of War. By the end of 1947, around 250,000 German POWs had been repatriated, but 24,000 decided to stay in Britain. The popular movie plays the sad ending down quite a bit. To understand why, first look at the Germans. The the POWs from each country were kept seperate from one another, but they traded stuff from their C.A.R.E. Answer (1 of 8): Notably worse than their white (or generally non-black, and presumably of course also non-Jewish) American POW counterparts. Though many POWs spent years suffering from hunger and maltreatment in the prison camps, few were broken by the experience. About 12,000 POWs were held in camps in Nebraska. How German prisoners of war lived and died in the USSR 1941. The vessel was destroyed in action off the Canary Islands in 1943. By 1950 almost all surviving POWs had been released, with the last prisoner returning from the USSR in 1956. There were some atrocities told in the book The Great Escape, which is a great read. The Third Reich's treatment of black soldiers was harsh, in keeping with its doctrine of racial superiority. They were meant to receive 1,900 calories each day, the same as a non-working German civilian, but got something closer to 1,500 calories. The policy resulted in some 3.3 to 3.5 . Answer (1 of 11): While many American soldiers/Marines held the German adversaries in contempt, they were treated reasonably well. The crew of the German submarine U-118 in captivity on U.S. soil. This little-remembered history was explored in that book and later the accompanying TV adaptation. The POWs were employed as forced labor in the Soviet wartime economy and post-war reconstruction. My father spent much of the War as a prisoner, and although he lost a great deal of weight during his years of captivity, and was left with a lasting fear of cold and of hunger, he had few complaints about his treatment during those years. Another factor shaped the way the Allies treated German POW's at . In the battlefield, it may have been a different story, because things take place out there that are never seen, nor do they come to light. Hitler's soldiers surrender to the Soviet military guard. Approximately three million German prisoners of war were captured by the Soviet Union during World War II, most of them during the great advances of the Red Army in the last year of the war. packages by throwing them over the fence. How one ultimately answers the question of whether Nazi POWs were tortured in World War II depends on how one defines torture. The victorious Soviets exalted horrific revenge upon the helpless civilian population of Nazi Germany. For example, when the food available for use in camps became incredibly scarce, Colonel Eduard Wagner issued an order to let prisoners starve to death.. Soviets again somehow got the worst out of this deal when German officials barred Allied soldiers from sharing their . The latter, and were treated best, crossing the River Meuse at Sedan at least 40 (... 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