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How where black POW dealt with

Discussion in 'Western Europe' started by haynessn, Dec 7, 2015.

  1. haynessn

    haynessn New Member

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    How were black POW dealt with by the Germans given the racial prejudice of white Americans, Surely some where captured in the Red Ball Express.
     
  2. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    There were also French troops that were captured. Treatment seamed to very depending on circumstances. We've touched on the issue in a number of threads.
     
  3. Triton

    Triton New Member

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    German population in general had (surprising) few prejudices against black people. During the Olypic Games 1936 in Berlin, Jesse Owens was well-likedand openly admired by the crowd. Which made Hitler furious by the way :cool:

    Russian PoWs or (later in the war) italian PoWs were treated much worse for sure.
     
  4. Highway70

    Highway70 Member

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    I did an internet search for information. Found

    Treatment varied depending on when, where and who captured them.

    Black Americans were segregated from white Americans. Their living conditions generally worse than for whites, but not even close to as bad as for Russians.

    Some blacks were murdered shortly after capture, but so were some whites.

    --------------

    While there were few black German citizens, there were some black Germans in the German military.

    Many of the French troops captured were black (colonial troops). Some of them joined the German military mainly in SS units made up of foreign (Muslim) volunteers.
     
    belasar likes this.
  5. LRusso216

    LRusso216 Graybeard Staff Member

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    Came across this in my search.

    Black prisoners of war faced illegal incarceration and mistreatment at the hands of the Nazis, who did not uphold the regulations imposed by the Geneva Convention (international agreement on the conduct of war and the treatment of wounded and captured soldiers). Lieutenant Darwin Nichols, an African American pilot, was incarcerated in a Gestapo prison in Butzbach. Black soldiers of the American, French, and British armies were worked to death on construction projects or died as a result of mistreatment in concentration or prisoner-of-war camps. Others were never even incarcerated, but were instead immediately killed by the SS or Gestapo.
    http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005479
     
  6. KodiakBeer

    KodiakBeer Member

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    Google the Wereth massacre. Those guys were tortured before being shot by the 1st Waffen SS.
     
  7. Triton

    Triton New Member

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    (Parts of) the Waffen-SS tortured and killed everywhere and everyone, no matter which colour or race they had.
     
  8. YugoslavPartisan

    YugoslavPartisan Drug

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    Personally I think that everyone had the same treatment.
     
  9. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    It's rather clear that is not correct. Look at the survival rate of Soviet POWs vs those from the West. Even in the same camps. At times other groups were singled out. The Canadians and the SS had a bit of a tiff going during the Normandy campaign for example. French Colonial troops also seam to have been singled out on occasion. At times the Germans didn't differentiate but at other times it's pretty clear they did.
     
  10. YugoslavPartisan

    YugoslavPartisan Drug

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    Well I haven't researched much for the POW casualties to be honest so you're probably right. Can you please post some links about the POW casualties so I could research more?
     
  11. KJ Jr

    KJ Jr Well-Known Member

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    I believe the post above with info from the Holocaust Memorial website is accurate. There were different situations throughout the war where I am sure they were treated "fairly" in regards to international law, but those were few and far between.
     
  12. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    I'm having trouble pasting links right now but I think there's are a couple of discussions related to this topic on the board and googling world war 22 POW survival rates or deaths will likely turn up a fair number of hits. The wiki POW page isn't a bad place to start either.
     
  13. Markus Becker

    Markus Becker Member

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    How could service troops get captured? They are separated from the enemy by their combat troops who were almost 100% "white". There was a black division in Italy and some independent tank, TD and artillery battalions. And the Americans were on the offensive, so not many opportunities for germny to take many PoW, especially service troops.
     
  14. Sheldrake

    Sheldrake Member

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    That isn't strictly true. It si a fallacy to assume that no black soldiers were near the front line. The 333rd FAB were a segregated black unit partially over-run near Schoenburg. Eleven of their soldiers were executed by soldiers of the LAH SS near Wereth. This is not \as well known as the Bagneuz crossroads incident near Malmedy. The survivors of the 333rd withdrew to Bastogne where combined with the 969th Field Artillery Battalion. Bioth were awarded presidential unit citations for their service at Bastogne. ..
     
  15. alieneyes

    alieneyes Member

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  16. YugoslavPartisan

    YugoslavPartisan Drug

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    I found some information but I'd like to know the survival rates during some operations. I guess I'd have to search through some of my WWII encyclopedias to find such a thing.

    EDIT:
    I found some good information on German POW camps for Soviets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_mistreatment_of_Soviet_prisoners_of_war
    Scroll down for POW camps. There you can see which camp was made after which operation.
     
  17. Sheldrake

    Sheldrake Member

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    The RAF recruited several thousand airmen and women from the West Indies, some of whom, like Cy Grant were commissioned. The British Empire was inconsistent in its approach to its non european subjects. Cy was a TV reporter in the 1960s.
     
  18. Markus Becker

    Markus Becker Member

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    I didn't say there were no black combat troops, just very, very few given the 'attitudes' of the time.
     
  19. Highway70

    Highway70 Member

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  20. Riter

    Riter Well-Known Member

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    If you read Condemned to Live by panzer artilleryman and Austrian Franz Frisch, Frisch was in Italy when the war ended. He as a private (he never accepted promotions) was leading a small band of younger Germans north to Austria/Germany when they were captured by Italian partisans. The partisans began squabbling among themselves with some wanting to kill the tedeschi (Germans) and others wanting to keep them prisoners. Frisch was worried over his fate when down the road comes a black American sergeant (likely the 92nd Div). The black sergeant sized up what was going on, grabbed the bigger of the two quarelling Italian partisans and knocked him out with a single punch. The partisans scattered and Frisch and his mates were rescued. For that Frisch was always grateful to American blacks and after becoming a naval engineer (post war), immigrated to America.
     

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