I was watching a documentary from BBC about ww2, and i was informed the living conditions of the Russian POWs. the BBC interviewed a Russian POW who was captured by the Germans in 1941. He said:" the way they treated us showed they never considered us human. Cannibalism occurred amongst some prisoners of war. At night they would cut bits of flesh from the dead bodies, and they would secretly try to boil or fry it and eat it. No-one took the guts, of course. Other parts of the body might be infected with something, skin for example, but the liver might be edible. Lungs were sometimes cut out too.

The Germans were not prepared for the huge number of POW´s from Barbarossa and they died like flies during the 1941-1942. Later on even Himmler was sorry , mostly for the loss of good working power.

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As a Christian, I believe the treatment of the Jews and the Russians enraged GOD.
When looking at it from a strategic point of view, the three million Russians should be treated well, and formed into "Special Armies" or "Penal Armies".
They should be well equipped and well trained. They should be the first wave of attack on strong points. They would fight until death since they know the fate of being captured as turncoats. So manpower wise, Germans would have doubled their strength with those “Penal Armies” that have nothing to lose and a lot to be thankful.

To sum it all up, Hitler was the idiot of the century.

Sigh. It always disappoints me to see emotional comments like this as they reveal a lack of reflection and a reliance upon emotion rather than reason, logic and data. If you want to call Hitler evil and depraved go ahead; those are subjective comments and you wouldn't be wrong provided you defined what you meant by evil and depraved. However, to call him an idiot simply does not stand up to the facts and belittles the millions who had to die to bring him down (if he were indeed an idiot one not only insults the Germans for voting for an imbecile, but you also have to wonder why it took the Allies over five years and at the cost of millions of lives and billions of dollars to defeat him).

Now, you have argued that it would have been in Germany's best interest to rearm the Soviet POWs and form them into penal armies that could be used as shock troops. Let's look at how this idea would really work out. First, if you used all the Soviet POWs captured in 1941 in this manner Germany would have literally doubled the size of its armies. You can't expand a modern army that quickly without disastrous consequences, given the amount of military funding that would be required to arm, retrain and feed and clothe all those people. Germany had trouble doing that with its German soldiers; it had no ability to do so with all those POWs.

Next, how do you expect these new penal armies to be led? How is Germany going to figure out which captured enemy officers are trustworthy and reliable? Most of the units that were captured were not captured intact; they had lost a lot of dead and missing and so you'd need to move around officers and men, a huge undertaking at any time for any army. But don't forget that Germany's armies were already stretched to the limit fighting for their lives in Russia. Who do you expect to have taken up the job of reforming these penal units into fighting units?

And then we have the really big issue; can you even trust these men not to simply run across the battlefield and join their brethren in the Soviet lines, taking their Germany produced arms with them? I certainly wouldn't and I can't think of a single military historian or tactician who would. The idea is absurd. And yet you have the gall to call Hitler, someone who led Germany to conquer most of Europe, an "idiot". Hitler made a lot of mistakes and was certainly not the world's greatest military leader. However, he was no idiot and was indeed a major threat to the Allies. Hitler had a long history of defeating and subjugating folks who, like yourself, underestimated him. Thankfully, the Allied leaders, unlike yourself, did not underestimate him and considering him more of a threat than an "idiot" would pose, fought him with all the weapons and intelligence at their disposal.

dominated.

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"When we come to a minefield, our infantry attacks as if it were not there. The losses we get from personnel mines we consider equal to those we would have gotten from machine guns and artillery if the Germans had chosen to defend that particular area." - General Zukhov to Eisenhower

Yes might as well just starve them all. You know after the war when Germans were asked why the Soviet POW"s werer treated so poorly compared to allied POW's, the Germans used " they were not part of the Geneva Convention " excuse quite often. You know what I find interesting is that the same sub-human Soviets treated their Germans POW's much better then they themselves were treated... After the war however is another story. Millions of German prisoners died trying to rebuild the very same country that they had destroyed with the same slave labor tactics which the mighty 3rd Reich had once used.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Please note that I was NOT defending the German treatment of Russian POWs. I was specifically pointing out the deficiencies in Ironcross' proposed use to which the German could have put their Russian POWs, and his comment that Hitler was an idiot. I hope you realize that there is a difference between trying to understand the motive for a murderer and defending that murderer's actions.

The Soviet Union, like China and Japan and others, claimed the excuse that they never signed the Geneva/Berne Conventions. But Germany did.

It was apparently long before Soviet POWs of Hitler's orders, which were resisted by the Luftwaffe and General Staff, to treat even Polish prisoners far worse than 'Western' POWs. Non-white POWs in the Allied armies were also segregated and treated worse. French were treated worse than 'Anglo-Saxons'.

Though it is true that Germany had no reason to expect that so many Soviet soldiers would surrender to them, it was Nazi policy to treat them as 'sub-humans' anyways. Hitler had to come up with more complicated rules for Yugoslavia.

Otoh, it is true that the survival rate of Soviet POW camps were even worse. Europe claim 90% of POWs in Soviet camps never returned. That's compared with nearly 50% of POWs in Japanese/Chinese camps. Asians claim the number for their POWs(including civilian men) in Soviet camps even higher. That's one of many reasons Japan and S Korea to this day have never signed a peace treaty with Russia regarding ww2. One of the few things Korea and Japan agree on about what we call ww2.

But it really was 2 different wars, the West and the East. The Axis and Allies treated eachother very differently than the Axis and Soviets.

And there was in fact a joint Russian/German plan to create anti-Soviet armies out of the literally millions of Soviet POWs, especially after Stalin's General order that declared all Soviets who surrendered to be traitors guilty of treason. Soviet hero General Vlasov suggested it and the German generals were all for the idea, but Hitler and his Nazis stamped it out.

It must be remembered that in the East, German Wermarcht divisions were sometimes treated as liberators, as long as they were in charge, but where-ever the Nazi Gauleiters got in charge with their SS, that quickly turned things back again.

"Panzer Commander" By Hans Von Luck is an interesting biography with his own experience in Soviet POW camps numerous years as slave labour after the war. He was one of the lucky 10% who survived to return.

The Germans used the Soviet POWs in slave labour, unlike the Anglo-Saxon/French POWs, to the point of exhaustion and death. According to Nazi theory, slavs were to be the servant race. Not all Nazi's were so extreme, but that was Hitler's decree and damn the Geneva Convention.

Just becuase the Russians didn't agree with/sign the Geneva Conventions, doesn't mean that excuses those who did from honouring them.
IMHO anyway.

But then again, the world isn't looking at us in a very good light on that today either.

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Originally Posted by Marienburg to call him an idiot simply does not stand up to the facts and belittles the millions who had to die to bring him down (if he were indeed an idiot one not only insults the Germans for voting for an imbecile, but you also have to wonder why it took the Allies over five years and at the cost of millions of lives and billions of dollars to defeat him).

To defeat Hitler requires only one bullet or as he showed cyanide and a bullet. The Allies had to defeat the German Nation, had any other leader done similarly then the same efforts would have been required. Do not confuse the leader with the lead. Imagine Hitler with the Italian military. Not such a threat anymore! Kind of like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, though give him a nuke and that might change, (cough Iran, N. Korea, cough.)

I also like your idea that no leader ever elected could be classified as an idiot. The last time I checked IQ was never a campaign isssue, and that lies and charisma are what get people elected. When the solution to all your problems are promised in a convincing way how could you not vote for that person.

If the people that Hitler kept closest to him are any benchmark for his metal state, then and idiot he might very well be.

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Originally Posted by Marienburg And then we have the really big issue; can you even trust these men not to simply run across the battlefield and join their brethren in the Soviet lines, taking their Germany produced arms with them? I certainly wouldn't and I can't think of a single military historian or tactician who would. The idea is absurd.

While this seems to be out of the question for you, the Germans actually did this, as did the Russians. Upwards of 100,000 captured Russians served with the German armed forces, some with gallantry. While 100,000 is by no means 3 million, the idea was still plausible.

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Originally Posted by ScreamingEagleMG42 dominated.

Nice constructive post.

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Originally Posted by Balderdasher The Soviet Union, like China and Japan and others, claimed the excuse that they never signed the Geneva/Berne Conventions. But Germany did.

The convention outlines the treatment of belligerents properly uniformed amongst the signing parties. If a nation had not signed or had withdrawn, their men had no form of protection, as such could not be expected in return. These conventions also do not apply to terrorists, spies, or rebels.

A side note here is that these conventions try to civilize one the most uncivilized things in the world. Remember also that the concept of the POW was new to the 20th century, before this point those captured of non-noble rank were executed, or enslaved. Nobles would be ransomed or freed depending upon the captor.

Opinions are always fine, as long as they remain opinions.

Interesting...... So the starvation of 3 million Soviet POW's is excusable due to Stalin, not signing a piece of paper?

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Excusable by no means, but not faulted either. The idea that killing a man is not derived from a paper but from God.

Besides to Stalin 3 million was just a statistic.

Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they're all shitty

And 3 million deaths to Stalin is not a statistic, it's 3 statistics (more )

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Actually at the start of the German invasion the Soviet Union stated its willingness to follow the Hague Treaty of 1907 on the treatment of POW's, which the Russian government of that time had signed.
The treaty the Soviets didn't sign was the 1929 Geneva Convention which gave the POW's additional protection. Seeing the Soviets had never repudiated the earlier agreement (which Germany had also signed) it meant that according to international law, the Soviet troops should have still been protected by the 1907 treaty.

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if in doubt....Panic!!!!

That's because they tend to use the figure of the number of prisoners who were captured at Stalingrad who returned as a guide.
In fact, according to the post war Maschke committee set up by the West German government in 1956 to discover the number of German POW's who died in Soviet camps, the figures they came up with are that out a total of 3,640,000 soldiers captured by the Soviets, 1,090,000 died in captivity. The official Soviet figures are that 2,388,000 POWs were taken, of which 356,000 died, though Western historians ( like the Maschke Committee) take the view that the number of German soldiers captured was far higher, but that a large number were killed soon after capture before they reached the POW camps

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if in doubt....Panic!!!!

I think it not only depends on which side or source you listen to,
but also 'when',
Von Luck, for instance, didn't return home till Jan 1950 and apparently others much later,
so they could have been missing from 1940s counts.

The American Senator John McCain has one thing I totally agree with, and that we can't expect the enemy to treat our people any better than we treat theirs.

I invited a friend here who has Ukrainian and Polish relatives and stories from family how terrible it was for them during the Second World War even 're-patriation'.

Your scale treatment will vary from culture to culter and to hold one nation to a stand that the other doesnt agree to makes no sense. I believe that John McCain was a POW in Vietman for the US, how did the US treat its POWs and how did the North Vietnamese?