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Questions about Allied troops in German captivity

Discussion in 'WWII General' started by sunny971, Sep 2, 2009.

  1. sunny971

    sunny971 Ace

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    I got a some question regarding allied POW's in German captivity.

    there were many thousands of British (and commonwealth), American & French troops that were captured throughout the war by the Nazis. I know of POW/labour camps in Germany.. But did they have the capacity to house that many troops? In some battles there would be thousands at a time rounded up.

    What were the conditions in these camps? How were they treated?
    Were they notorious like Dachau concentration camp for example?
    Correct me if i'm wrong, but i did read somewhere that american troops were sent to dacau, and some did die in the camp.


    I do know that the fate of the soviet prisioners of war were far worse than the other allied nations ..most did die in German captivity, through starvation and illness.. and even in the gas chambers.

    Here's an example, Rommel received orders from hitler to execute commandos, Jewish troops or any specified prisioners of war in his African and in French campaigns. As we know, Rommel did not carry out any these orders, which is one of the reasons why he is still respected today.

    But how much better off were these prisioners once they were taken out of Rommel's hands.. Especially for any Jewish soldiers... What happened with them?

    Are there any figures or stats on the number of allied troops in German captivity...if so, how many of them survived and died in captivity?


    Suzie
     
  2. sniper1946

    sniper1946 Expert

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  3. sniper1946

    sniper1946 Expert

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  4. mikebatzel

    mikebatzel Dreadnaught

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    Kai-Petri likes this.
  5. sniper1946

    sniper1946 Expert

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    nice spot mike,very good...a lot of interesting pics,ray.
     
  6. mikebatzel

    mikebatzel Dreadnaught

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    Thanks Ray. I thought this pic was the most telling. No words in the world can truly describe how woefully inadequate this stove is for heating those barracks
    [​IMG]
     
  7. sniper1946

    sniper1946 Expert

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    absolutely mike,very austere conditions for sure,I can't imagine how they got thro those weeks/months/yrs.....ray..
     
  8. sunny971

    sunny971 Ace

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    Very interesting facts and photos, Thanks guys...

    Based on the pictures, conditions seemed tolerable. Not great, but much better than what the soviets endured.. considering something like 3 millions soviet pow's died in nazi hands.

    It's good to know that western allied Jewish troops (acording to wikipedia) were excluded from Hitler's "final solution" and treated like other POW's

    it's important to note that the soviets , too, show alarming numbers as to how many germans pow's died in captivity

    "One specific example of the tragic fate of the German POWs was after the battle of stalingrad, during which the Soviets captured 91,000 German troops, many already starved and ill, of whom only 5,000 survived the war" - wikipedia

    That means in that one specific example, out of all the captured germans from stalingrad, 94% died in soviet captivity...


    It's hard to sit back and imagine what it would be like to be a soldier locked up in a foreign land, sick, hungry, and tortured ..praying for freedom, but left for dead.
    It's heart breaking

    Anyway, Thanks ray and mike for your help.
     
  9. Lost Watchdog

    Lost Watchdog Member

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    This interesting tread raises some points. The exclusion of western Jewish PoWs from the Final Solution has been questioned recently. Survivors have claimed to have seen men in US uniforms with yellow stars on them in the camps (cant remember the source) and some (non-Jewish) allied prisoners did end up in concentration camps - persistant escapers and downed airmen caught in civilian clothes (History Channel did a doco on one such aircrew).
    Also the death figure for Germans (and other Axis Pows) captured at Stalingrad is deceptive because the men were in an awful condition at the time of surrender after the long siege. By the end of the war the Russians viewed German prisoners as a resource - they were desperately short of labour to rebuild the USSR so killing them off was bad ecomonics.
     
  10. sniper1946

    sniper1946 Expert

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    The vast majority of US, British, Canadian soldiers were held in prisoner of war (POW) camps. A small number ended up in very harsh camps that were similiar to concentration camps.
     
  11. LRusso216

    LRusso216 Graybeard Staff Member

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    This is from a website maintained my Patrick Audinet on the 473rd Inf. Regt. I actually knew her father. He and my father were in the same company, and I met him at a few reunions.
    "Here is the account from Kathy Opalisky, the daughter of one of the patrol members.
    "My father, Staff Sgt. Lewis Opalisky, served the 473rd in the 3rd Battalion, Company K.... It was my father, in a patrol of four, that went across enemy lines in a minefield at Villa Sala. The mission according to my father was to get locations of their artillery and cut their communications. It is mentioned that the patrol was captured by the enemy together with a relief patrol.
    Two officers (names have been omitted because I have not tracked down the relatives for permission. ed) and my father, Lewis Opalisky, along with two medics, all of which wounded in this heavily mined area, were taken prisoner. When they were taken to an Italian hospital, all five of them had a leg amputated up to the knee. Within four days, three of the five of them were dead. My father and one other man survived and were POW's until the war's end.
    I understand that the other man died in 1970, and I just lost my dad in December 2003"
    Kathy Opalisky, 26 February 2006. Used by permission."


    The Battle History of the 473rd Infantry Regiment
     
  12. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Good Ol' Boy Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    By and large US soldiers of the Jewish faith held by the German armed forces were treated as dictated by the various treaties.

    I did, several years ago, see a televised interview of a US solder who testified that he was sent to Mauthausen, along with other Jewish PoWs, and not to a stalag.
     
  13. brndirt1

    brndirt1 Saddle Tramp

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    Then there was the problem of an allied soldier or airman being captured in "civies" while trying to get out of occupied territory. This put the "legally" into the spy category, and a number of them (under 50 I think) were the guests of the Gestapo instead of the armed forces. Their treatment wasn't covered by any "rules of war", or convention. The tender mercies of the Gestapo can only be imagined.
     
  14. redcoat

    redcoat Ace

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    The British often gave their Jewish troops, non-jewish identities in order to protect them if they were captured.
     
  15. DocCasualty

    DocCasualty Member

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    Was their any indication of religious affiliation on British dog tags? The "H" on American tags was obviously an all too clear indication.

    OT, but I always though it was kinda strange that the USA gave you three choices. If you didn't claim being Catholic or Jewish (Hebrew), that made you Protestant. Oh well, different times I guess.
     
  16. LRusso216

    LRusso216 Graybeard Staff Member

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    There is a brief treatment of this in O'Donnell's Brenner Assignment. It's the story of OSS operations behind German lines in Italy during 1944. The Gestapo (and Nazi leadership) determined that any Allied soldier caught behind the lines out of uniform was fair game, and not protected under any rules of warfare. The result was brutal.
     
  17. DocCasualty

    DocCasualty Member

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    I lifted that from Wiki but believe it to be accurate. Did the Western Allies view Axis soldiers captured out of uniform any differently than as spies? I'm not actually questioning about the issue of brutality between the Gestapo and Western Allies, but rather not necessarily affording them POW status.
     
  18. redcoat

    redcoat Ace

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    There was also Hitler's famous 'Commando order' in which he ordered that any allied soldiers found operating as a raiding party in German held territory even if they were in uniform were not to be taken prisoner, and that if they were, they were to be handed over to the Gestapo for execution.
    A number of high ranking German officers later faced war crime charges for obeying this illegal order.
     
  19. dogstar

    dogstar Dishonorably Discharged

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    Hi Not an expert on Allied POW's But as Russia didn't sign the Geneva convention prior to the War its POW's weren't treated under it and likewise the same for German soldiers captured by Soviet units. I had always belived the number of captured Wehrmacht at Stalingrad to be nearer 150 000 (there were 250 000 stranded there) with a little over 1 500 turning up some as late as the 1970's. As for the american POW's here is a quotation
    "Allan Wood, war front correspondent of the London Express, in summarizing German treatment of their prisoners said: "The most amazing thing about the atrocities in this war is that there have been so few of them. I have come up against few instances where the Germans have not treated prisoners according to the rules, and respected the Red Cross. " and furthermore Lieutenant Newton L. Marguiles, Assistant Judge Advocate of Jefferson Barracks, said in St. Louis, Mo., April 27, 1945: "The Germans even in their greatest moments of despair obeyed the Convention in most respects. True it is that there were front line atrocities - passions run high up there - but they were incidents, not practices; and maladministration of their American prison camps was very uncommon. and the final word goes to the The American Red Cross in 1945 reported officially that "99 per cent of the American prisoners of war in Germany have survived and are on their way home." Whereas the German POW's recievd completely the opposite as cited by the International Red Cross, the highest authority on the subject, which roundly condemned the slave system. As related from Geneva: "The United States, Britain, and France, nearly a year after peace, are violating International Red Cross agreements they solemnly signed in 1929. "Investigation at Geneva headquarters today disclosed that the transfer of German war prisoners captured by the American army to French and British authorities for forced labor is nowhere permitted in the statutes of the International Red Cross, which is the highest authority on the subject in the world. It must be emphasized, moreover, that many of the slaves were never German soldiers. Many were civilian Germans held in America during the war, including seamen picked up before we entered the war, former legal residents of the United States, and persons brought here by force from Latin America for having pro- German sentiments. Even anti-Nazi Germans who have voluntarily returned to Germany from America to help the military government rebuild the destroyed countries and to help families and friends in dire need have been nabbed for enslavement.
     
  20. gtblackwell

    gtblackwell Member Emeritus

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    I live in Auburn , Alabama, US. Our town shares a common border with Opelika, AL. In WW2 there was a German POW camp in Opelika, the remnants were still these until a few years ago. A lot of newspaper accounts and letters remain about the camp and all indicate the good conditions and relations there. Escape was pointless, where would one go, and the POW's planted gardens and made various toys and objects to sell. It was possible for them to attend the local cinema on Sundays as well as some churches....and buy local goods. Many of the POW's were better educated than some of the locals, this being Alabama in the 1940's. Ft. Benning was 35 miles away and the base where the Tuskegee Airman trained somewhat less. there appear to be few incidents of any friction. Another POW camp existed in Aliceville, AL, on the Mississippi border. Contemporary accounts say it gradually developed and orchestra, some instruments being made, the others were gifts or lent. True orchestras playing Bach or Beethoven were unheard of in rural Alabama then and now. Two former American POW's lived in my home town of Selma when I was young, I was born in 1940, They were both former 8th Army air Force. One said little but the other felt conditions in his camp hard but bearable. He seemed to hold no grudges.

    Unrelated but of interest, Hannah Berger, 92 died yesterday in Selma. When I was young she lived two doors away. Her mother was the only human being I have ever meet that had a concentration camp number on her arm. She was in Thereisenstadt on the Czech-German border. I was in college before I realized how meeting her was such an honor. Years later I visited that camp in her memory.

    GB
     
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