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German POWs and the Art of SurvivalBy Simon Rees | Military History | 12 comments | Print This Post | Email This Post Götterdämmerung—“Twilight of the Gods”—Adolf Hitler’s parting legacy to Europe. Nothing was to be left for the victorious Allies. Where there had been cities, they would find rubble. Where there had been cultivated fields, they would find wilderness. The Führer and his henchmen came close to achieving this goal. Agricultural production had ground to a halt, while in urban centers millions had been bombed out of their homes and were living on the edge of starvation. Distribution of the limited stockpiles of food was severely constrained by the smashed state of Central Europe’s rail and transport infrastructure. To the west the population was swelling daily as an estimated 12 to 14.5 million fled Russian-occupied territory. Survivors of the Nazi slave labor and death camps were in desperate need of aid, as were thousands of newly released Allied POWs. The Western Allies and Soviets were forced to make some tough choices concerning German and Axis prisoners of war. Subscribe Today
Under the 1929 Geneva Convention, POWs were entitled to a diet equivalent to that of the occupying troops. Given the circumstances in Europe at the end of the war, however, a 2,000-calorie diet, the recommended daily minimum, would have been impossible to maintain. The bulk of Allied shipping was now earmarked for the Pacific theater; only when the war had been won would supplies be diverted to Europe. In early April 1945, the United States was responsible for 313,000 prisoners in Europe; by month’s end this total had shot up to 2.1 million. After the fall of the Third Reich, the number rose to a staggering 5 million German and Axis POWs. Of those, an estimated 56,000, or about 1 percent, died—roughly equal to the mortality rate American POWs suffered in German hands. Those held in Soviet-occupied territory fared far worse. Officially, the Soviet Union took 2,388,000 Germans and 1,097,000 combatants from other European nations as prisoners during and just after the war. More than a million of the German captives died. The immense suffering Germany and her Axis partners had caused surely played a key role in the treatment of enemy POWs. “In 1945, in Soviet eyes it was time to pay,” wrote British military historian Max Arthur. “For most Russian soldiers, any instinct for pity or mercy had died somewhere on a hundred battlefields between Moscow and Warsaw.” Josef Stalin’s regime was ill equipped to deal with prisoners: In 1943 as more enemy units fell into Soviet hands, death rates among POWs lingered around 60 percent. Roughly 570,000 German and Axis prisoners had already died in captivity. By March 1944, conditions began to improve, but for economic reasons: As its manpower was swallowed up in the war effort, the USSR turned to POWs as a surrogate work force. While POWs were not technically part of the gulag system, the lines were often blurred. Camps and detainment centers often comprised poorly constructed huts that offered scant protection from bitter Russian winter winds. The Soviet Union repatriated prisoners at irregular intervals, sometimes in large numbers. As late as 1953, however, at least 20,000 German POWs remained in Russia. After Stalin’s death, those men were finally sent home. As a young teen in 1939, Milan Lorman witnessed the Nazi dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and the creation of Slovakia as a satellite state of the Third Reich. Lorman’s father, a poor country teacher, diligently traced the family’s Germanic roots to claim entitlements offered by the Third Reich to those of German origin. But there was a cost for such subsidies: In 1943 a letter arrived asking Lorman’s father why his son, now 18, had not volunteered for the SS. The letter alluded to the cessation of entitlements should the teenager fail to join. Under great pressure, young Lorman accepted his fate and volunteered for the Waffen SS. Pages: 1 2 3 4 5Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to
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12 Comments to “German POWs and the Art of Survival”
Can any one tell me, even in rough terms, the percentage of German POWS that remained in America after WWII. I cannot seem to find it any where on-line. Thanks fo any suggestions.
Bennie
By Ben Rayner on Jul 5, 2008 at 1:58 pm
There are at least 1% of German/Axis POW (of more than 420 thousand incarcerated) remained in the U.S. who didn’t want to return by the end of 1947. Especially of the few thousand Russian Red army who switched side and fought for the Nazi in the western front. Unfortunately they were repatriated to Gulag by Stalin’s order.
There are many others who befriend the locals around the area nearby, married American women and stay after the war. Most of them are located in the mid-west where majority Americans are German or central Europena decendents. I remember talking to a lady in Memphis, TN back in the 1970′ when she remembered fondly the German POW boys she and her friends used to social with. Apparently most of the POW camps had very relaxed control then and even allowed inmates to go out to the towns.
There are some German POW, who after repatriation, couldn’t find jobs in 1950′ Germany and decided to come back to U.S. by immigration.
By George Chen on Jul 26, 2008 at 4:20 am
I cannot find books or articles about German POWs in USSR, before the end of WWII and after WWII. I kow alot of German POWS died due to hard labor and diseases. The Russians would not give the Red Cross a list of German POWs. Did any of the POWs that were eventually released (some) in 1955, write a book?
Did the German government help these men with jobs, housing?
What happened to the POWS that had homes in E. Germany?
I am really upset that Roosevelt and Churchill did nothing to help these Germans. Stalin was playing them as fools and they just followed. I read Stalin viewed Roosevelt as an invalid, and Churchill as a drunk. The Russians committed terrible crimes.
By Daphne Gilbertson on Nov 25, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Those switched russian pows or general Vlasov soldiers sent to gulags further they sent to various hard labor camps. One group of them came to Mongolia during early 50’s and built Mongolian railroad. Also japanese pows used in various hard labor camps in several Mongolian locations.
By Orgo on Dec 8, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Its not surprising that most of the German POW’s that ended up in the hands of the Russian didn’t survive…..There would not have been a war crimes trial after the war if Stalin had had his way…..he wanted to line all the Nazi leaders up and shoot them…
He told Truman and Churchill that holding a trial was a total waste of time……
I believe the Russians looked upon German POW’s as less than human and basically wanted revenge for what the Germans had done to the Russians earlier….With that being said, the Russians had very little compassion or empathy for any of the people they “liberated” in Eastern Europe. I use the term “liberated” very loosely….
Look at the Katyn incident that happened early on…over 20,000 Poles were line up and shot by the Russians and then buried in mass graves….
Stalin was determined to expand/extend communism over the “liberated” nations of Eastern Europe. He promised both FDR and Churchill that “free elections” would be held in Eastern Europe once the war was over, but he never really planned to follow through with his promise….Churchill knew that and said that very thing to FDR but FDR was determined to give “Uncle Joe” the benefit of the doubt…..
The conquest/partition of Poland had been on the drawing board for both Stalin and Hitler for a long time…..years before the German attack on Poland in 1939.
The neutrality treaty signed by both Stalin and Hitler prior to the war, clearly out-lined what was going to happen to Poland and what part of Poland was going to the Russians and what part would be given to Germany…..
Keep in mind that Poland had been recreated at the end of World War I and most of the land that was set aside for the new Poland came from previous German and Russian territory…
By Larry Burgess on May 20, 2009 at 2:21 pm
My father-in-law was a German SS officerand POW who was held in Tennesee. Hremained in the USA after the war. He married my wife’s mother and still lives in Montana at age 90 with her. He receives veteren benefits from Germany every month still! He said he worked on a flower farm as a prisoner and was treated so well he wanted to remain here. He was a panzer commander for the SS Totenkopf division but was not a war criminal. He does have the tattoo under his armpit. He has only returned to germany maybe 2 times. He loves the USA.
By Seattle Mike on May 21, 2009 at 11:14 am
Interesting to hear about your father in law ; I am making a book about lost German prisoners in Russia and USA and already found some interesting stories
Could you please contact me on my email Adam.all@mail.ru
Regards
Adam
By Adam on May 24, 2009 at 7:44 am
it is sad that so many german soldiers were missing after the war,the russians were truly ruthless toward the german soldier and with good reason,however all these german soldiers who surrendered should have had the chance to start over their lives, many lives were cut short,much suffering was present,to not know the fate of loved ones who fought in the war is simply intolerable.
By christopher paul weber on May 26, 2009 at 1:28 am
My father was in the 186th FA Battalion, US First Army from Normandy to the war’s end. After VE Day, they were scheduled to return to the US and prepare for the invasion of Japan. Thankfully, the bombs made that unnecessary. As my father had prior service, he had enough points to get an early discharge. He was sent west from Czechoslovakia to Cherbourg for his return home in September 1945.
As he crossed Germany, he noticed railway trains packed with German prisoners also heading west. He asked where they were going, and was told they were being sent to work in France – as slave laborers! He told me that made him very angry, saying “That was the sort of thing we had been fighting to stop.” He was a conscript himself, and said so had most of the German soldiers been. They had not wanted the war. He said it was right to make Germany pay reparations, but it was wrong to turn ordinary Germans into slaves. Yet such was the fate of many prisoners for years after the war, and not only in the East.
My dad had met the Russians on the Elbe and later in Czechoslovakia. He told of pulling back from captured villages, then seeing the Russians move in and immediately begin looting (or worse). My mother told me one of the first things my father said about the war was that the US quit too soon. He said the US was the only country with the atomic bomb, and should have told Stalin the war was over and the Russians should go back to their own borders. He mentioned how both Hitler and Stalin had attacked Poland and begun WWII as allies. It has always amazed me that Britain and France declared war only on Hitler. Were they afraid of Stalin?
Future historians may well regard the mid-20th Century as a time when civilization went backwards, instead of forwards. It was a return to barbarism.
By Charles Rice on Jun 3, 2009 at 9:44 pm
I’m not sure that only 56,000 German prisoners died in US captivity. The writer James Bacque in his book ‘Other Losses’ mentions around a million fatalities. I do think this is exaggerated, but i reckon the truth is somewhere in between. The French were particularly vicious in their treatment of German prisoners, and they had much less reason to hate them than the Russians. I should also mention that in WW1 German prisoners were also very badly treated by the Russians, so it wasn’t something you could just blame on the Communists. I guess it’s a Slavic thing – just look at the war in Bosnia in the 1990s.
By Mark LV on Aug 7, 2009 at 8:21 pm