Figure 1.--Here SS Reichführer Himmiler inspects a make-shift Wehrmacht POW camp somwhere in the East (probably July 1942). I'm not sure who the Wehrmacht officr is. At the time the Wehrmacht commandrs and NAZI leadrship believed they has won the War, in part becuse of the huge numbers of POWs taken. These Soviet POWs were captured at the onset of the War. Some 5 million Soviet POW were captured, only about 2 million survived the War, most of the survivors were taken after the 1941 Barbarossa campaign.

German treatment of POWs was one of the great attriocities of World War II, only eclipsed by the Hollocaust and ovrall Hunger Plan. It was in fact one of the key elements of the Hunger Plan. And much of the killing was done by the Wehrmacht, not the SS, in Whermacht camps. This is one of the less reported German attrocities because the victims were mostly Polish and Soviet POWs. The Germans conducted the killing by simply putting th men behind barbed wire enclosures and providing them very little food or even basic shelter. Many Soviet POWs received at most a ration of only 700 calories a day, a fraction of what was needed to sustin life. The Wehrmacht called this a 'subsistence' ration. The POWs were often given special 'Russian' bread concocted from sugar beet husks and straw flour--having virtually no nutritional value. Soviet POWs began dieing even before the winter weather setin. Some POW camps had only pavilions (basic structures with roofs but no walls). Some camps did not even have pavilions. Emaciated and exposed to the winter weather, the Soviet POWs died in apauling numbers. Only a small fractin of the POWs taken in Barbarossa srvived the War. The Germans only moderaed their genocidal policies when the War began togo against them. More Germans had to be conscripted, creating a labor shortage. The POWs that managed to survive could be used as slave labor. And the survivors suffering did not end with liberation. Under Stalin's orders, the NKVD arested many of the suvivors because they did not fight to the death. Western POWS were trated more correctly, although Jewish POWs were separated out. The German treatedment of POWs was severe, but not genocidal. There were, however, exceptions. The SS was especially prone to shooting POWs. Americans are most famiiar with the Malmedy massacres. There were other similar instances. Another attrocity was the shooting of men involved in the Great Escape. The Hollywood film is based on an actual event. Some 76 Allied airmen (Mostly British) broke out of Luftwaffe Stalag Luft III near Berlin. It was the largest breakout of World War II POWs. Only three of the escapees actually made it to safety. The Germans recaptured 73 men and on Hitler's direct ordes, the Gestapo shot 50 of the men. When the British Government learned what had hppened Primeminister Churchill ordered an investigation and pledged to bring the perpetratiors to justice. After the War, a team of military police headed by Squadron Leader Francis P. McKenna was dispached to Germany to track down the perpetrators. [Read]

Sources

Read, Simon. Human Game: The True Stiory of 'The Great Escape' Murders and the Hunt for the Gestapo Gunmen (2012), 320p.

Created: 1:13 AM 11/5/2012
Last updated: 1:13 AM 11/5/2012