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The POW experience varied widely depending on what country captured them and to a lesser extent when. Both the Axis and the Soviets committed horrendous war crimes in their treatment of POWs. China probably had the largest numbers of men captured in World War II, but they did not have the the largest numbers of POWs. This is because the Japanese murdered almost all of the Chinese soldiers they captured rather than holding them as POWs. As brutally as the Germans treated POWs, it would be the fate of the German soldiers to be taken captive in larger numbers than any other country. Most survived because of the greater humanity of their captors. Even the Soviets treated the Germans better than than the Germans treated the Soviet POWs. Large numbers of Soviet troops were taken prisoner, but unlike the Germans, most did not survive because not only of the brutality of the Germans, but the commission of mass murder as an actual and major war goal. Nearly 60 percent of the Soviet POWs perished, the highest death total in the War -- expect for Japanese treatment of the Chinese. Compared to the huge numbers of German and Soviet POWs, only small numbers of soldiers from the Western Allies were taken as POWs. The exception here was the French Army. Nearly 2 million French soldiers surrendered to the Germans as a result of the Western Offensive (June 1940). Large numbers of Italians were made POWs, over 1 million men. Ironically the largest numbers were taken by the Germans when they seized control of Italy (1943). The Germans committed numerous atrocities against their former allies in the process. Strangely, as fiercely as the Japanese fought during the War, the Japanese had one of the largest numbers of POWs after the War. Only a handful of Japanese surrendered during the War. Some 1 million surrendered to the Soviets in Manchuria at the end of the War. Another 1 million surrendered to the Chinese. We do not yet have the number who surrendered to the British Empire forces in Southeast Asia, but it was several million.
Africans did not participate in World War II in large numbers. The largest number was Ethiopians when the Italians invaded (1935). There were also small numbers who participated as British and French Empire forces. The Germans murdered many of the African colonial soldiers fighting with the French (Junw 1940).
Some 95,000 Americans were captured and interned as POWs in World War II. Most American World War II POWs were taken by the Japanese and the Germans. A small number were taken by the Italians.
Most of the Americans captured by the Japanese were taken in the Philippines after the in the first months of the Pacific War. Japanese barbarity was evident from the very beginning with the Bataan Death March (April 1942). After the Philippines campaign, most of the American POWs held by the Japanese were airmen. Almost all of the small number of Americans captured in the island campaigns were tortured and murdered by the Japanese and never held as POWs. Japanese treatment of POWs was brutal. Very large numbers died while in Japanese hands. If the Americans had not ended the Pacific War with the two atomic bombs in August 1945, few of the Americans and other Allied POWs in Japanese would have survived the War, as it was the death rate was appalling high. This was also the case for Allied civilian internees. Many of the American POWs taken by the Germans were airmen shot down over the Reich as part of the strategic bombing campaign (1943-45). Smaller numbers were taken in North Africa, Italy, and France. The largest number of infantrymen were taken during the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944). German treatment of American POWs was largely correct, although there were some incidents involving German murder of POWs--mostly prominently Malmedy. These were largely SS executions. The Germans did try to identify Jewish POWs who were then transferred to concentration camps where the changes of survival were very low. But most American (as well as British and French POWs) survived the War. The high survival rate was due to several factors. First, unlike Soviet POWs, the German goal was not to murder them. Of course we do not know what would have happened to the POWs had the Germans won the War. Second, the delivery of life saving Red Cross packages was arranged to supplement the meager German food. Third, by 1943 when the first American POWs were taken in any number, it was increasingly clear that Germany was not going to win the War. It was not yet clear that NAZI Germany was going to be catastrophically defeated, but it was clear that there would be no great victory as Hitler had envisioned.
Japan after seizing Manchuria and other northern Chinese provinces, invaded China (1937), 2 years before war broke out in Europe (1937). With the German invasion of Poland (1939), the war in China became part of what we now know as World War II. Chinese POWs are, however, often absent in discussions of POWs. This may be because the Japanese after more than 8 years of fighting had no Chinese POWs to release when they surrendered (August 1945). They had murdered almost all of the men they captured. Strangely, this is massive atrocity is often omitted in discussions of Japanese war crimes. The Chinese captives who survived, were those who agreed to join the Wang Jingwei puppet Chinese Government--the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China. No data exists on the number of Chinese POWs murdered by the Japanese. They did not keep records and the neither the Nationalists who did most of the fighting or the Communists have any idea, but it would have been several million men. A figure of 5 million would not be unreasonable, but it could be easily be more. A complication here are the irregulars operating as partisan soldiers behind Japanese lines. Under the terms of the Geneva Convention, they can not be considered as legitimate soldiers. But the Japanese were not a signatory of the Convention and murdered the legitimate soldiers they captured. Thus the definition of who was a legitimate soldier has to be assessed beyond the formal definition of the Geneva Convention. Better if incomplete records exists for other countries.
The British Indian Army played an important role in both theaters of War. They fought in the Middle East when British forces were especially week and were vital in Britain holding its position in East Africa, Egypt, and Iraq. Some Indians were captured by the Italians and Germans. We do not yet have any information on them. The NAZIs did not rank Indians high on their racial square, but they were part of the British Army and for the most part British POWs were treated correctly. After Pearl Harbor (December 1941) the British needed to redeploy these troops to India, specially after Alamein (October 1942). The situation worsened with the fall of Singapore (February 1942). The Japanese captured many Indian soldiers, especially when Singapore fell (February 1942). Many joined the pro-Japanese Indian National Army (INA). Those that did not were brutalized by the Japanese. Large numbers perished because of abuse and mistreatment. Others were actually murdered, including being used for target practice. The British took INA soldiers captive when they drove the Japanese out of Burma (1945).
Strangely, as fiercely as the Japanese fought during the War, the Japanese had one of the largest numbers of POWs after the War--probably about 2.5 million men. Here we are not counting Japanese forces on the Home Islands preparing to resist the American invasion. These forces were not interned by the Allies. The Japanese were allowed to demobilize them and send them home. They were not held as POWs. Only a handful of Japanese soldiers surrendered during actual war-time battles. Actually many POWs were men that were so badly wounded that they could not resist being taken prisoner and were at first deeply ashamed as they recovered. These were extremely small numbers of men in World War II terms. One estimate puts it at something like 35,0000 men, although there are slightly lower and higher estimates. Something approaching 1 million men surrendered to the Soviets in Manchuria at the end of the War. Slightly more than 1 million men surrendered to the Chinese immediately after the War. We do not yet have the number who surrendered to the British Empire forces in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, but it would have been under 1 million men. Only about 50,000 men were left when Gen Yamashita finally surrendered to the Americans on the Philippines. A reader writes, "It's not strange that so many Japanese soldiers surrendered after the war. They were still obediently following the orders of the Emperor to surrender." Absolutely correct, especially with the soldiers. The officer corps was more of a wild card. But it is also true that the Emperor was afraid to resist the military as they moved toward war because he feared being removed. And the military did invade the Imperial Palace to stop his surrender broadcast (August 1945). I have always wondered what would have happened had we not used the atomic bomb. I personally think it was the bomb which changed the mindset of the Imperial officer corps, or at least gave them a plausibly honorable excuse. That was the exit that th Emperor chose. It was, however, unclear at the time what the Japanese units in Southeast Asian were going to do. As with the Germans, the fate of the Japanese POWs depending on whether they were held by the Soviets or Western Allies. The Japanese were concerned about how they would be treated by the Chinese, given the barbarity of their treatment of Chinese soldiers captured. The Chinese Nationalists, however, treated the Japanese correctly. We are unsure about the Communists, but believe that except for Manchuria where the Japanese surrendered to the Soviets, most Japanese forces surrendered to the Nationalists. One notable aspect of the Japanese POW story is that Japanese soldiers were not allowed to surrender, what ever the circumstances. Most countries were concerned about their POWs and tried to aid them such as sending packages and letters. (The Japanese and Soviets were an exception.) The Japanese military government during the War made no such effort and considered such men as cowards and traitors. The Government sought to suppress information about captured personnel and did not inform relatives when the Red Cross provided POW information. In fact after the war, the POWs that had surrendered during the War were initially treated with considerable disdain. This gradually changed as the Japanese people came to have a better, if imperfect understanding of the War.
The Germans invaded Belgian and the Netherlands launching their great Western offensive (May 10, 1940). The Belgians had a larger army than the Dutch and attempted a serious resistance. There had, however, been no pre-War planning with the Allies. They moved north to assist, but the spectacular German seizure of fort Eben-Emael, impaired the Belgian defense from the beginning. After only 18 days of fighting, King Leopold surrendered to the Germans (May 28). This almost wrecked the Allied Dunkirk invasion. The Germans deported some 225,000 men (bout 30 percent of Belgian Army) to camps in the Reich. Gradually POWs were repatriated, mostly men of Flemish origin (1940-41). Some 70,000 Belgian POWs remained in German hands throughout the War. About 1,800 died in the German camps, about 1 percent. This was a very high survival rate.
Britain was one of the three Allied countries that waged war on Germany from the outset of World War II, the others being Poland and France (September 1939). British land forces, however, did not engage the Germans until first Norway and then Belgium and France. This was when the first POWs were taken. The British Expeditionary Force and French allies manages to escape capture as a result of the Dunkirk evacuation (May 1940), but many men were captured. Overall more than 170,000 British prisoners of war (POWs) were taken by German and Italian forces during the War. They were captured in a string of stunning defeats in Belgium-France, North Africa, and the Balkans between (1940-42). After that many British airmen were captured as a result of the Strategic Bombing Campaign (1942-45). They were held in a network of POW camps stretching across NAZI-occupied Poland to Italy, but not in France. With the onset of the Pacific War and the Japanese offensive beginning with Pearl Harbor , the Japanese took British prisoners in Shanghai and Hong Kong, but the largest group was taken with the fall of Singapore (February 1942). Some 80,000 men surrendered there, but many were Australian and Indian along with a small Malay unit. German and Italian internement with exceptions was relatively correct. The Germans did not have the genocidal impulse toward the British that they had for the Soviets. Red Cross packages were another important reason for the high survival rate. Food supplies were short in Britain, but American and Canadian food supplies help put together the life saving packages. The survival rate in Germans camps was very high, over 96 percent. It was slightly lower than the American rate, primarily because that many British POWs had been interned for a longer period. Japanese internment was not correct. The Japanese were extraordinarily brutal. The survival rate was much lower in Japanese hands, only 75 percent. In the final months of the war, the death rate was increasing due to the terrible conditions in the Japanese camps. Few would have survived if the United States had not ended the war by dropping the two atomic bombs (August 1945).
Czechoslovakia was dismembered by the NAZIs and portioned (March 1939). We are not sure what happened to the Czech Army. The NAZIs disarmed and disbanded it. As far as we know the soldiers were not made POWs. We do not know if the Germans arrested the Army leadership. Thus during the War, a Czech state did not exist. Some former Czech citizens fought with the German and Hungarian forces. This involved almost no ethnic Czechs. Czechoslovakia was a multi-ethnic state. It was mostly Czechs, ethnic Germans, Hungarians, and Slovaks). Some 38,000 were captured by the Soviets. Resistance groups were formed. Here former Czech Army military commanders played an important role. The most significant resistance group was the Obrana národa. This was a coalition cooperating with the military command of the Czechoslovakian government-in-exile. There was also the Politické ústredí (politicians sympathetic to Edvard Benes), Peticní vybor Verni zustaneme (social democrats and leftists), and the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The Communists, however, were not active until the German invasion of the Soviet Union (June 1941).
The history of Estonian World War II POWs mostly deals with the men who fought with the Germans after the NAZI invasion of the Soviet Union, but in actuality in began in earnest a year earlier when Estonia was invaded and annexed by the Soviet Union (June 1940). The NKVD proceeded to conduct mass political arrests, deportations, and executions. The Estonian Army was disbanded. We have few further details. We do not believe the men were held as POWs, but the NKVD targeted military officers, especially the higher officers who disappeared into the Gulag. The NKVD arrested over 8,000 people, including most of the country's leading politicians and military officers. Some 2,200 of them were executed in Estonia, while the rest were deported to Soviet camps. Very few ever returned. Little information is available on individuals. The NKVD captured the Commander-in-chief of the Estonian Army, Johan Laidoner (July 19, 1940). He was deported with his wife to Penza. They were taken to Kirov Prison via Moscow. In 1945–1952 Laidoner was held in the Ivanovo Prison (1945-52). He was taken to Moscow where he was sentenced to 25 years in prison (1952). Laidoner died the following year in the Vladimir Prison Camp (1953). ["John Laidoner"] The fate of few of the other officers arrested by the NKVD is so well documented. The NKVD arrested about 800 Estonian officers, about half of whom were executed or starved to death in prison camps.
Compared to the huge numbers of German and Soviet POWs, only small numbers of the Western Allies were taken as POWs. The exception here was the French Army. Nearly 2 million French soldiers surrendered to the Germans as a result of the Western Offensive (June 1940). They were interned in the Reich as POWs. For the most part they were treated correctly, except for the African colonial soldiers. The Germans shot many of them. The Germans released Belgian and Dutch POWs during the War, but refused to release French POWs. Hitler used them as a bargaining chip to ensure French compliance with the terms of the 1940 armistice meaning collaboration. Many of the French POWs were not held in POW camps, but farmed out for work assignments. Many worked on German farms where conditions, especially access to food, were better than in the POW camps. This was allowed by the Geneva Convention, although the Germans often forced the officers to work , which was not. Conditions in the camps were poor, but not genocidal. Conditions declined toward the end of the War as the Germans were driven out of the occupied countries and no longer able to exploit the economies of those countries.
As brutally as the Germans treated POWs, it would be the fate of the German soldiers to be taken captive in larger numbers than many other country. Most survived because of the greater humanity of their captors. Even the Soviets treated the Germans better than than the Germans treated the Soviet POWs. Over 6 million Germans were taken as POWs. About half by the Soviets and half by the Western Allies The Soviets took 3 million German POWs. This began with the counter-offensive before Moscow, but most were taken in the final year of the War. The vast majority taken in the last year of the War. In the final months, the Wehrmacht attempted to move as many of its men west as possible so they could surrender to the Western Allies. This is part of the reason that the primary reason the Western Allies took so many German POWs. The fate of the German POWs depended significantly on whether they were held by the Soviets or Western Allies.
Large numbers of Italians were made POWs, something like 1.5 million men. Italians were captured by the Soviets in the East, mostly at Stalingrad (November 1942). The Soviets captured some 60,000 Italian, destroying the Italian Army in Russia (Armata Italiana in Russia -- ARMIR).. The Western Allies captured many more in East Africa, North Africa, and Sicily (1940-43). That total comes to about 0.5 million. Almost all of the Italian POWs held by the Western Allies survived the War. Few of the Italians captured by the Soviets survived. Ironically the largest numbers of Italian POWs were taken by the Germans when they seized control of Italy--over 1 million men were seized, although a number managed to escape (September 1943). Some 0.8 million were transported to the Reich for slave labor under brutal condition. [Moore] The Germans committed numerous atrocities against their former allies in the process. The Allies also used the Italian POWs for labor, but the conditions were correct and they were well fed and received medial care. They were not returned to Italy until after the War. Almost all survived. After the Italian surrender to the Western Allies (September 1943), the Italian military that escaped German internment was not held as POWs because Italy had switched sides. They did not, however, play a significant role in the Italian campaign.
Hitler and Stalin launched World War II by invading Poland (September 1939). Over 4 million Polish soldiers were captured in World Ware II, mostly by the Germans. Poland had a large but poorly equipped army. Some 4 million Polish soldiers were captured by the Germans. Unlike the subsequent treatment of Soviet POWs, the Germans did not set out to murder the Polish POWs, except for the Jewish Poles, many of whom were shot before reaching POW camps. This was before the murderous ideas of NAZIs like Generalplan Ost had been been fully formulated. The Wehrmacht was unprepared for such large numbers and conditions rapidly deteriorated in the POW camps. The Soviets invaded Poland 2 weeks after the Germans. The exact number is unknown but is estimated at 0.2-0.4 million men. Most were taken as a result of the initial invasion, more were added when the Soviets invaded Lithuania (June 1940). The men were poorly cared for and by the time that they were released after the German Barbarossa invasion were walking skeletons. The NKVD shot many officers. The Katyn massacre is one example if this operation. During the Tehran Conference (November 1943), Stalin suggested shooting 50,000 German officers. Roosevelt reacted it as a joke. (He may have not known that Stalin was serious.) Stalin was not joking. Just look at Katyn. Churchill understood that he was serious.
Some 4-6 million Soviet Red Army soldiers were taken prisoner during World War II. German policy was basically to murder them, by starvation and exposure to the elements. This was essentially part of Generalplan Ost, the murder and enslavement of most Eastern European peoples in the former Soviet Union. And the Hunger Plan, the German plan to starve millions of Slavs and other Eastern Europeans. What is notable here is that this was done by the Wehrmacht in POW camps, not by the SS in Concentration Camps. More than 3 million men Soviet soldiers perished in German hands, mostly in 1941-42. This is something like 60 percent of the Soviet soldiers in German hands. (This is a rough approximation because of the actual number of Soviet POWs is not known with any precision.) Here we are not talking about battlefield casualties, but the murder of men who had surrendered. As the War began to go against the Germans and labor shortages occurred, the Germans improved conditions, but only marginally. The Soviets regarded and treated their men captured by the Germans very differently than the Western Allies. The Soviet Government made no effort to assist the POWs in German hands. They were treated as traitors. Stalin disowned his son Yakov who the Germans captured. After the War, the Soviets treated the freed POWs were great suspicion and many were punished in various ways when they returned home. Some were arrested and committed to the Gulag.
Moore, Bob. "Enforced Diaspora: The Fate of Italian Prisoners of War during the Second World War." War in History Vol. 22, No. 2 (April 2015), pp. 174-90.
"John Laidoner," The Estonian War Museum - General Laidoner Museum, undated. Retrieved July 28, 2007.
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