PRISONERS OF WAR (POWS) WWII – Part I
Not all prisoners were ‘cowered’ or ‘defeated’!
In 1929, the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) replaced the Hague Convention of 1907 regarding protection of POWs. The Hague Convention had dealt primarily with the means of war (for example, it prohibited the use of exploding bullets), whereas the Geneva Convention dealt exclusively with the protection of victims of war. It held that POWs should be considered on a par with the detaining power’s garrison troops as far as rations, living space, clothing, and access to medical care were concerned. It also addressed such issues as permissible work and punishment and access to letters and packages. Forty powers signed the convention, but the Soviet Union did not, meaning that prisoners taken by its forces were not subject to Geneva Convention protection. Although the Japanese delegates at Geneva signed the POW convention, the Tokyo government never ratified it. Its military leaders assumed no Japanese would be taken prisoner and that the convention would thus be applied unilaterally. Cultural attitudes also played an important role, and authorized punishments for POWs were much milder than those the Japanese meted out to their own soldiers. Although in 1942 the Japanese government pledged to live up to the spirit of the convention, its treatment of Allied POWs during the war clearly ran counter to its assurance.
Western Europe
During World War II in Europe and North Africa, the Axis powers captured some 8.5 to 9 million enemy soldiers, of whom 6 million—the vast majority—were Soviets. In turn, the Allies took some 8.25 million Axis soldiers captive, 3.4 million of whom surrendered with the end of hostilities on the Western Front.
Few problems were reported for prisoners held by the Italian government. Experiences for POWs held by the Germans varied according to their citizenship. Treatment was decidedly better for western Europeans and North Americans than for those from eastern or southern Europe. The Germans did not expend scarce resources on the prisoners, however. Thus, in consequence of the high number of parcels sent to western Allied POWs, the German government decided to cut food rations to U.S. and British Commonwealth POWs by one third, forcing these Allied governments to subsidize German Geneva Convention obligations. The Germans did, however, employ many of its French and Belgian POWs in labor activities (such as the armaments industry) that directly benefited the German war effort.
The Germans organized their POW camps quite methodically. Internally, the camps were run by the prisoners. Generally there was an SAO—Senior Allied Officer or Senior American Officer, depending on the mix of prisoners. Officers were segregated from enlisted men. Stalags were camps that held enlisted personnel as well as noncommissioned officers. Oflags were camps with only officers and some noncommissioned officers. In stalags, there was generally a “man of confidence” who was usually elected by his fellow POWs, although on occasion he was appointed by the Germans.
Camps usually contained more than one compound, and prisoners were segregated among the compounds by uniform, not by claimed citizenship. Hence, U.S. personnel who flew with the RAF and were captured in RAF uniform were considered to be British and housed with British flyers. Compounds held French, Russians, British, Commonwealth, and various other nationalities. Some camps held only one nationality; some held many different nationalities.
There were also prisoner-of-war camps located in areas that held concentration camps. Auschwitz, which is known for being an extermination center, was actually a complex of camps comprising more than just the extermination center. French, Soviet, and other nationalities of POWs were held there. Two exceptions to the generally satisfactory German treatment of western POWs came in Hitler’s Commando Order of October 1942, which allowed the killing out-of-hand of Allied commandoes, and Berga, a Buchenwald subcamp that held 352 U.S. “Jewish” POWs. Of that number, only 70 were actually Jewish, but the others were chosen by the Germans because they “appeared” Jewish. Prisoners were regularly beaten and starved, and several were murdered.
There have been unsubstantiated charges in recent years of British and U.S. mistreatment of German POWs in the months immediately following the end of the war in Europe. There is, however, no proof of this nor of any widespread mistreatment of Axis prisoners of war by British and U.S. authorities during the war itself.
North America
When the United States entered World War II, little thought had been given to the establishment of POW facilities. In March 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the evacuation of Japanese Americans from “military areas,” especially on the West Coast of the United States. Ultimately some 120,000 Japanese Americans were affected. Although they were not called prisoners of war, they were interned in camps in Wyoming, California, Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, and Arkansas.
Following the Axis defeat in North Africa, large numbers of German and Italian POWs were brought to camps in the United States. Ultimately, some 425,000 Axis prisoners of war were held in the United States. By the end of the war, the United States had established 141 permanent base camps and 319 branch camps, each holding an average of about 2,500 prisoners. Given the labor shortage in the United States because of the demands of the war, many of the POWs went to work, but they were paid for their labor according to rank. Officers were not required to work, although several did accept supervisory positions. Contractors who hired the POWs paid the U.S. government some $22 million for their services, so that the program was nearly self-sufficient. By the end of the war, of 370,000 POWs in the United States, nearly 200,000 were employed in nonmilitary jobs, most of them in agriculture. Conditions in the U.S. camps were generally excellent. The major problem came from die-hard Nazi fellow prisoners, who had to be segregated in special camps.
Following the war, several U.S.-held POWs were turned over to France and Britain to work in mines and help clear bombed roads and cities. Most of these POWs were repatriated to Germany in late 1947 and early 1948, embittered over their postwar treatment.
