Mail from POWs

World War II General WWII Discussion
#1

Hi everyone,

One thing that I’ve always been interested in is the delivery of mail from POWs (either Allied or Axis). How did the process work? At some point, the letters needed to be exchanged between enemies at/near the front lines and the limited resources of both sides had to spent on accepting this mail. I tried looking online for some research on this but mostly came up empty. Does anyone have any information about this? I assume that exchanges happened much more frequently between Germans and Americans rather than between Germans and Soviets.

Thanks in advance!

#2

I believe it was done via the help of both Red Cross-type organizations and neutral nations. That would avoid your idea of “front line” exchanges. But my comment is based on vague recollection, not any facts or sources I can point to…

#3

Thanks, that would make sense. Still, the Red Cross would need to cross over hostile borders, which was extremely dangerous. Tha