Does anyone know how the defeated German armed forces were treated by the Allied occupying authorities immediately after the war? I read somewhere that German soldiers were incarcerated for two years! This seems hardly fair, imprisoning an 18- or 19-year-old draftee, although I can understand why the Allies wanted to weed out dangerous SS men.
Then, what was going to happen to all these young men–wander around, unemployed, homeless, across a defeated Reich? Again, they were needed to get Germany back on its feet again–who can imagine Europe without Germany?
I was doing some research on the German actor Hardy Kruger, who was one of the ‘golden Aryans’ that Goebbels boasted so much about. Young Kruger made a few movies under the Third Reich, then went into the service. His biography states, ‘After he was released . . .’
Well, I have read that many scientists and experts in rocketry and bomb making were welcomed by many countries all over the world to enrich their country’s own self interests. Strange how a scientists who made significant advances in bombs that killed innocent women and children, were considered a prize catch by the various allied countries. I know your question was directly about the armed forces though. The Russians were the worst because they harshly imprisoned German soldiers for several years after the war. My Mom’s uncle was in prison in Russia until 1954. He was a measley corporal-nothing fancy. Those Russian bastards were ruthless. No one wanted to surrender to them because they knew they would torture them. Everyone wanted to surrender to the Americans and British. My father immigrated to Canada in 1953 because unemployment in Germany was bad and housing was impossible. My dad never regrets leaving Germany at the time because even after he got married in Germany there was no housing in Hamburg that he could find
The only reason the Soviets released any German prisoners they hadn’t worked to death was because the Bonn government bought them out–financial inducements and technology. I believe the Federal Government began to prosper around 1955.
Even if the Soviets had been signatories to the Geneva Conventions, they probably would have still kept German POW’s for decades.
Somewhat off the subject, but we punished many Germans for obeying unlawful orders. I remember reading somewhere that the Wehrmacht didn’t bring court martials against those who didn’t obey unlawful orders–although it would be foolish to think illegal orders weren’t carried out.
In Ken Burns’ excellent study of World War II, that came out two years ago, American troops were given orders to shoot unarmed German soldiers who had just surrendered. The American soldiers refused to carry the order out, even in the bluff of being court martialed. I have to watch my tape(s) again to remember the outcome. I don’t think I could shoot an armed 18-year-old, unless he tried to kill me first. However, this was probably about the time of the Malmedy Massacre.
Did he ever mentioned why he was kept in Soviet prison until 1954?
It is peculiar that he was there until 1954 whereas 99% of all survived German POWs were repatriated to Germany by December 1949.
There must be a reason, no?
Either he was a very-very-very unlucky chap or he was a criminal of some sort.
Yeah. Well, I don’t totally blame Ivan for that. You do realize that the German Ostheer and SS merely just penned up Soviet POWs like cattle, and the ones they didn’t shoot outright or work to death, they let starve or die of exposure to the Soviet winters?
Many, even most, German POWs did not deserve perpetual imprisonment. But they were treated much better than their enemies often were. The Red Army POWs suffered the second highest captivity death rate behind the Jews in WWII…
Possibly not. The Gypsies might rival or even exceed the Jews in captivity, but not as losses as a proportion of their pre-war population. The problem is that figures are very rubbery about Gypsies.
I’ve been reading a bit about this lately and it’s clear that the Jews hijacked the role of being the only victims of Nazi genocide and now for reasons very much related to justifying their hijacking of Israel the Zionists are determined to deny the Gypsies recognition as victims of Nazi genocide. A short introduction is here http://hgs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/9/3/346.pdf
It’s not a big deal, but we tend to like to keep the discussion specific to the nationalities of the belligerents. This forum is for more nebulous topics…
I was talking about death rates, i.e. the percentage of captives who died, rather than numbers.
Gypsy numbers were vastly smaller.
Sorry, mate. I forgot it was a subscription service.
I can’t post a detailed table from the link because it won’t hold its formatting and it will take forever to re-format it, and I’m too bloody lazy to process it as an image at the moment. The table is interesting partly because nowhere was 100% of a local Jewish population exterminated but it happened to the Gypsies in Luxembourg, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia the Netherlands and Belguim, albeit all with small pre-war populations of 200 to 1,000. The highest percentage for Jews was 90.9 percent in Poland, being 3 million out of a pre-war population of 3.3 million. With more substantial populations of Gypsies, 98.2 per cent were killed in Croatia, being 28,000 out of a pre-war population of 28,500. Figures for both groups vary by location, but without doing the arithmetic the average for Jews looks a lot higher than the average for Gypsies, which is consistent with, from memory, an estimate that about two thirds of Europen Jews were wiped out and about one quarter to one third (figures vary) of European Gypsies.
Here is a European total for Gypsies from another reliable source.
It is not known precisely how many Roma were killed in the Holocaust. While exact figures or percentages cannot be ascertained, historians estimate that the Germans and their allies killed around 25 percent of all European Roma. Of slightly less than one million Roma believed to have been living in Europe before the war, the Germans and their Axis partners killed up to 220,000. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?ModuleId=10005219
To elaborate a bit on this topic.
By the end of 1949 the general repatriation of POWs from USSR was over, i.e. about 3,35 million POWs were repatriated.
In the December 1950 there were app. 16.500 POWs were still in Soviet captivity (including app. 6300 officers and 260 generals) due to criminal accusations.
These 16,5 thousands accused men constitute 0,492% of the number of repatriated POWs.
It is still statistically possible that your uncle was just a good chap but extremly unlucky in his fate… but is it likely?
P.S: On the other side appart from those 16,5 thousand accused men there were still some nontransportable ill POWs whose repatriation was delayed by their condition.
It is also statistically highly probable on the German figures that the Soviet figures were bullshit and that it is likely that Herman’s mother’s uncle was extremely unlucky in his fate and was a good chap.
The figures are all obscured by the usual political bullshit which attends all such accusations and denials, so nobody will ever know the truth.
Ya, well maybe he was a criminal. I really don’t know him that well, but he wasnt in the SS or anything and he merely fought on a horse on the Russian Front. I know for sure it was 1954 because everybody in my family spoke about it. I wish I knew more. I don’t deny he may have been a criminal but he never said anything that was of much interest to brag about. He was a simple man but doesn’t hate Russians per se as he acknowledges it was war and has nothing to do with Russians today, so I don’t mean to be critical of Russians. I only feel bad when I think of how cruel Russia (and perhaps others) were to POWS after the war…
The Soviets might have released your mum’s uncle, but I bet they kept the horse.
More seriously, and given the German reliance upon horse transport during the war, it’s likely that your mum’s uncle was in transport rather than fighting on a horse, in the sense of being cavalry.
What’s often not understood is that when there was a mass surrender, as with the British forces in Singapore, a large number of prisoners were not fighting men but support and rear echelon troops, who often were least equipped for the rigors of captivity.
The information I reffered to came from internal reporting made not for the public, even more so not for the international public.
So as obvious as these figure a not 100% correct (like any report attempting to elaborate on something so big and extended in time) it is also obvious that these figures represent the best Soviets knew on the situation with POWs.
And it is clear the the real figure (whatever it is) can not be drammaticaly large than mentioned here.
The Germans estimated it could be as high as a million unaccounted for Germans, and up to 100,000 German POWs.
That is quite possible and doesn’t contradict what I just said. The “unaccounted” missing Germans are exactly that - unaccounted. I would think that a German soldier executed out of rage right on the field after he surrendered whould likely to add to these “unaccounted”. There could numerous other surcomstances similar to this one.
The situation was compounded by East / West tensions and politics at the time.
Of course. But the internal reporting remains to be least affected by this.
It is also statistically highly probable on the German figures that the Soviet figures were bullshit and that it is likely that Herman’s mother’s uncle was extremely unlucky in his fate and was a good chap.
I am not insisting Herman’s uncle was a criminal. That is not my intention. F.ex. he could had been framed or he could be very ill and nontransportable or such.
On the other hand knowing how relativly few POWs remained in USSR after 1949 one should realise that it was hardly an accident, but rather due to some very unusual sircumstances (even more unusual than already unusual for the rest of POW).
Knowing that and knowing that by far most of the remaining POWs at that time were under different accusations one might have a question. That is all.
The figures are all obscured by the usual political bullshit which attends all such accusations and denials, so nobody will ever know the truth.
Right. So lets just then wrap it all up and close the hole forum… else it is such a waste of time.
It wasn’t mandatory to be a criminal to get kept that long in Soviet captivity. Escape attempts were punished with some extra years as an example. Or being successful in what you did as a soldier would be another reason. German fighter pilot Erich Hartmann -without any explanatory statement- got 20 years for “atrocities against the Soviet population, cannonade of military objects as well as the destruction of Soviet aircrafts and (as a consequence) impairment of the Soviet economy”. Hartmann was released in 1955 and was fully rehabilitated in 1997 by the Russian authorities.
Even worse the whole truth has not been yet uncovered and as terrible as it sounds Russia still keeps the mentioned horse a prisoner!!! Russia denies it, but we are a not to be fulled!
But there is always the problem with such figures that they could be altered to suit Stalin’s desire, as happened with the 1930s censuses. Those who knew the fate of people who produced the original census figures Stalin didn’t like knew that they should produce the figures he wanted.
So even internal figures can’t be relied upon because those producing them might have been influenced by considerations of self-preservation to produce what was wanted rather than what was true.
Could you, please, elaborate on the escape attempt issue and give an example.
Or being successful in what you did as a soldier would be another reason. German fighter pilot Erich Hartmann -without any explanatory statement- got 20 years for “atrocities against the Soviet population, cannonade of military objects as well as the destruction of Soviet aircrafts and (as a consequence) impairment of the Soviet economy”. Hartmann was released in 1955 and was fully rehabilitated in 1997 by the Russian authorities.
Without checking, didn’t Hartman remained a hard core NAzi even in Soviet captivity?
So in case with Hartman it then was more due to his pro-Nazi attitude than actual war performance.
