Most German POWs seem to have died before 1945 due to their poor health when falling captive after month-long fighting such as in Stalingrad. Many others died because of overwork, and because the Soviets did not allocate resources towards the POWs, but to their war effort.
The POWs were employed as forced labor in the Soviet wartime economy and post-war reconstruction. By 1950 almost all surviving POWs had been released, with the last prisoner returning from the USSR in 1956.
Although they expected to go home immediately after the end of the war in 1945, the majority of German prisoners continued working in the United States until 1946—arguably violating the Geneva Convention's requirement of rapid repatriation—then spent up to three more years as laborers in France and the United Kingdom.
After Germany's surrender in May 1945, millions of German soldiers remained prisoners of war. In France, their internment lasted a particularly long time. But, for some former soldiers, it was a path to rehabilitation.
The Germans were hardly the genial hosts, whether you were a POW during World War I or World War II. There was severe punishment for escape attempts, there were meager rations and drafty bunkhouses, and there were irregular deliveries of packages from the Red Cross.
In WWII, the U.S. Treated Nazi POWs Better Than Black Troops | Time.
During World War II, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany (towards Soviet POWs and Western Allied commandos) were notorious for atrocities against prisoners of war.
The Soviet government kept roughly 1.5 million German POWs in forced-labor camps after the end of World War II through 1956.
They were kept under close supervision at all times. However, following the German surrender, the British government allowed some prisoners to be billeted on the farms where they were employed under minimal supervision.
Stalag IX-B (also known as Bad Orb-Wegscheide) was a German World War II prisoner-of-war camp located south-east of the town of Bad Orb in Hesse, Germany on the hill known as Wegscheideküppel.
Soviet authorities deported German civilians from Germany and Eastern Europe to the USSR after World War II as forced laborers, while ethnic Germans living in the USSR were deported during World War II and conscripted for forced labor.
It is believed that about 1 percent of Germans did stay, and an unknown percentage later came back to the United States, largely because of poor employment prospects in the immediate postwar Germany.
As World War II raged, Allies, such as Great Britain, were running short of prison space to house POWs. From 1942 through 1945, more than 400,000 Axis prisoners were shipped to the United States and detained in camps in rural areas across the country.
All 14 German POWs had been court-martialed and found guilty of murder. On July 10, 1945, after Germany's surrender, five were hanged in an old warehouse elevator shaft at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks.
Oberleutnant Franz Baron von Werra, known as 'The One that Got Away' was the only German prisoner of war during the Second World War who escaped and got back to Germany.
All in all, 2 million POWs returned from the Soviet Union. Biess argues that, in the immediate postwar period, there were indications that the Germans would be prepared to confront guilt, including Wehrmacht guilt.
Those Germans in charge of the Prisoner of War camps for first British and Canadian and then American prisoners devised a ration that would keep Allied prisoners alive without breaking Germany's economic back: Each Anglo-American POW would receive 9 pounds of potatoes per week, augmented by 5 pounds of bread, and 2-1/2 ...
The treatment of American and allied prisoners by the Japanese is one of the abiding horrors of World War II. Prisoners were routinely beaten, starved and abused and forced to work in mines and war-related factories in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions.
POWs in post-war Britain
In 1946, the year after the end of World War Two, more than 400,000 German prisoners of war (POWs) were still being held in Britain, with POW camps on the outskirts of most towns.
Most German POWs seem to have died before 1945 due to their poor health when falling captive after month-long fighting such as in Stalingrad. Many others died because of overwork, and because the Soviets did not allocate resources towards the POWs, but to their war effort.
Georg Gaertner, 64, was the last of 2,222 German prisoners of war who escaped in the United States. Most were free less than a day. But Gaertner's life on the run lasted for 40 years, from September 1945 until Wednesday, when he surrendered to Immigration and Naturalization Service officials in suburban San Pedro.
U.S. and German sources estimate the number of German POWs who died in captivity at between 56,000 and 78,000, or about one per cent of all German prisoners, which is roughly the same as the percentage of American POWs who died in German captivity.
The Japanese used many types of physical punishment. Some prisoners were made to hold a heavy stone above their heads for many hours. Others might be forced into small cells with little food or water. Tom Uren described how a young Aboriginal soldier was made to kneel on a piece of bamboo for a number of days.
Many of the women and children were held in prison camps in terrible conditions and forced on death marches. Some women were killed on sight and others were raped, beaten, and forced to become sex slaves. Much of the book showcases the words of the people who lived through this period.
The POWs suffered frequent beatings and mistreatment from their Japanese guards, food was the barest minimum, and disease and injuries went untreated. Although the POWs finally received Red Cross packages in January 1944, the Japanese had removed all the drugs and medical supplies.