A soldier's duty

Factual Questions
21

I can’t speak to US military practice, but in the Second World War, the British Army held as official doctrine that officers had a duty to attempt escape; NCOs and Other Ranks were not expected to do so. (Officers were also exempt from having to work, under the Geneva Convention. NCOs and ORs didn’t have this out, and had to work–supposedly only on jobs that did not assist the enemy’s war effort).

Following the murder of 50 recaptured escapers from the mass escape from Stalag Luft III in March of 1944, escaping was officially discouraged, at least in RAF camps; this did not deter some hardcore types from continuing to try.

The use of “ghosts” in various camps was partly to make the Germans waste time and manpower in fruitless searches, but also as a prelude to further escapes: if you don’t know that there are a few more men in camp than you have on your roll, then it’s easier for them to make a clean getaway (once out of the camp iteself undetected, of course), since the hue-and-cry won’t be activated.

22

This is similar to what I was told when I was in the Army. Your duty isn’t so much to escape, as to attempt to escape, and to continue attempting until you are successful, so that your captors must divert resources towards keeping you locked up securely instead of using those resources to kill and capture your buddies. Actually succeeding in the escape is just icing on the cake.

23

There’s a mold deep in a bunker somewhere. When you make Chief, they take you away and stamp a replica out from the mold. That’s the only explanation that makes any sense.

24

I’ve heard the same.

Honestly, it seems like an idea with a pretty big downside. The more resources it takes an army to hold POWs, the less impetus they have not to try and skirt the Geneva Conventions and try to have as few surviving prisoners as possible.

25

Not in all cases. In the German POW camp where the great escape occurred weren’t prisoners punished lightly (a day of solitary or something like that) for each attempt because the head honcho knew that the POWs were fulfilling their obligation to attempt to escape? I can’t remember where I heard that. It might have been the History Channel, so of course it’s true!

26

Upon reflection, I’m pretty sure now that I got this impression from watching Hogan’s Heroes.

27

Many years ago, I befriended a couple of Germans who had served in their forces during WWII. One of them had been severely wounded and incapacitated early in the war, and had subsequently been appointed as Commandant of a POW camp in Germany.

Over the years, amongst other things, we discussed the mechanics and policies of prisoner incarceration in Germany. What he told me directly challenges many of the comments made here, and in The Code.

On a straight numerical basis, the holding of prisoners was not considered to be any impediment to the German war effort. Depending on the particular installation, they had one guard for every 30 or so prisoners. They considered that having taken 30 of their opposition out of the fight, in exchange for one of theirs was a pretty good bargain.

In addition, as the war progressed, many of the German guards were soldiers who had been injured at the front, and were considered unfit to return to front line service. However, guard duty at a POW camp was considered light duty, and they were quite fit for that. So, provision of guards for POW’s did not have any particular negative effect on the German war effort.

Similarly, the Germans did not consider prisoner escapes to be any big deal. The standing orders for an escape were that a small group of guards would conduct a search over a specified search area for a 24 hour period, then return to barracks.

After that, the responsibility for capturing escapees fell to the local civil authorities as a part of their normal policing duties. They considered escaped prisoners as no threat, since they would be focused on survival and escape, as opposed to doing any kind of damage. Most escapees were recaptured after they succumbed to exhaustion and despair and surrendered.

There were a couple of occasions in which some prisoners escaped into an area where an active German unit was camped while on R&R. On those occasions the unit took the opportunity to launch a search operation; however this was used as a training operation for the unit in question. Hunting escaped prisoners was considered good training for hunting partisans on the Russian front. So, on these occasions, the training gained was of benefit to the German war effort, not an impediment.

There were no forces specifically allocated for prisoner search and capture. So, given all this, escaping prisoners had no noticeable effect on the German war effort.

With regard to escape planning: he said that most of the time the Germans knew of POW escape plans. As a matter of policy they allowed them to proceed, to a certain point, at which point they were stopped.

The Germans considered boredom to be a very dangerous issue in POW camps; if the prisoners became bored, they would become uncontrollable. Boredom could quickly turn ugly. So the Germans considered POW escape planning a very vital part of POW recreational activity; so long as they were planning escapes, they were busy and not bored.

Boredom was also a major problem with the guards; so they were encouraged to uncover the escape plans, and discreetly monitor them as they progressed. This gave them something to keep their minds occupied, and in thwarting the plans, made them feel that they were still contributing to the German war effort.

So both the planning and the execution of escapes served the needs of both sides of the wire.

According to the Germans, the biggest downside of holding POW’s was the issue of feeding, housing, clothing and generally maintaining them. This was in addition to the logistics of actually distributing the supplies. As the war progressed food, supplies, fuel and transport became short; these resources had to be diverted from the front to the POW camps.

This diversion of resources did effect their men at the front and did impede their war effort. So, ironically, it would have been to the German’s benefit if more prisoners had escaped.

28

In The Colditz Story and Men of Colditz (which I’m sure is about the prison camp inside the castle you are referring to) the author describes what I think you’re talking about.

There was generally at any given time an escape officer within each contingent, to prevent the various escape attempts from interfering with each other (which turned out to be a major problem, due to the frequency of escape attempts). The job of each escape officer was to coordinate the scheduling with the other escape officers and advise in the planning of escape attempts, as well as selecting who would be eligible to go in an attempt. As a result, holding the role of escape officer meant you were effectively precluded from escaping yourself. (In fact, the author, Pat Reid, was the British escape officer until he finally resigned the position, so that he could himself attempt an escape.)

He also describes the use of ghosts: during an escape attempt of several prisoners, two extra prisoners (designated as the ghosts) went into hiding. These prisoners were of course just assumed by the Germans to have escaped with the others, and even when the actual escapees were recaptured and returned, the ghosts were assumed to have made a “home run”.

This meant that at any time going forward, the ghosts could attempt to escape without immediately alerting the guards (by being missing at an appell). They would have plenty of time to escape the vicinity without any sort of organized searches, which is a huge help. At some later point, new ghosts could go into hiding, presumably long after the prior ghosts had long left the area.

In practice, I seem to remember it didn’t work out very well. The designated ghosts had to live in hiding, which took it’s toll on them over time. Eventually they were found out.

Incidentally I highly recommend the books by Pat Reid about Colditz, I’ve probably read them a dozen times by now.

29

So who else had visions of Klink and Schulz drinking schnapps and feeding misinformation to Hogan via the coffeepot microphone while reading this informative post?

30

The OP is a little off on how feudalism worked. It was not about one person owning others. It was a relationship between people of relatively equal status. It was something in the nature of a contract between a lord and his vassals - each side had responsibilities to the other. The vassals were definitely more than just “warm bodies” owned by the lord.

Now serfs might have been considered a form of property. They were essentially regarded as part of the land - if you transferred ownership of the land it included the serfs who worked it. But serfs didn’t fight so they were not part of the military code. Serfs didn’t have a duty to escape - in fact they were legally forbidden from leaving their assigned land.

31

Well, if you consider a Gestapo bullet in the back of the head to be light punishment, then I guess so…

The Fifty/

32

I doubt it. Churchill himself was an escaped POW, he certainly was in favour of escaping, in general terms.

(Unless by “German camps” you meant camps that hoid German prisoners. I think he probably wouldn’t want any escapes from those.)

33

Yeah, the Sagan executions, which had Hitler’s fingerprints all over them, were the massive exception to the rule that escaping officers were generally treated okay (unless they did anything that looked like or could be characterized as espionage or sabotage, in which case, not so much). It is gratifying to know that 14 of the SOBs responsible were hanged.

The Brits had an entire special military intelligence division, MI9, devoted to supporting escape and evasion.

34

That is exactly backwards. Klink was an agent for the resistance; he was actually feeding Hogan useful information and ultimately was the one giving him orders.

35

I meant punishment for the many attempted escapes leading up to the big one. Weren’t the executions personally demanded by Hitler or some other head honcho following the embarrassment of the breakout?

36

Yes. 23 were sent back to the camp, 50 were summarily executed on Hitler’s orders. Three of the escapees actually made it to England.

37

Often a superior source to the History Channel…

38

Hmmm… This confuses the issue a bit!

What happened when the King called on the Lord to provide men for his latest war?

If the serfs were forbidden to leave the land, where did the Lord get the required men?

Also, starting to think ahead here, didn’t the dynamics of power change after the first plaque in Europe?

With the depletion of the general population, the few remaining serfs found themselves much in demand. As a consequence, previous social norms were abandoned, and they gained the freedom that they had previously been denied.

This must have had an impact on the King’s ability to raise an army.

Assuming that the serfs gained the freedom to choose whether, or not, to serve in the Kings army, would this form the basis for the concept of the “duty to escape”?

To explain: if the serfs volunteered to serve, as opposed to being drafted, they would have entered into a legal contract with the King.

Since there would probably be manpower shortages at the time, the King would demand that every available body be on the field; so this suggests that part of the soldier’s contract would be to make himself available to fight at all times.

So, if he had been captured, he was obliged to escape in order to honor his contract to make himself available to fight.

Hence: “the duty to escape”.

39

It’s impossible to summarize a system that took place over across a continent over several centuries. But the general rule is serfs didn’t fight. Fighting was what nobles did - it was their defining role.

Certainly no noble wanted his serfs to have any military capability - that would represent more of a danger to the noble than it was worth.

If you want a little more detail you can check this site out.

40

Colditz Castle, Oflag IVc, was a prison for notorious escapees and high-value prisoners. The inmates were constantly trying to escape. It was the site of the wooden vaulting-horse escape, and the glider in the attic, among others. For a lot of those guys, escaping was a game. They did have “ghosts” in the castle to screw up roll calls and generally annoy the Germans.

And I thought only officers were obligated to attempt escapes, though now I see from some earlier posts that I may have gotten that idea solely from watching The Great Escape.