# How Did The Germans Treat American POW's in WWII? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 5, 2001, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551 "2001-11-05T04:49:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/81 "2017-03-22T17:12:12Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > Not so. Americans and British both were almost universally circumcised for the first half of the 20th century. > > [cite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision#Modern_times) You should read all the words in your cite: " By the turn of the century, in both America and Great Britain, infant circumcision was near universally recommended." **Recommended** being the operative word here. It’s almost universally recommended that people maintain a healthy body weight, but over 1/3 of the USA is [considered obese](https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/Pages/overweight-obesity-statistics.aspx). As a further data point, most births in the USA were at home until [the 1930s](https://sites.google.com/site/historyofchildbirthinamerica/historical-resources/historical-timeline). So most US soldiers in WWII were born at home, and almost certainly weren’t circumcised. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/82 "2017-03-22T19:05:42Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > I seem to remember my father said he hated kohlrabi (not that it’s particularly common in the UK anyway), and he wasn’t too keen on black bread when it started to make an appearance as something exotic in health shops and delicatessens. And he insisted on the fattiest ham. > > But they did occasionally get things like canned condensed milk in Red Cross parcels, and developed the habit of cooking it, which he occasionally tried at home well into my childhood. The end results were rather like the Argentinian dulce de leche. Oh yes, on the subject of food, Cavanna also mentions that sometimes (for good behaviour, or in his case for long periods without too much obvious slacking off) the prisoners would be granted ration tickets (bread tickets being the local gold equivalent), to be spent in town as they were tasked with street clearing after Allied bombings, and that they’d often sell/black market those for an opportunity to get a few "Stahm"s. Stahm was a ticket-free stick-to-the-ribs street dish. Potatoes, lard, bacon, various cereal and black bread all cooked together to make a sort of ultrathick porridge ; served with a side of watery malt beer. To him and his Russian sweetheart, at the time, this was culinary high heaven. He also mentioned that Russian POWs seemed to really enjoy sunflower seeds ; as it kept their saliva flowing and mouth working all the time, which made them feel like they weren’t starving. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/83 "2017-03-22T19:11:58Z")
(past time edit) The Russians would ironically dub them “Schokolade” - chocolate. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/84 "2017-03-22T21:38:25Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > The Geneva Conventions allowed for “other ranks” to be put to work on civilian (non-military) work, so my father was for a time working in railway marshalling yards in Munich and later in a coal mine in Poland. German and Italian POWs in the UK were frequently put to work on farms, often with minimal supervision, and were held on to for some years after the war (and quite a few were given the option to stay in Britain, and took it up). Officers weren’t required to work. > > Food and boredom were a constant problem, but they did get mail and parcels of food, clothing, books, games, musical instruments and records and the like. A thing I’ve read of in WW2 POW memoirs, and found intriguing: one way in which it was easy for POWs to mess their captors about, was in the “swapping of identities” – not hard to do, with the enormous numbers of POWs, and their being frequently transported hither and yon. You just exchanged identifying documents with the other guy – for the Germans, so long as the numbers tallied up, they weren’t further bothered. This stratagem was useful in various ways, for escapes. Also – some officer prisoners found the boredom and inactivity so mad-driving, that they took the opportunity of identity-swaps with “other ranks” prisoners – the “other ranks” guy took the place in the officers’ camp, and the officer became an “other rank”. People with this kind of temperament, found gruelling menial labour preferable to mega-tedious idleness. Also, if you wished to carry on the fight; being sent out on working details could give better opportunities for sabotage, and for escape attempts, than being banged-up the whole time in a camp. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/85 "2017-03-23T00:56:01Z")
One of my junior high social studies teacher was a POW (ironically another was Guard for Japanese POWs in Hawaii. He admitted he had an easy war). He talked about it at length on day and this is what I remember 1. He and two other guys when they were about to be captured in the Battle of the Bulge threw away their dog tags because one of them was Jewish 2. While marched through a German village, an old woman ran out and attacked them, thinking they were airmen. The German soldiers protected them. He once commented the German soldiers kept food where their gas masks should be…no one wanted poison gas warfare after the WWI 3. He lost something like 70 pounds in six months of food. Germans fed them soup and made everything into sausages 4. He and his two friends, when liberated, managed to enroll in three companies so they were eating nine meals a day for awhile 5. They ended up drinking with some Russian soldiers one night, I think they were in Prague. The Russians kept toasting Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill. They couldn’t get them to toast Truman and Atlee. 6. He said that in the crowded madhouse that was Grand Central Station when everyone was being shipped home, you see military people asleep with notes pinned to them to wake them up at a certain time to catch their train. Some joker from the Navy decided to switch signs on the sleeping members and the MPs had to wake people up to make sure the signs they had were correct. 7. He once said that the way to avoid being harassed by street vendors in Italy was to pretend you were German. I asked how to you pass for a German…wear lederhosen, shorts, suspenders and the hat with an arrow? He said no. You dress conservatively, say a few sentences in German so the vendors hear you. They would them seek out a guy in a Hawaiian shirt with a camera around his neck. Two years after I left junior high, his father died and he was astounded how rich his father was. Apparently his father had a business (plumber or electrician) that people needed during the Depression so his father would buy land or accept it in trade. With suburban buildup, the land was worth a great deal. So he left teaching. In 1994, to observe the 50th anniversary of D Day, he walked from the Normandy beaches to the German border, accompanied by one of the French teachers from my junior high and her husband. Besides suffering terribly under the Germans, Russian POWs would suffer horribly if they made it back to Germany. I can’t remember if it’s Max Hastings or Anthony Beevor in their general history of WWII but one has the following story about a Russian pilot captured by the Germans. On the train he changes identity with a dead soldier, figuring it would reduce his chances of being shot. He is sent to the Peenemunde rocket bases to be overworked and underfed. He convinces some of his fellow Russians to make an escape in a cargo plane on a nearby airstrip . He flies in the cockpit naked figuring it would attack less attention than wearing POW clothes. Very weak he manages to get the plane airborne and they make it to Russian lines. Things are great for a few hours until the secret police, the NKVD, show up. They don’t believe him, think he is a spy. They throw him into jail until a few months later when enough evidence comes out that the escape is genuine. He is released but still suspected of being disloyal until Stalin dies in 1953. ---
**Author:** ![Whatever4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@Whatever4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whatever4)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/86 "2017-03-23T04:57:08Z")
> [@Mr.Zambezi](#): > > I saw a great show on a POW camp. It was actually an old castle that they used as a prison. The men were pretty much left to their own devices. Which gave them lots of time to plan escapes. > > They got so sophisticated that they constructed a working airplane in the attic of the castle. They flew an exact replica of it years later and it actually worked. > > in an odd twist of fate, they were liberated just as they completed construction of the plane. > > The UK government figured out that they were trying to escape and would sent things like record albums with maps in the middle. I got the impression that the prisoners had it fairly easy. But I imagine that this was an exception. I remember that show. I believe all the POWs were officers, which is why they were given so many privileges. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/87 "2017-03-23T07:01:45Z")
I’ve known/knew several veterans of the German camps and was lucky enough to sit in on a conversation between several of them at one time about their experiences. (College project) What I took from it was how you got treated depended on time and exactly whose camp you were in. Early 42 or so and a Luftwaffe camp and things were not too terrible. It was a prison and you were a prisoner but things weren’t barbaric. Late war and one of the camps guarded by foreign volunteers (SS or Army; memory fails me) to the Reich and things could/did get pretty bad; especially for regular enlisted men. Plus by that time rations for the German people weren’t all that great. So I believe its a serious case of YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/88 "2017-03-23T12:35:58Z")
While we’re updating [things](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=1790655&postcount=13), here’s the Wikipedia [page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_March_(1945)) for the death march my uncle was in. And the Red Cross inspections of POW camps were a joke. The Germans knew ahead of time and would distribute blankets and such before and take them away after. Do not trust anything about those reports. My uncle died last year. All the men in the family of my parent’s generation who were of age served in WWII. This uncle was the last one. They are all gone now. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/89 "2017-03-23T14:57:03Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > Things are great for a few hours until the secret police, the NKVD, show up. They don’t believe him, think he is a spy. They throw him into jail until a few months later when enough evidence comes out that the escape is genuine. He is released but still suspected of being disloyal until Stalin dies in 1953. As far as Stalin’s regime was concerned, any Soviet soldier who allowed themselves to be captured was ipso facto suspicious if and when they were ever liberated - hence the resistance among so many to being returned to the USSR (and any other communist-controlled territory) after the war. ---
**Author:** ![Dana\_Scully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@Dana\_Scully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dana_Scully)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/90 "2017-03-23T15:31:04Z")
> [@Airblairxxx](#): > > I’m too lazy to come up with the exact page numbers, but I have just finished Steven Ambrose’s “Citizen Soldiers”, about the Allied invasion of Europe. He does cite a story where Jewish POWs were separated and sent to work camps. > > He also cites stories about how German POWs sent to the Deep South were shocked about how badly African Americans were treated there. Interesting perspective . . . And yet, a lot of the German POW’s like the South (and America in general) so much that a lot of they stayed and never went back to Germany. How Germans could be shocked over the treatment of African Americans, knowing how the Jews were persecuted and murdered in their own concentration camps back home, is beyond me. ---
**Author:** ![Dana\_Scully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@Dana\_Scully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dana_Scully)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/91 "2017-03-23T16:44:31Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > US soldiers killed many SS “guards” [when they liberated Dachau](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_liberation_reprisals). The Wiki doesn’t have the quotation of General Patton when he was informed, but it was more or less “they deserved it.” I don’t know what General Patton " **said"** but when he saw, for the first time, a German concentration camp, he vomited. I think that about says it all. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/92 "2017-03-24T00:59:33Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > And the Red Cross inspections of POW camps were a joke. The Germans knew ahead of time and would distribute blankets and such before and take them away after. Do not trust anything about those reports. And in some places, even worse. I have it from too many sources too many different places that the Red Cross people, even while physically there, were more likely to sell/swap something to the POWs as they were to give anything. The one group everyone seemed to agree actually did some good back then and there was the Salvation Army. The “Sallies” as I was taught to call them were the one group the people I knew never forgot and would donate to whenever they could. Red Cross; not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/93 "2017-03-24T08:24:26Z")
> [@Dana\_Scully](#): > > And yet, a lot of the German POW’s like the South (and America in general) so much that a lot of they stayed and never went back to Germany. > > How Germans could be shocked over the treatment of African Americans, knowing how the Jews were persecuted and murdered in their own concentration camps back home, is beyond me. People have a great talent for ideas and perceptions which – looked at objectively and rationally – are inconsistent, and don’t make sense. Possibly, for these guys, Jews were utterly beyond the pale; but African Americans – a category of people new to them – they rated as human (or as “sub-humans”, but acceptable and likeable ones), and accordingly felt empathy. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/94 "2017-03-24T08:33:56Z")
> [@Dana\_Scully](#): > > How Germans could be shocked over the treatment of African Americans, knowing how the Jews were persecuted and murdered in their own concentration camps back home, is beyond me. It’s unlikely that they did know that, since few of them would ever have seen it happen, and may indeed have been in Allied hands from before the time the Final Solution really geared up. Ordinary Germans knew that German Jews were being compulsorily resettled. They did not know, or at least could avoid knowing or could persuade themselves that they did not know, much more than that. Whereas the way Black people were treated in the souther US was played out right in front of their eyes. ---
**Author:** ![toast\_pakora](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3ec8ea/32.png) [@toast\_pakora](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toast_pakora)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2017, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/95 "2017-03-25T03:04:43Z")
PBS this afternoon showed an episode of NOVA which featured some Brits recreating the glider at Colditz. I was only half listening but what I remember, there was only one photo of the glider after it was finished. No one knows what happened to the glider itself. The reenactment itself was more or less successful. The glider was launched, with a dummy in the pilot’s seat, and it did fly via remote control but they had to alter the optimum flight path to avoid buildings that didn’t exist back then and the glider ended up crashing. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2017, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/96 "2017-03-25T04:34:11Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Ordinary Germans knew that German Jews were being compulsorily resettled. They did not know, or at least could avoid knowing or could persuade themselves that they did not know, much more than that. But discrimination against Jews went beyond that - they were barred from public office and most jobs, their stores were routinely thrashed and synagogues burnt, they were forbidden from marrying non-Jews (and vice versa), and of course they had to wear the star so they could be spat on/roughed up in the streets. Then, yes, they got arrested\* en masse \*and had all of their property seized which, even if you never knew the rest (and honestly, that’s always been a bullshit excuse - they knew. The Führer made speeches about it for a decade), is kind of a bad thing, yanno ? Jim Crow’s South may have been a shitty place for black folks, but I’m not convinced it was as bad, as systematically as that. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2017, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/97 "2017-03-25T09:53:50Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Ordinary Germans knew that German Jews were being compulsorily resettled. They did not know, or at least could avoid knowing or could persuade themselves that they did not know, much more than that. Whereas the way Black people were treated in the souther US was played out right in front of their eyes. > [@Kobal2](#): > > But discrimination against Jews went beyond that - they were barred from public office and most jobs, their stores were routinely thrashed and synagogues burnt, they were forbidden from marrying non-Jews (and vice versa), and of course they had to wear the star so they could be spat on/roughed up in the streets. Then, yes, they got arrested\* en masse \*and had all of their property seized which, even if you never knew the rest (and honestly, that’s always been a bullshit excuse - they knew. The Führer made speeches about it for a decade), is kind of a bad thing, yanno ? > > Jim Crow’s South may have been a shitty place for black folks, but I’m not convinced it was as bad, as systematically as that. Maybe on reflection, propinquity had something to do with it: don’t know the figures off top of head, but I believe Jews made up a fairly small proportion of the population of Germany – likely many Germans were not, so far as they knew, personally acquainted with anyone Jewish. It’s easier to close your mind and heart, re an abuse which you don’t witness at first-hand. With as many black people as white, in the American South: the situation would have been in one’s face the whole time. ---
**Author:** ![runningdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e9c0ed/32.png) [@runningdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runningdude)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2017, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/98 "2017-03-26T05:29:21Z")
> [@Philster](#): > > Overall, even with some atrocities, considering what could have happened based on the potential brutality of the Nazis, … > POW life sucks across the board, but relative to other situations, the POWs experience in Germany was moderate. > > -The Luftwaffe ran the camps (big factor). … It is of course important to note, for those not familiar, that the Luftwaffe was part of the German State itself, not the Nazi party, and was thus not directly involve with running the death camps (nor shutting the death camps down, either). > [@IzzyR](#): > > Question: did they distinguish between Jewish (& Black) POWs and others? You might find the story of [Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds](http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Yad-Vashem-honors-American-GI-who-told-Nazis-We-are-all-Jews-436103) to be of interest. ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2017, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/99 "2017-03-26T18:09:03Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Forgive this comment on “The Great Escape” > > I think it was wrong what they tried to do. They were staying in about the best camp and with the best conditions one could have hoped for. The officers in charge of the escape must have know many of the men would be shot but they were arrogant and wanted to do so anyways. Also they knew the war would be over soon and they would win so their escape played no part in helping the allies win. I know I am replying to a 3-year old post, but I felt that something should be said. Well, to begin with - they were young officers and many felt that they should be doing something to help the Allied war effort instead of rotting behind barbed wire. No matter how relatively “nice” Stalag Luft III might have been, it was still a prison camp. The prisoners were chafing in captivity, no matter how apparently close the end of the war might be. It is unfair to say that the officers in charge of the escape knowingly sent many people to their deaths – it sounds as if the poster thinks that the organizers of the escape stayed behind. They didn’t: they went out, and in fact most of them were killed afterwards (George Bushell, the mastermind behind the tunnels, was one of them). Reading about the escape it becomes apparent that the people who organized and took part in the escape did not really believe that the Germans would actually go and shoot recaptured prisoners (in contravention of the Geneva conventions, signed by Germany). Yes, they expected that most of the escapees would be recaptured, but they also expected that, at most, the recaptured officers would be sent for a stint in solitary or sent to Colditz castle. Deliberate murder of recaptured officers was something that the escapees considered as basically unthinkable. Naïveté? Perhaps. But that was the case. Allied airmen were responsibility of the Luftwaffe, and they expected the usual lenient Luftwaffe treatment afterwards, not that they would be handled by the Gestapo instead. And, linking with my first point, George Bushell himself apparently said that the escape would be worthwhile even if nobody made it home, because a mass escape would divert German men and supplies into searching for the escapees – men and supplies that Germany was already short of and which would be temporarily unavailable for the German war effort itself. I think that the escape was understandable and not the result of hubris. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2017, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551/100 "2017-03-26T19:29:04Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > You should read all the words in your cite: > > " By the turn of the century, in both America and Great Britain, infant circumcision was near universally recommended." > > **Recommended** being the operative word here. It’s almost universally recommended that people maintain a healthy body weight, but over 1/3 of the USA is [considered obese](https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/Pages/overweight-obesity-statistics.aspx). > > As a further data point, most births in the USA were at home until [the 1930s](https://sites.google.com/site/historyofchildbirthinamerica/historical-resources/historical-timeline). So most US soldiers in WWII were born at home, and almost certainly weren’t circumcised. Being born at home doesn’t mean they weren’t circumcised. First of all home birth didnt necessarily mean no doctor as they often made house calls. Not having it at the time of birth doesn’t mean no circumcision either My son wasn’t circumcised until a month after the birth. Even Jews don’t get circumcised the day of the birth. Also parents weren’t as big about disregarding their doctors recommendations back then. Lastly the point is deciding every prisoner who was circumcised is Jewish would result in a LOT of false positives. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-germans-treat-american-pows-in-wwii/91551.md?page=6)