I agree and it should be pointed out that the escape plan was begun in march of 1943 and carried out in march of 1944, more than a year before VE day in May of 1945. Seems odd to assume the prisoners would know that the war was almost over.
About 500 000 or 0.75% of the population (quick google search).
See post 71.
<Nitpick>Roger Bushell</Nitpick>
I’ve read that the officers’ code of conduct at the time included (and for all I know, still includes) a clause stating that if captured he would do everything in his power to make his captors expend manpower and matériel keeping him in captivity. In other words — and at the risk of sounding flippant, especially given the aftermath of the SLIII breakout — to be as big a pain in the ass as possible.
I understand that, re officers in the British armed forces, this approach was at any rate strongly expected, and seen as “the done thing”. There could, of course, be various ways of “choosing to interpret”. I recall reading the memoirs of a British WW2 officer POW (don’t remember either title or author, I’m afraid): not career military – in the Forces “for the duration”. He readily admitted in the book, that he had plans for his life post-war, and intended – not without the occasional pang of conscience – just to sweat the war out as a prisoner, and then, all being well, go home.
Escaping from captivity needed much supporting work of various kinds, by fellow-inmates of the escaper: in both “grunt work”, and the exercising of a variety of skills. The author as above, had a natural talent for draughtsmanship; which he used throughout his imprisonment, for forging various documents needed by escapers for them to get where they sought. This allowed him to make the case to potential critics of his not trying, himself, to escape; and maybe to himself, at need: that he felt the best contribution he could make to efforts to muck things up for the enemy, was to do the forgery – at which he was accomplished – to help others in their attempts to get away. I have no doubt that a good many officer prisoners, keen to have a relatively quiet life and ultimately to have the best chance of survival, followed a similar course.
Have lately recalled, a then-oldish guy who was a work colleague of mine, in the UK, some decades ago. He had spent most of WW2 as a POW of the Germans, having been captured at Dunkirk in 1940. His rank, was that of private; he was accordingly put to work. For the majority of his captivity, he was doing farm work in the “Polish Corridor” area, re-taken by Germany in 1939; near the town which is now Chojnice. He reckoned his POW experience, unusually lucky – in this long-lasting assignment (helping in farming stuff which he often found surprisingly primitive, even by 1940s standards), he and his fellow-POWs were fed adequately; and received much kindness from local civilians, both German and Polish.
I don’t know about the UK code of conduct but the American code of conduct would defiantly support the escape attempt. Failure to obey the following can result in court martial when you are repatriated.
[QUOTE=US Code of Conduct]
I I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.
II I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist.
III If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and to aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.
IV If I become a prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners. I will give no information or take part in any action which might be harmful to my comrades. If I am senior, I will take command. If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me and will back them up in every way.
V When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number, and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause.
VI I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.
[/QUOTE]
I should point out that this was not in effect during world war 2.
Since Germany had agreed to the Geneva Convention their treatment of prisoners was equal to that of their own treatment. The only reason sickness and starvation were issues was due to the Americans bombing supply trucks on their way to the prisons. Often times the captures were in the same condition as the prisoners.
The most horrific event ever witnessed by Americans was when they discovered rail carts full of 800 prisoners who’d died from a Typhoid outbreak. The Germans had attempted to separate the sick from the healthy so the disease wouldn’t spread, and burying the bodies would take time and manpower they did not possess, not to mention the risk of spreading the disease by attempting to bury them. It was ironic to say the least that these deaths had occurred due to lack of medicine. Medicine which would have arrived and saved them all had the allies not bombed the supply trucks. The Americans had the Germans who’d worked at the camp shot on site. The shot Germans and Americans who’d died from sickness were to be buried by the local German citizens, risking infection of the citizens and destroy their already low moral.
During WW2 the allies captured a LOT of prisoners. In the UK some 400,000 were held towards the end of the war. There would have been a lot of airmen shot down in bombing raids. They were only a handful of escape attempts, especially when they thought they were going to win. Some were known as ‘Black Camps’, where the most fervent Nazis were held. They were usually kept in remote places with a squad of paratroopers nearby, just in case. The conditions under which the Allied prisoners were held probably had a lot to do with this important bargaining chip.
An exception to this was Commandos. Hitler had a thing about Commandos after the Dieppe command raid and issued an order that they were to be executed if captured, this was notably extended to the PoWs in the Great Escape.
However, the Russians had no such leverage. They were worked and starved to death and if any did escape or were liberated, they were labelled as traitors by their own side and sent labour camps or simply executed. They were expected to fight to the death. There was no arrangement between the Nazis and the Soviets with respect to PoWs and both sides treat their prisoners with great severity. This suggests Hitler did try to come to an arrangement, but Stalin refused. I guess he saw his captured soldiers as expendable.
Thank you for these links. Fascinating reading.
IANA WWII buff, but it seems to me that people with military knowledge would see the writing on the wall. By summer 1943 the Axis was pushed out of north Africa, and in July the Allies invaded Sicily and by mid-August had captured it, moving on to the Italian peninsula. By mid-1943 heavy air raids across Germany were the order of the day (and night); the Germans evacuated Berlin of non-essential personnel; the US military production was immune from retaliatory German attacks; the finish of the Battle of Stalingrad in Jan 1943 had broken the German progress to the east.
I guess the question was, to what extent were the German population, the Stalag guards, and the prisoners aware of the progress of the war? Even if the Germans censored their news, some people must have had access to BBC broadcasts and air raids were hard to hide.
Sure, but you can at the same time believe that Jews are a foreign presence seeking to destroy the German people and therefore the German government has to work to isolate them and and save Germany from them, and at the same time not really have strong feelings about black people in a foreign country.
I mean, the average German, however they felt about blacks, didn’t tend to believe that they were an international cabal out to destroy Western culture.
You couldn’t really say it, or they’d shoot you, but by the end of 1944, most Germans knew the war was pretty much lost, barring some sort of miracle. The big hope at the time among the Germans is that the Western Allies would recognize that the Soviets were an existential threat, and make a separate peace with Germany that wouldn’t hurt too badly and then team up with the Germans and force the Soviets back.
There are several accounts of PoWs making their own secret radios in WW2 camps. Radio was a big thing in those days and many camps would have had the signals and radio operators with the skills to improvise a simple receiver. Of course keeping it hidden from searches by the Gestapo, was another matter.
I thought they were sent to prison camps in the US and Canada.
Some were. I read an account of some guys who escaped a POW camp in Alberta and made it to the US border… just in time for the USA to enter the war against Germany.
Please note that the second website you quote belongs to an organization best known for Holocaust denial. While the article may be accurate, anything charitable about Hitler should be taken with a large grain of salt until confirmed elsewhere.
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There were two Japanese internment camps in Arkansas, and one or two German and Italian POW camps. Tough Nazis were tortured by removing their shirts and surrounding them with jeep headlights on an Arkansas mosquito filled night.
My Uncle’s unit surrendered to the Germans in Dec 1944 (near end of war) at the Battle of the Bulge. He was a big guy >200 pounds and weighed 80 at liberation. That was 4-5 months.
He said he would NEVER be taken prisoner again and would go down fighting and recommends everyone in that situation to do the same.
He hated Germans to his dying day.
To be fair, the Germans had supply problems near the end of the war, and POW’s were low down on their priority list - but not the bottom. As others have mentioned, the war against the western Allies was treated as a regular war with attention to Geneva Convention rules as much as it could be, considering the circumstances and the fact that some sadistic types were fairly unsupervised. It should be noted though, that even when the holocaust concentration camps were liberated, the inmates did actually protect some of the guards (so I’ve read). Not everyone was sadistic.
If you want an interesting depiction of the prisoner treatment after Battle of the Bulge, find the movie “Slaughterhouse V”. One segment of this weird story is based on Vonnegut’s own experiences being captured in the Battle of the Bulge and then interred in Dresden when it was bombed.
One of my library patrons fought at the Bulge. His unit came upon another US unit sitting on dead Germans. (They would freeze to death if they sat on the ground.) He was invited to “Pull up a Kraut and sit down.”