# Were enemy soldiers nice to eachother on WW1/WW2? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 25, 2014, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638 "2014-06-25T19:29:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/41 "2014-06-26T17:44:06Z")
Here’s some more Hitler trivia. He spared the life of his old Jewish company commander. Hitler remembered and was loyal to his old war buddies. > [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > And a Brit soldier did not kill Hitler during WWI > > [http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/henry-tandey-vc-man-who-3009915](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/henry-tandey-vc-man-who-3009915) [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/9379575/Adolf-Hitler-protected-his-Jewish-former-commanding-officer.html](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/9379575/Adolf-Hitler-protected-his-Jewish-former-commanding-officer.html) > [@](#): > > Hitler made the dramatic intervention to protect Ernst Hess, his old company commander from the Flanders trenches of the First World War, who had risen to be a judge in post-war Germany. > > In a letter from August 27, 1941 to the Dusseldorf Gestapo, Heinrich Himmler, one of the architects of the Final Solution, instructed the secret police to grant Hess “the relief and the protection as per the Fuhrer’s wishes”. > > Himmler also instructed all authorities that Hitler’s old comrade in arms was not “to be in-opportuned in any way whatsoever”. > > The letter was unearthed in a Gestapo file on Hess by Susanne Mauss, editor of the newspaper Jewish Voice from Germany. > > Christened a protestant, Hess had a Jewish mother and that under Nazi race laws that made him “a full-blooded Jew”, and a prime target for persecution and eventual destruction. ---
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/42 "2014-06-26T17:47:45Z")
> [@obbn](#): > > Common enough;) to be quoted by veterans as a reason for their hate of the Japanese. I’ve read accounts of this happening from multiple sources. I’ve also read that Japanese soldiers would cut off a dead American soldier’s penis and stick it in their mouths. Also numerous accounts of Americans finding dead American soldiers at Japanese camps that had been striped of their skin, internal organs like the liver missing. The Japanese were a brutal enemy and while payback by American soldiers doesn’t make it right, it’s certainly understandable. > > And while I haven’t bookmarked cites, if you wish to verify my claims it shouldn’t be too difficult to do. Mods, somehow I accidentally inserted a smiley face in my above post. This was purely unintentional and was probably due to me typing on my phone. Considering the subject matter the smiley could be viewed as being disrespectful. I’ve missed the edit window, could you please remove the smiley. Sorry everyone. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/43 "2014-06-26T17:54:28Z")
Then there was the notorious [Unit 731](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731), which was basically the Japanese version of Mengele’s “experiments”. > [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > [bolding mine] > > Just to add that there numerous documented incidents of bailed-out Allied fliers being strung up by lynch mobs who wanted to punish perpetrators of _terrorangrif_, like the [Rüsselsheim massacre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%BCsselsheim_massacre) where American crewmen were beaten to death by German civilians. > > On the Japanese; they sank to depths of depravity even the Nazis would have balked at - using prisoners as [meat on the hoof](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/japanese-troops-ate-flesh-of-enemies-and-civilians-1539816.html). The incidents were kept quiet as it was thought too upsetting for families to know that their loved ones had been eaten. You have to be signed in to read that article – you get a pop-up and then it re-directs you to the main page. I’d say taking trophies from dead bodies, as disgusting as it is, pales in comparison to a lot of what was done by the Japanese. I’m not saying it was right, but at least in the case of the Americans, it wasn’t military policy, but soldiers doing so on their own. In the case of Japan, this was the actual government doing this. Also, there’s a big difference to me between mutilating dead bodies and doing so to someone who’s still alive. So no doubt racism was a big part, but in the context of what happened, I’m not about to condemn those soldiers too harshly. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/44 "2014-06-26T17:56:51Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Here’s some more Hitler trivia. He spared the life of his old Jewish company commander. Hitler remembered and was loyal to his old war buddies. To an extent. His sister was murdered in Auschwitz and later on he was [enslaved.](http://jewish-voice-from-germany.de/cms/hitlers-jewish-commander-and-victim/) > [@](#): > > Later, he was assigned to the barracks-construction firm L. Ehrengut as a common laborer, and housed by the Gestapo in a “Jew House” …in 1943, Hess was assigned to plumber Georg Grau, serving as a forced laborer until April 20th, 1945. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/45 "2014-06-26T18:04:39Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > You have to be signed in to read that article – you get a pop-up and then it re-directs you to the main page. The Independent article? Works just fine for me, I haven’t signed in to anything. In any case as it wasn’t an isolated incident there are multiple accounts, including the comrades of [George Bush Sr.](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/1445167/George-Bushs-comrades-eaten-by-their-Japanese-PoW-guards.html) being eaten by their Japanese captors. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/46 "2014-06-26T18:34:40Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > According to my elderly relatives who fought with the Partisans in what was then Yugoslavia, there were Partisan companies, particularly in Montenegro that if time permitted would offer confession, last rites, and even conversion to captured enemy soldiers before executing them. I have always considered that somehow honorable. I have heard (sorry, no cites) that during WWII, the Chetniks and especially the Ustashi were more vicious than any other combatants. So, I am surprised by your relatives’ anecdote. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/47 "2014-06-26T18:41:31Z")
> [@UncleRojelio](#): > > See also: [Hell to Eternity - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_to_Eternity) I watched most of that movie when it was on Memorial Day weekend. Pretty cheesy with a lot of the war movie cliches of the time but still pretty enjoyable. Jeffrey Hunter did a decent job although he certainly isn’t Mexican. You can also see a very young George Takei as his foster brother. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/48 "2014-06-26T19:10:55Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > I have heard (sorry, no cites) that during WWII, the Chetniks and especially the Ustashi were more vicious than any other combatants. So, I am surprised by your relatives’ anecdote. Well, that may be because the Ustashi were the Croat separatists, who joined with the Nazis, while a lot of the other ethnic groups (like Montenegrins, Serbs, Bosnians, etc) were still loyal to Yugoslavia. (To put it extremely simply – it’s a lot more complicated, obviously) As for the rest, you’re absolutely correct, in fact the worst concentration camp wasn’t one run by the Nazis but [Jasenovic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasenovic) in Croatia. They didn’t even bother with gas chambers – half the time, they just cremated people alive. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/49 "2014-06-26T19:13:22Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > There was also [the case of German fighter pilot Franz Stigler choosing to spare the lives of the crew of a badly damaged American bomber during World War II](http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/09/living/higher-call-military-chivalry/). Very moving MEBuckner. Thanks for the link. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/50 "2014-06-26T19:31:50Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > I have heard (sorry, no cites) that during WWII, the Chetniks and especially the Ustashi were more vicious than any other combatants. So, I am surprised by your relatives’ anecdote. Read the anecdote again and let it sink in: > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > According to my elderly relatives who fought with the Partisans in what was then Yugoslavia, there were Partisan companies, particularly in Montenegro that if time permitted would offer confession, last rites, and even conversion **to captured enemy soldiers before executing them**. I have always considered that somehow honorable. She’s describing murdering prisoners. I’m more disturbed by her considering it honorable. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/51 "2014-06-26T20:07:06Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Read the anecdote again and let it sink in:She’s describing murdering prisoners. I’m more disturbed by her considering it honorable. What would you expect partisans to do with prisoners? They don’t _have_ any prison camps to send them to. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/52 "2014-06-26T20:15:06Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > I have heard (sorry, no cites) that during WWII, the Chetniks and especially the Ustashi were more vicious than any other combatants. So, I am surprised by your relatives’ anecdote. You are aware the Ustahi were Nazi collaborators and the Chetniks were Eastern Orthodox Christian group of Serbian nationalists who fought against them, right? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/53 "2014-06-26T20:17:28Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > What would you expect partisans to do with prisoners? They don’t _have_ any prison camps to send them to. Try and trade them for your own guys. Blind fold them and drive them to a field and leave them. If you kill them, you will sure as hell be shot if captured yourself. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/54 "2014-06-26T20:17:42Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > What would you expect partisans to do with prisoners? They don’t _have_ any prison camps to send them to. Correct. Shooting them was often the only option. The part I consider honorable is that they offered men about to executed the religious rites they considered proper and important. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/55 "2014-06-26T20:20:08Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Try and trade them for your own guys. > Blind fold them and drive them to a field and leave them. > If you kill them, you will sure as hell be shot if captured yourself. In Yugoslava during WWII, the first option was not available and the the second option would only strengthen the enemy. As for your third statement, Partisans prayed to be shot quickly if they were captured (they were usually tortured and sent to concentration camps if they survived) . ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/56 "2014-06-26T21:01:24Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > What would you expect partisans to do with prisoners? They don’t _have_ any prison camps to send them to. This does nothing to change the fact that she is describing the murder of defenseless prisoners and sure as hell isn’t going to hold up as a defense against being charged with committing war crimes. Why take prisoners if you are going to execute them anyway? Personally I find the idea that offering religious conversion to someone you are about to murder is ‘honorable’ particularly offensive. In any event, believe it or not, partisans did take (and keep) prisoners, even in [Yugoslavia in WW2](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Partisan_negotiations): > [@](#): > > From 20 January 1943, the Partisans had been hard-pressed by the Axis Case White offensive.[6] Throughout that offensive, Partisan Supreme Headquarters were trying to gain time to cross the Neretva river. One of the means that they tried to achieve this delay was to engage the Germans in negotiations.[7] In late February or early March 1943, the Partisans captured a German officer and about 25 soldiers, who joined about 100 Croatian Home Guards, and 15 Italian officers and 600 soldiers already being held as prisoners of war by the Partisans. Due to their desperate situation at this stage of Case White, and their need to delay the Axis in order to cross the Neretva river before the Germans struck, they decided to use the recently captured German officer to initiate negotiations. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/57 "2014-06-26T21:06:38Z")
My father was in the British Army and part of the rearguard at Dunkirk. He was captured and spent the rest of the war in a German Stalag. He used to say that most of the German guards were friendly and got on well with the prisoners. The big exception was the Russian prisoners, confined separately and despised by the Germans who barely considered them human. Their conditions were far worse and they had none of the small comforts that other Allied POWs had (no Red Cross parcels, for instance, as Russia was not signatory to the Geneva Convention). My old man always felt sorry for them. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/58 "2014-06-26T21:37:52Z")
To focus on ‘race’ in explaining each side’s behavior in the Pacific War is anachronistic PC. The Japanese acted worse to Chinese combatants (not to mention civilians) than Allied, and worse or no better to Asian allies of the West (Filipino prisoners died at a higher rate than Americans in the aftermath of Bataan, despite being presumably better acclimated to the environment and more resistant to the local diseases). But the basic situation with the Japanese which didn’t exist in other theaters of WWII is they firmly believed that becoming a prisoner was a disgrace for a fighting man. This heavily affected how they treated prisoners, and that in turn naturally affected how their opponents came to treat them. So the idea of stating that situation as ‘what US soldiers did in WWII’ is kind of ridiculous. There were few Japanese soldiers who even tried to surrender, and many who, even disabled by wounds or hunger/disease, tried to take captors with them by hiding grenades. This wasn’t imaginary or ‘urban legend’: it’s how the Japanese believed a fighting man should conduct himself. Even their criminal treatment of their prisoners wasn’t always just sadism. Japanese officers who ordered the beheadings of captured US and Australian airmen seriously contended they were just doing those airmen a favor, ending their disgrace. AFAIK the theater of WWII with least dirty play, though not zero, was North Africa. The struggle with the British was referred to by the Germans as ‘the war without hate’. Though even in that case it wasn’t always true. There was dirtier fighting when Free French units were involved, and one controversial case for the US Army early in its involvement in the war was where an US officer ordered the execution of German prisoners held by a US infantry unit on isolated high ground in Tunisia, surrounded by the German mobile forces during the Kasserine counter offensive, to allow the unit the silently exfiltrate on foot at night over open desert back to US lines. IOW some such incidents while judged illegal were not motivated by hatred. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/59 "2014-06-26T21:51:06Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > This does nothing to change the fact that she is describing the murder of defenseless prisoners and sure as hell isn’t going to hold up as a defense against being charged with committing war crimes. Why take prisoners if you are going to execute them anyway? Personally I find the idea that offering religious conversion to someone you are about to murder is ‘honorable’ particularly offensive. In any event, believe it or not, partisans did take (and keep) prisoners, even in [Yugoslavia in WW2](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Partisan_negotiations): Huh. I did not know that. I didn’t think religious _conversion_ was being offered - only that those who wanted a priest before they died were allowed one. Don’t doubt that I find the whole thing disquieting - and it’s arguable whether partisans should be considered legitimate in any case, though I’m sure our side found them useful from time to time, as we certainly did the French Resistance. I was only suggesting that actually keeping prisoners might have been a logistical impossibility rather often and it might prove impractical to exchange them and a complete nonsense to free them. True, you would be guaranteeing a bloody end for any partisans who were themselves taken prisoner, but Nazi reprisals for lesser slights were already severe. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638/60 "2014-06-26T22:29:48Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Huh. I did not know that. > > I didn’t think religious _conversion_ was being offered - only that those who wanted a priest before they died were allowed one. > > Don’t doubt that I find the whole thing disquieting - and it’s arguable whether partisans should be considered legitimate in any case, though I’m sure our side found them useful from time to time, as we certainly did the French Resistance. I was only suggesting that actually keeping prisoners might have been a logistical impossibility rather often and it might prove impractical to exchange them and a complete nonsense to free them. True, you would be guaranteeing a bloody end for any partisans who were themselves taken prisoner, but Nazi reprisals for lesser slights were already severe. According to individuals that told me about these occurrences, sometime the men faced with impending death would naturally become very distraught. Some asked for a priest to either rechristen them or christen them for the first time because they had not been baptized as infants. In almost all cases, the priest (please bear in mind these were Eastern Orthodox priests that were sometimes Partisan fighters themselves, not just support staff), would put aside the war and perform their duties as clergy men. Put aside your recreational outrage and think about the logistics of a small band of Partisans struggling to survive themselves trying to maintain POWs. War is hell because such life and death choices had to be made. The Partisans were noble because they offered to their enemies a degree of care and respect that definitely was not returned. Contrast being allowed last rites and then shot, to being herded naked into a giant chamber and gassed to death. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-enemy-soldiers-nice-to-eachother-on-ww1-ww2/691638.md?page=4)