You have to remember that people fighting in WWII didn’t know how it was going to turn out. The Brits in the prison camp were daily faced with the distinct possibility that their homes were about to be overrun, their families killed or impoverished, and their entire way of life destroyed. And they’re stuck in, as you put it, “summer camp.” For years. With no idea how your friends and families (to say nothing of your comrades in arms) are faring in the midst of the most brutal conflict the world has ever seen. I’m about the least gung-ho person on the planet, and I’d be crawling the walls wanting to get out and do something about it.
Which also ties into the second thing your overlooking, which is the overwhelming message that people (particularly in the UK) had been bombarded with since the day the Nazis marched into Poland: “Every little bit helps.” People were being told that digging up their flower beds to plant potatoes was vital to the war effort. Busting out of a POW camp and making a bunch of Germans chase you through a damp forest may not be much, but it counts a few ranks above Victory Gardens in terms of helping win the war.
I’ve heard this, but don’t understand why it is true. By surrendering, you are telling the enemy “I give up, please don’t kill me.” It seems like an implicit agreement that you will no longer be hostile towards them.
By having a duty to try to escape, after being spared your life, seems to be an incentive for an enemy not to take prisoners, lest you escape and cause them trouble down the line. It seems to turn the idea of “surrender” on its head.
My uncle was one of those POWs. He was in terrible condition when liberated and went home on a hospital ship, which took the slow route and took months to return to Britain (6 irrc). When he arrived home he still weighed only six stone at six feet tall. He at least could probably not have digested an elaborate feast and a nice dollop of nursery food was probably very welcome.
The same Uncle once boasted of putting on 12 pounds in four days over Christmas. Life long food issues was one of the legacies of that time.
I think the concept of surrender is more of an admission that you can’t kill the other guy, not a promise that you won’t kill the other guy. And in the long run, there are more drawbacks to killing people who have surrendered than there are in taking them prisoner - reciprocation from the enemy and deleterious effects on the morale of your own men being the two most prominent.
In popular culture, unless you were a Jew or Eastern European, Nazi POW camps were largely a big summer camp where a diverse group of multinational oddball characters played in soccer leagues, foiled bumbling colonels and plotted elaborate escape plans.
One thing to mention, The Great Escape was based off a true story.
There was a made for TV sequel The Great Escape II which was much darker. It starred Christopher Reeves as a leader of a team of Nazi hunters (as a result of the events at the end of the first film).
Keep in mind that WWII films from the late 50s to the 80s did have that “war as an elaborate, high-stakes game of Hide-and-Go-Seek played by overgrown boys” tone. Bridge on the River Quai, A Bridge Too Far, The Longest Day, Catch 22, The Devils Brigade, Von Ryan’s Express, Kelly’s Heroes, Guns of Navarone, Escape to Victory, Where Eagles Dare, The Dirty Dozen to name just a few. World War II was an unambiguous victory for the forces of Freedom and Good. It was something our nation could be proud of. Yes, bad things happen in war. But when they happened on film, they were at least they happened in a heroic manner, as a glorious act of sacrifice. So prior to Vietnam, movies about WWII tended to be some combination of action adventure, heist and screwball ensemble comedy.
Really it’s only in the past couple of decades have WWII movies be as dark as films like Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan and Thin Red Line. I think Spielberg is trying to atone for ‘1941’ with all his WWII films and HBO mini-series.
Different cultures have different takes on the subject. In most Western cultures, there was a sort attitude of war as a “gentlemanly pursuit” that goes back to the middle ages (at least for the lords and officers). You take prisoners and treat them well because you want the enemy to do the same. Also think of it from a strategic point of view. You would rather have an enemy surrender than fight to the last man, causing you casualties and loss of equipment.
OTOH, the Japanese had a completely different view. They viewed surrender as an extreme act of shame. When the Marines landed on an island, they needed to dig out every last soldier. And when Japanese took prisoners, they tended to treat them brutally.
But as for an “agreement”, the Geneva convention states that so long as you aren’t actively engaging in sabotage, espionage, theft or cause death or injury to anyone during your attempt, an escape attempt is largely treated as a disciplinary violation. (ie you go in the hole like Steve McQueen instead of getting summarily shot).
The book I’m citing is Arthur Durand’s Stalag Luft III: The Secret Story which I haven’t read in quite a few years so I’m really going on memory. It’s a history of life in the camp with only a brief mention at the end of some of the more notable escapes. According to Durand, escaping from the camp was not something many tried. I believe he gave the figure of 5% being willing to try, though mentioned that the other 95% were willing to help out in whatever way possible.
It appears that book is out of print, which is a shame. If you’re interested in a fairly complete account of life in a World War II German prison camp based on coded logs kept at the time, try at your local library, and remember the interlibrary loan. I’ll be heading back to my library soon, I need to read that again.
You’re prohibited from killing prisoners you’ve already taken. Not taking prisoners in the first place is a different matter. In the heat of battle, it’s downright easy not to. In WWII, it was common practice on both sides, particularly when they had no place to send them or the means to maintain them. You also have to consider the possibility that someone trying to surrender might be carrying a concealed hand grenade and be willing to commit suicide so long as he takes a few of your guys with him.
IIRC, no officer can explicitly order his men not to take prisoners, but there are many ways of getting the point across obliquely.
With respect to the Middle Ages and chivalry, not too long ago I was reading John Keegan’s account of the Battle of Agincourt. At one point, Henry V ordered all of the French prisoners being held in the rear to be massacred since they might rearm themselves with weapons lying on the battlefield and rejoin the fight.
Which was an extremely unpopular decision. Not for humanitarian reasons but because captured knights were prized loot that could be sold back to their families for ransom.
Unpublished memoirs…well more like a rough first draft made from recollections and diaries. But I have it somewhere. . He had been captured by the Italians in East Africa and then after being held for several months escaped. He then rejoined his battalion which after Greece went to reinforce the Far East and was pretty much destroyed in Burma and he was wounded, captured and caught malaria to boot. Japanese treated officers with the respect due to their station, meaning hang them upside down and beat the ever loving shit out of them. He never got that, a Japanese doctor prevented the intelligence guy from interrogating him. Here he was lucky, on the way to a proper POW camp from his holding area, the convoy took a wrong turn and ended up running into a British patrol which rescued them. After recovery, Great Uncle was transferred a wartime raised battalion of his regiment in N Africa where he remained until captured in Monte Cassino. He would be held outside Breslau until early 1945 when a group pf officer just decided to leave while the Germans were organizing the movement west. They spent two months walking to the West,
You are right, he had a truly fascinating war, he started it in France and ended it Hawaii and later served with British Commonwealth Occupation forces in Japan (with a two week sorjourn in California in between).
There were two US soldiers who were POWs in Germany and, decades later, in Vietnam. One of them was Col. Richard Keirn:
I remember watching a long interview (oral history) on C-Span with an Air Force officer who also had been a POW in Germany and Vietnam, but I don’t recall if that officer actually was Col. Keirn.
Might also be that the schlep back to Germany involved a little more than a night time dash to Switzerland ;).
But beyond that, the further removed from the front lines, the better the treatment of POWs, I should expect. The Allied administration of POWs on site in Western Europe towards the end of the war (and particularly *after *the German surrender) was more questionable. As in “deliberately starved and exposed to the elements in the dead of winter” questionable, because the officer in charge felt they deserved it and encouraged the behaviour since there was no more fear of reciprocation.
In my US military basic training, we had a wiry little sergeant in hand-to-hand combat class who said, loudly and strongly, if your opponent was down on the ground and helpless, you’d better kill him right then, while you had the chance. If you took him prisoner, not only would you have to guard him day and night, but he might escape and slit your throat. "Bash his head in! After all, he’d do the same for you!"
I gather from what I’ve read, that many escapers tackled this problem with great ingenuity. Germany during World War 2 was full of nationals of other countries – German-occupied, or Germany’s voluntary allies – there in all sorts of capacities. There was a chance of getting away with foreign accent / poor German or none, by posing as a national of a relatively obscure country with an obscure language – you’d have to be unlucky, to encounter while you were on the run, another speaker of that language.
There was an officer of the British Royal Navy, who tried an escape, posing as a Bulgarian naval officer – wearing his own British naval uniform, reckoning that few Germans of any kind would have the first clue what a Bulgarian sailor was supposed to look like. (He got personal documents forged, in the name of Lieutenant Ivan Bagerov = “I bugger off”.) His escape failed in the end, though he got as far as the Baltic Sea coast; but in his many days at large before that, nobody doubted his credentials.
And – another episode, another camp – two Royal Navy petty officers escaped together, posing as Flemish Belgian workmen with jobs in Germany. They didn’t know a word of German (or Flemish); they managed the deception by talking with each other in Maltese, which they knew a little of, having done long terms of service in Malta. IIRC, these guys’ escape was successful.
Travelling through Germany while escaping, was helped by the fact that on the whole Germans, when allowed to be themselves, tend towards minding their own business and leaving other people alone to mind theirs. I understand that escape from P.O.W. camps in Italy was almost impossible, because Italians are intensely interested and curious – in a perfectly friendly way – about all folk whom they encounter, and talk and interact unremittingly (this wasn’t “spy mania” – just a strong national trait).
This reminds me of the episode of Combat! in which Lt. Hanley escaped from one facility disguised as an Albanian officer. (He was always getting captured, it seemed to me.) He knew no Albanian, and spoke only one word of German: “Albanien.” He was turned in while waiting for a train by two Hitler Youth who realized his uniform was wrong … and the guy they ratted him out to was an escaped British POW masquerading as a German officer. (I am not kidding!)
There was a documentary on BBC (I think) not too long ago about some German POWs who managed to escape from a facility in England. They headed for the south coast in the hope of making contact with a U-boat, IIRC, or maybe stealing a small boat and striking out for occupied France.
Even in the countryside, the south of England is fairly densely populated and everyone was on the alert, so they must have had a bitch of a time evading recapture. God knows how they would have managed if they had tried to escape in the US. (I suppose they could always have disguised themselves as Amish…? :rolleyes: )
Pretty straightforward. Since this is in Cafe Society, I guess we should look for explanations within the film. I think the film makes it abundantly clear why they wanted to escape:
Ramsey: Colonel Von Luger, it is the sworn duty of all officers to try to escape. If they cannot escape, then it is their sworn duty to cause the enemy to use an inordinate number of troops to guard them, and their sworn duty to harass the enemy to the best of their ability.
Ramsey: Did the Gestapo give you a rough time?
Bartlett: Not nearly as rough as I now intend to give them.
Ramsey: Roger, personal revenge must be kept out of what we have to do here. Too many lives are at stake.
Bartlett: [scoffing] What my personal feelings are is of no importance. You appointed me Big X. And it’s my duty to harass, confound, and confuse the enemy to the best of my ability.
Ramsey: That’s true.
Bartlett: Well, that’s what I intend to do. I’m going to cause such a terrible stink in this… Third Reich of theirs, that thousands of troops that could well be employed at the front will be tied up here looking after us.
Ramsey: Have you thought of what it might cost?
Bartlett: I’ve thought of the humiliation if we just… tamely submit. Knuckle under and crawl. Surely, you don’t advocate that, do you, sir?
Ramsey: I have to point out one thing to you, Roger. No matter how unsatisfactory this camp may be, the High Command have still left us in the hands of the Luftwaffe. Not the Gestapo and the SS.
Bartlett: Look, sir, you talk about the High Command and the Luftwaffe, and then you talk about the Gestapo and the SS. To me, they’re the same! We’re fighting the bloody lot! There’s only one way to put it, sir: they are the common enemies of everyone who believes in freedom. If the High Command didn’t approve of Hitler, then why didn’t they throw him out?
Hendley: Come on, Roger. We all know the score here, at least… most of us do. Your idea of this escape is to… start another front, to foul up the Germans behind the lines. All right, that’s fine, that’s fine. But once we get past that barbed wire, once we have them looking all over Germany for us, that mission is accomplished. Afterwards, we have some ideas of our own.
Bartlett: You mean getting home? Back to your family and children?
Hendley: That’s right.
Bartlett: Good God, man. Do you really believe I haven’t thought about that, too?
Ramsey: Roger’s idea was to get back at the enemy the hardest way he could, mess up the works. From what we’ve heard here, I think he did exactly that.
Hendley: Do you think it was worth the price?
Ramsey: Depends on your point of view, Hendley.
To quote a character in a fantasy novel about a World War 2-counterpart in a different universe, at a particularly confusing point in the war: “Who knows what’s real these days?”
My very favourite WW2 weird-language-and-nationality baffling-the-enemy story, is, alas, reckoned certain to be an “urban myth”, impossible to have really happened; but one feels that it ought to be true.
The story goes that at the time of the fall of France in 1940, many men of a British regiment – a Scottish Highland one – were captured by the Germans in Northern France. There was a bunch of a dozen “other ranks” guys in the regiment, all good friends, who came from the far north-west of Scotland; their mother tongue was Scottish Gaelic. Right from the moment of capture, they talked in Gaelic only, feigning to know no other language. The Germans were bewildered when they tried to question them: they had no idea what language they were speaking, and understood not a word. In any case there would have been no-one available, German or French, who knew Gaelic. The Germans were flummoxed – were these guys mercenaries in British service, from some strange place, or what?
After a few days’ puzzlement, the German interrogating officer produced a map of the whole of Europe and a bit beyond, and by dumb-show, asked the “Gaels” where they came from. The guys duly chatted volubly in Gaelic for a bit; after which the leader of the group put his finger on the most north-easterly spot in Russia which the map included. This was the last straw for the Germans, who at this juncture had bigger and more urgent things to worry about, than half a dozen random private soldiers. They indicated to the “Gaels”, “Just piss off: go wherever you like – simply get out of our hair,” and dismissed them. The guys duly set off southwards, and ultimately made their way down through the chaos in France, and got back to Britain via Spain. As said – has to be a tall tale: but you wish it had really happened.