German treatment of POW's

jonniebgood1 · 27-01-2011 9:19pm #1

What was behind the German treatment of Russian prisoners of war in WW2? I understand that they did not see the Russian people as equals. However they seem to have been singled out for worse treatment than other slavic people were at the same time. Germany had been a signature on the 1929 Geneva convention on POW treatment (albeit prior to Nazi governance) although the USSR had not. I find both the overall figures and the personal stories staggering.

Some 3.3 million Soviet POWs died in Nazi custody out of 5.7 million. This figure represents a total of 57% of all Soviet POWs and may be contrasted with only 8,300 out of 231,000 British and American prisoners, or 3.6%. Some estimates range as high as 5 million dead, including those killed immediately after surrendering (an indeterminate, although certainly very large number).[6][7] Only 5% of the Soviet prisoners who died were of Jewish ethnicity.[8] Among those who died was Stalin's son, Yakov Dzhugashvili.

The most deaths took place between June 1941 and January 1942, when the Germans killed an estimated 2.8 million Soviet POWs primarily through starvation,[9] exposure, and summary execution, in what has been called, along with the Rwandan Genocide, an instance of "the most concentrated mass killing in human history (...) eclipsing the most exterminatory months of the Jewish Holocaust".[10] By September 1941, the mortality rate among Soviet POWs was in the order of 1% per day

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_crimes_against_Soviet_POWs

A source relating to Soviet crimes in relation to Gulags (thus IMO not overtly sympathetic to the Soviet POW's) is somewhat incredulous at the state in one German POW camp describing the scene as follows:

exert taken from pg 218 of part 1 of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns book on the Soviet Gulags - 'The Gulag Archipelago'

Given the amount of information relating to British and American POW's in comparison there is not nearly as much about Russian POW's. Is the reason for this the cold war or are there other reasons? I know the Soviet view of their own soldiers being captured was warped in that they were then considered with suspicion if they managed to escape or return. I think the fact that Germany was well able to treat prisoners humanely in western europe is a further indictment on what they did in the east.

I would be interested if anyone could give the % of German soldiers killed in Russian POW camps as a comparison to the 57% figure given above. Any other relevent information is appreciated about this subject.

I read recently that at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa that Stalin had requested through intermediaries that both sides (USSR & Germany) should abide by Geneva convention on POW's but that this was turned down by Germany. Was this an honest endeavour and why was it turned down?

Morlar · 27-01-2011 9:30pm

How would you compare German wartime treatment of Russian pows with ;

a) Russian treatment of German pows - bearing in mind survival rates.

b) Russian treatment of their own citizens who were released from German captivity into Russian hands at the end of the war ?

Zaph · 27-01-2011 10:10pm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

I would be interested if anyone could give the % of German soldiers killed in Russian POW camps as a comparison to the 57% figure given above. Any other relevent information is appreciated about this subject.

Well it's only a small percentage of overall German POWs, but from the figures quoted by Laurence Rees in The Nazis: A Warning From History regarding the fate of the Germans captured at Stalingrad, it's probably safe to say they didn't fare too well. Just over 90,000 were captured. Of these, 95% of the ordinary troops and NCOs died, along with 55% of the junior officers and 5% of the senior officers.

jonniebgood1 · 27-01-2011 10:25pm

Morlar wrote: »

How would you compare German wartime treatment of Russian pows with ;

a) Russian treatment of German pows - bearing in mind survival rates.

b) Russian treatment of their own citizens who were released from German captivity into Russian hands at the end of the war ?

My post was not so much looking for a comparison between both (German/ Russian), rather looking at the reasons behind the massive difference in survival rates of British/ American POW's and Soviet POW's. However It may be interesting, if you wanted to discuss this in terms of how German POW's were treated (poorly I presume although this would be a natural response given the chronology of when they would have been captured).

In direct response to your point A, I would like to compare these to in terms of the actual percentage of survival. The Wiki article says that 57% of all Soviet prisoners died in German POW camps. As a simple comparison I would be interested if anyone could provide the % of German survivors from Soviet POW camps (I am aware that alot were not released until long after WW2 but a survival % should show if the treatment was similar).

In relation to point B I think this is one of the most sinister aspects of the war. It is however in line with the direction the Soviet state took in terms of their treatment of their own citizens. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whom I quoted was sentenced to time in a Gulag after his own role in WWII. His accounts of the POW's are thus all the more authentic considering this.

Morlar · 27-01-2011 10:38pm

I think factors around lower russian survival rates than british or American would include the general health and physical condition on entry to captivity, the VAST numbers in which they were taken and the fact that this took place often within a very short amount of time and the chaos this would have caused on the advancing and already stretched wartime German side.

There have been books written on how unreliable the statistics are as regards German survival rates in Allied hands. I had read 120,000 of the 6th army taken captive, and less than 6000 survived. I had also read of the SS in Russia having 97% mortality rates. Another factor to consider is that on the Eastern Front there were apparently 1.5 million 'missing' Germans, bearing in mind that the soviets did not fully co-operate with the red cross it is reasonable that many of those missing did actually make it to captivity so the post war statistics written by the victors become less convincing imo.

Re statistics on wikipedia this may be interesting :
http://www.serendipity.li/hr/bacque_on_wikipedia.htm

Fuinseog · 28-01-2011 11:49am

if you want to explore the issue fully then you should condsider British treatment of Japanese prisoners, whom they regarded as racially inferior.

British treatment of German prisoners and civilains in post war Germany was also not always correct.

heroes of the French Resistance bravely shot German prisoners

essentially becoming a prisoner and getting good treatment from the enemy relied on a lot of luck.

FiSe · 28-01-2011 2:57pm

And let's not forget that Soviet Russia or USSR didn't sign the Geneva convention /?, it's Friday, can't think straight, so please feel free to correct this/ about treatment of the POWs.
And their official approach to their own soldiers which became POWs was similar to that of Japanese, ie. Soviet soldier fights to the last drop of blood and never surrender...

jonniebgood1 · 28-01-2011 4:39pm

Fuinseog wrote: »

if you want to explore the issue fully then you should condsider British treatment of Japanese prisoners, whom they regarded as racially inferior.

British treatment of German prisoners and civilains in post war Germany was also not always correct.

heroes of the French Resistance bravely shot German prisoners

essentially becoming a prisoner and getting good treatment from the enemy relied on a lot of luck.

This is all true, I would be interested in your information regarding British treatment of Japanese prisoners. Particularly evidence of racial traits in the British attitudes. My original point was really aimed at exploring the reasons for the Germans differentiating to such a degree between Prisoners from different countries- I think that if there is evidence that Britain did the same it would also be interesting.

jonniebgood1 · 28-01-2011 4:48pm

FiSe wrote: »

And let's not forget that Soviet Russia or USSR didn't sign the Geneva convention /?, it's Friday, can't think straight, so please feel free to correct this/ about treatment of the POWs.
And their official approach to their own soldiers which became POWs was similar to that of Japanese, ie. Soviet soldier fights to the last drop of blood and never surrender...

You are correct that the USSR did not sign the 1929 convention which detailed treatment of POW's. However Germany did sign it and generally speaking upheld it with treatment of British/ American prisoners. Having signed it Germany was duty bound to abide by its contents, even when dealing with nations that had not signed it. This was dealt with under article 82 of the treaty. Their treatment of their own soldiers who were captured was reprehensible and reflected the general lack of value placed on human life by the USSR at the time (Ukraine famine, purges, etc).

jonniebgood1 · 28-01-2011 5:12pm

Morlar wrote: »

There have been books written on how unreliable the statistics are as regards German survival rates in Allied hands. I had read 120,000 of the 6th army taken captive, and less than 6000 survived. I had also read of the SS in Russia having 97% mortality rates. Another factor to consider is that on the Eastern Front there were apparently 1.5 million 'missing' Germans, bearing in mind that the soviets did not fully co-operate with the red cross it is reasonable that many of those missing did actually make it to captivity so the post war statistics written by the victors become less convincing imo.

Re statistics on wikipedia this may be interesting :
http://www.serendipity.li/hr/bacque_on_wikipedia.htm

I agree that wiki is not always reliable. The 57% figure of soviet POW's who died in German custody is not just from wiki. It is widely referenced including http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007183 . If you think that figure is incorrect I could look for alternative sources.

Morlar wrote: »

I think factors around lower russian survival rates than british or American would include the general health and physical condition on entry to captivity, the VAST numbers in which they were taken and the fact that this took place often within a very short amount of time and the chaos this would have caused on the advancing and already stretched wartime German side.

Are you saying that the health and condition of the prisoners on capture was significant. I don't argue with the premise that they may not have been in the same condition but it is very hard to believe that this is why many millions of POW's died. Do you have any source to back up this point?

The number of POW's taken in a short time is a valid point and accepted. I have read that as winter approached prisoners who were 'stored' in open camps tried to dig holes in the ground to try and gain some semblence of cover from the conditions. My original point is why this total neglect for the prisoners occured. Considering that they built camps for Jewish prisoners who they considered to be worthless I don't understand why they as such a highly organised force could allow this to happen in late 1941 when they were having their greatest success.

BlaasForRafa · 28-01-2011 6:27pm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

The number of POW's taken in a short time is a valid point and accepted. I have read that as winter approached prisoners who were 'stored' in open camps tried to dig holes in the ground to try and gain some semblence of cover from the conditions. My original point is why this total neglect for the prisoners occured. Considering that they built camps for Jewish prisoners who they considered to be worthless I don't understand why they as such a highly organised force could allow this to happen in late 1941 when they were having their greatest success.

The thing is that it wasn't actually that highly organized. I know the image of the Germans is of a highly mobile force etc but iirc less than 20% of the axis forces in 1941 was made up of Panzer or Motorized Infantry divisions. The rest was made up of infantry who primarily used horse-drawn transport. Approximately a million horses were used in Barbarossa and fodder had to be transported for these as they didn't live off the land like cossack horses.

The Heer was barely capable of supplying itself by the time of the huge kessels, by september many artillery units had to ration how many shells they could use because of the problems with long supply lines.

After they were captured prisoners would be guarded by rear area troops but neither the nazi party, OKW or OKH made much preparation for large numbers of prisoners and most of the prisoner deaths in heer administration occurred in 1941-42 in massive camps. After that prisoners were in large part shipped back to germany as slave labour by Todt, Sauckel, Speer et al.

A combination of insufficient preperation, overstretched supply lines and the callous nature of nazi ideology was responsible for the enormous amount of prisoner deaths imo.

Morlar · 28-01-2011 9:09pm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Are you saying that the healthand condition of the prisoners on capture was significant. I don't argue with the premise that they may not have been in the same condition but it is very hard to believe that this is why many millions of POW's died. Do you have any source to back up this point?

I believe it's a contributory factor, I did not put it forward as being anything more than that.

I think the comparative starting point of the physical health of a soviet conscriptee thrown to the front by a sometimes chaotic army vs a professional american or british soldier could be a factor.

xflyer · 31-01-2011 3:06pm

First off the treatment of western prisoners by the Germans wasn't nearly as good as we are led to believe by movies like 'The Great Escape' which made it look like a holiday camp. There was plenty of poor treatment and brutality. For the average enlisted man prisoner conditions were tough and they were expected to work. But they were treated better than Soviet prisoners quite simply because the Nazis considered them untermenschen and as the intention was eliminate them anyway after the war was won. Keeping them comfortable as prisoners wouldn't a high priority to say the least.

Suggestions that they were in poorer physical condition ignores the reality that many Russian and other nationalities were hardy men used to harsh conditions. The fact is that Soviet prisoners were systematically worked to death by the Nazis quite intentionally.

jonniebgood1 · 31-01-2011 7:50pm

Morlar wrote: »

I believe it's a contributory factor, I did not put it forward as being anything more than that.

I think the comparative starting point of the physical health of a soviet conscriptee thrown to the front by a sometimes chaotic army vs a professional american or british soldier could be a factor.

Do you have any source for this opinion (that poorer health contributed to the high rate of death for Soviet POW's)?

Morlar · 31-01-2011 8:13pm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Do you have any source for this opinion (that poorer health contributed to the high rate of death for Soviet POW's)?

No.

BlaasForRafa · 31-01-2011 9:34pm

Regarding the German supply situation I scanned through Panzer Leader by Col-General Guderian and on October 10 1941 he made the following comment (p.237) "The supplying of hundreds of vehicles and their crews had now to be done by the air force, and that for weeks on end. Preparations made for the winter were utterly inadequate. For weeks we had been requesting anti-freeze for the radiators of our engines; we saw as little of this as we did of winter clothing for the troops. This lack of warm clothes was, in the difficult months ahead to provide the greatest problem and cause the greatest suffering to our soldiers"

So, if the Heer couldn't supply its own frontline soldiers how was it going to supply prisoners. So what about the OKW and Nazi hierarchy?

From The Storm of War by Andrew Roberts (p.227) "The Wehrmacht's Central Economic Agency stated that on 2 May 1941 that all German forces involved in Barbarossa would have to 'be fed at the expense of Russia....thereby tens of millions will undoubtedly starve to death if we take away all we need from the country'. This was underlined by the Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, who on 20 June 1941, told the bureuacrats who would soon staff the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories: 'The southern territories and Northern Caucasus will have to make up the deficit in food supplies for the German population. We do not accept that we have any responsibility for feeding the Russian population...from these surplus producing regions'"

Roberts also acknowledges that the germans had trouble feeding their own troops from the land since the Soviets campaign of scorched earth which destroyed much of the harvest in the ukraine....karma I guess.

Stovepipe · 31-01-2011 11:49pm

Hi there,
Don't forget Stalin's statement "there are no Soviet citizens in German POW camps", which effectively sentenced every Soviet PoW to death. Those that survived to be liberated by the Red Army were often immediately shipped to the Gulag, which was a slow death. Also, survivors' families were often exiled with them, which effectively meant death for an entire family.
regards
Stovepipe

marcsignal · 02-02-2011 11:29am

Fuinseog wrote: »

essentially becoming a prisoner and getting good treatment from the enemy relied on a lot of luck.

+1

jonniebgood1 · 04-02-2011 5:48pm

I found the figure comparisons in a table by Niall Ferguson quoted here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Losses#Other_evidence_for_German_POW_deaths

This confirms that the death rate in German camps for Russian POW's was approximately twice that of the much reported harsh treatment of Allied POW's in Japanese camps. The treatment of the Russians still seems unexplained, particuarly after listening to Dan Carlins 'Ghosts of the Ostfront' podcast. I dont agree that luck had a lot to do with survival- Where you were from would seem to be more relevent than luck.

gigino · 07-02-2011 1:36am

There were more than 140,000 white prisoners in Japanese prisoner of war camps. Of these, one in three died from starvation, work, punishments or from diseases for which there were no medicines to treat.

http://www.historyonthenet.com/WW2/pow_camps_japan.htm

xflyer · 07-02-2011 7:48pm

Jonniebgood1, the answer is simple, Soviet POWs were systematically starved, shot or worked to death in a way that even the Japanese failed match or indeed Stalin. There is no mystery even though some here would like you believe otherwise. It was deliberate and premeditated, nothing to do with physical condition or luck. In fact the scale of killing was scaled back later as the war dragged on because of their usefullness as slave labourers.

FiSe · 08-02-2011 10:56am

Statistics could be a very obscure thing. It's hard to believe that the Nazis were worse than Stalin's communists or Imperial Japanese military.

I would suggest that everyone shoud click on the wiki link under the table and read the whole article.

Fuinseog · 08-02-2011 12:40pm

FiSe wrote: »

Statistics could be a very obscure thing. It's hard to believe that the Nazis were worse than Stalin's communists or Imperial Japanese military.

I would suggest that everyone shoud click on the wiki link under the table and read the whole article.

wasn't it churchill who said 'I only believe the statistics I have falsified myself (paraphrase).

it suits some politcial agendas to have rthe nazis as the ultiamte baddies.

even in recent times Americam treatment of POWs in Guantanamo Bay and Iraq has been largely forgotten about. tehy tortured inmates, yet we do not have a problem with it.

inmates in German concentration camps were totured throughout the thirties and it did not bother anyone.

xflyer · 08-02-2011 1:12pm

Fuinseog wrote: »

it suits some politcial agendas to have rthe nazis as the ultiamte baddies.

It suit some political agendas to have the Nazis actions minimised or even dismissed. In the end you have to judge them by their actions. Conquest and occupation of much of Europe and the attempted genocide of multiple peoples and races. They managed a lot in a very short period. They may not be the ultimate bad guys but they are up there in the top three.

Comparing them to Gitmo doesn't even come close in comparision.

FiSe · 08-02-2011 3:41pm

Who said something along the lines...death of one is tragedy, death of thousands is statistic.

Anyway, I didn't want to stand up for any of the involved parties. The article on the wiki is, actually very good, for a change. And it shows that it is impossible to put down any close percentage on the death of POW of any camp.

For example - and I know that these are only tiny numbers in overall context - would the GIs shot in Malmedy incident be treated as POW or combat deaths, what about Totenkopf troops shot in Dachau -POWs or combat? Cossacks handed over to the Soviets at the end of WWII, Russian Liberation Army soldiers, POWs, combat or none at all? And if, which POWs they would be? What about their families, civilians...
Some of the SS volunteers from France, Holland, Belgium, Norway...

I can imagine that nobody really had a proper account of how many of them really entered the POW camps and how many of them perished in there. Just too many people to care, for their captors.

jonniebgood1 · 08-02-2011 4:04pm

FiSe wrote: »

Statistics could be a very obscure thing. It's hard to believe that the Nazis were worse than Stalin's communists or Imperial Japanese military.

I would suggest that everyone shoud click on the wiki link under the table and read the whole article.

It is hard to believe that, but the statistics I quoted from should not be taken lightly. The author of the book they are taken from is a respected source (Niall Ferguson- Professor of history and business administration at Harvard) so while the way they are calculated can be queried, I would presume it was done consistently for each side. When we consider the information about Japanese treatment of British POW's that is widely acknowledged to have been horrendous, the facts (as per figures) show that over twice as many deaths of Russian prisoners occured. I will try and source evidence of how this happened. All relevent links to information on this is welcomed as it seems to be hard to come by.

FiSe · 08-02-2011 6:32pm

That's what I'm saying when I said that everyone should click on that link. It is in that article:

'....In 1941 alone, two million of the 3.3 million German-held Soviet POWs — about 60% — died or were executed by the special SS "Action Groups" (Ensatzgruppen).[101][103] By 1944, only 1.05 million of 5 million Soviet prisoners in German hands had survived.[104][105] Of some 2–3 million German POWs in Russian hands, more than 1 million died.[104][106][107] Of the 132,000 British and American POWs taken by the Japanese army, 27.6% died in captivity — the Bataan death march being the most notorious incident, producing a POw death rate of between 40 and 60%.[108]....'

but also another point I was trying to make, about imposibility to see the whole picture from missing and incomplete records, for example:

'...The book Other Losses alleged 1.5 million prisoners were missing and estimated that up to 500,000 of these were in Soviet camps. When the KGB opened its archives in the 1990s, 356,687 German soldiers and 93,900 civilians previously recorded as missing were found to be listed in the Bulanov report as dying in the Soviet camps.[93] Similarly, the Japanese government had long held that 62,000 of their soldiers had died in Soviet camps with Russia admitting to only 35,000. The archives contained the death certificates for just under 62,000 Japanese POWs....'

BlaasForRafa · 08-02-2011 8:11pm

For example - and I know that these are only tiny numbers in overall context - would the GIs shot in Malmedy incident be treated as POW or combat deaths,

Definitely POW executions. This was actually tried as a war crime in 1946.

what about Totenkopf troops shot in Dachau -POWs or combat?

POW executions but I think this was seen as being partly justified because they were concentration camp guards. There is some element of "victors justice" in it as if the germans had done the same they would have been tried as war criminals.

Cossacks handed over to the Soviets at the end of WWII, Russian Liberation Army soldiers, POWs, combat or none at all? And if, which POWs they would be? What about their families, civilians...

Again, victors justice. I think from a modern sensibility they would be seen as POW's but the Soviet view was that they were traitors and deserved to die.

Some of the SS volunteers from France, Holland, Belgium, Norway...

POW's in my opinion but views differed from country to country

I can imagine that nobody really had a proper account of how many of them really entered the POW camps and how many of them perished in there. Just too many people to care, for their captors.

Who you surrendered to in large part determined what your fate would be. It seems that if you surrendered to the British that you were safe enough but if you surrendered to the americans there was a good chance that you would be sent to the soviets if you had fought on the russian front.

Contrast the fate of JG52 who surrendered to the americans but who were soon handed over the the russians and spent many years in the gulags. Its laughable but part of the charges against Erich Hartmann was the "willful destruction of soviet property, namely 352 aircraft" (actually it was 345)

whereas JG54 flew from Latvia on May 8th escaping the soviet grasp and most surrendered to the british in denmark.

The remaining serviceable FW-190's were ordered fly to Flensburg on the Danish border, with the German Navy evacuating as many of the ground personnel as possible by ship. The JG 54 pilots, led by Oberst Dietrich Hrabak, ripped out all unnecessary equipment from the fighters, allowing room to take two men, one man crouching behind the seat and the other fitting into the fuselage. In this way at least 90 JG 54 personnel escaped Russian capture. The faces of those who watched one FW190 land and saw five people emerge were by all accounts something to behold!
(From FW190 Aces on the Eastern Front by Osprey Publishing)

The british handed the planes over to the russians but not the luftwaffe personnel.

jonniebgood1 · 08-02-2011 11:47pm

Some accounts of treatment of prisoners and general population by the German forces in 1941:

On December 2, in the village of Krasnaia Polyana, near Moscow, the German fascist scoundrels gathered all the working population from 15 to 60 years old and locked them in the building of the district executive committee, unheated and with broken windows, and kept them without bread or water for eight days. Women workers Zaitseva, Gudkina, Naletkina and Mikhailova, of the Krasnaia Polyana factory, who were subjected to this torture, saw their babies die in their arms.

Cases are not infrequent of Hitlerites using Soviet children as targets for shooting practice. In the village of Bely Rast, in the Krasnaia Polyana District, a group of drunken German soldiers put the 12-year-old boy Volodya Tkachev on the porch of a house as a target and opened fire with automatic rifles. The boy's whole body was riddled with bullets. After that the bandits opened disorderly fire at the windows of houses. They halted collective farmer Mossolova, who was passing down the street with her three children, and shot her on the spot, together with the children.

In the village of Voskresenskaye, in the Dubinin District, the Hitlerites used a three-year-old boy as a target for machine-gun practice. In the district center of Volovo, in the Kursk Region, where the Germans stayed four hours, a German officer dashed the head of the two-year-old son of a woman named Boikova against a wall and killed him because he was crying. In the Zhlobino rural Soviet, in the Orel Region, the fascists killed the two-year-old child of collective farmer Kratov because its crying disturbed their sleep.

In the village of Semenovka, in the Kalinin Region, the Germans raped 25-year-old Tikhonova, wife of a Red Army man and mother of three children, who was in the last stage of pregnancy. They tied her hands with a piece of string. After raping her the Germans cut her throat, stabbed both her breasts, and drilled them in a sadistic manner. In the same village the occupants shot a 13-year-old boy and carved a five-cornered star on his forehead.

In November, telegraph operator Ivanova went with her 13-year-old son Leonid to visit relatives in the village of Burashovo, near Kalinin. As they left the town they were noticed by Hitlerites, who opened fire at them from a distance of 60 yards and killed the boy. The mother made several attempts to lift and carry away her boy's body, but at each attempt the Germans fired at her, and she was forced to abandon the body. For eight days the German soldiers did not allow her to remove the body. It was taken away and buried by Ivanova only after this locality was occupied by our troops.

In Rostov-on-Don, Vitya Cherevichny, 15,-year-old pupil of a vocational school, was playing in a courtyard with his pigeons. German soldiers passing by began to take away the pigeons. The boy protested. The Germans took him out and shot him at the corner of 28th Avenue and First of May Street because he did not give them the pigeons. The Hitlerites stamped on the boy's face with their boots and deformed it beyond recognition.

The village of Basmanovo, of the Glinka District of the Smolensk Region, liberated by our troops early in September, was only a heap of ashes after the German occupation. On the first day, the fascist fiends chased into a field over 200 schoolboys and girls who had come to the village to take part in the harvesting and there surrounded and brutally shot them. They carried away a large group of schoolgirls to the rear for the "gentlemen officers."

The German invaders erased hundreds of villages in the Ukraine and Byelorussia, and in the Moscow, Leningrad, Tula and other regions of our country. In the village of Dedilovo, of the Tula Region, the occupants burned down 960 houses out of 998. In the village of Pozhidayevka, of the Kursk Region, they burned 554 houses out of 602. In the village of Ozeretskoye, in the Krasnaia Polyana District of the Moscow Region, 225 houses were burned out of 232. The village of Kobneshki, of the same district, which numbered 123 houses, was completely burned out. In the Vyssokovo District of the Moscow Region, 85 houses out of 99 were burned in the village of Nekrassino, and 66 out of 69 in the village of Baklanovo.

When they evacuated the villages of Krasnaia Polyana, Myshetskoye, Ozherelye and Vyssokovo in the Moscow Region, the Germans detailed automatic riflemen to pour gasoline over houses and set them on fire. When residents tried to put out the fires, the Germans shot at them with automatic rifles. Of 80 houses in the village of Myshetskoye, only five remain. Of 200 in Ozherelye, eight remain. Of 76 in Vyssokovo, three remain.

This is just a small section of the diplomatic transcript from Soviet minister Molotov to all foreign ambassadors on Jan 6 1942. Full text at
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1942/420106b.html

Morlar · 09-02-2011 1:16am

Do you consider the WW2 soviet communist state to be a neutral source ?

jonniebgood1 · 09-02-2011 9:56am

Morlar wrote: »

Do you consider the WW2 soviet communist state to be a neutral source ?

No. I stated clearly that it was a

diplomatic transcript from Soviet minister Molotov to all foreign ambassadors on Jan 6 1942.

It is interesting though as a large collection of examples of treatment of the populace and POW's. I would prefer some first hand accounts of the German treatment of the POW's in camps to try and get a grasp on just what the conditions they left these soldiers in. From research it seems that the Germans thought they were superior to the Russian people but I still find it hard to comprehend the massive casualties of Russian POW's. Up to this operation most armies had respect for each other, i.e. Christmas truce in WWI, I know this was one off but the soldiers on each side realised they were similar people.

German treatment of POW's

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