What happened to surrendered Germans?

Answer 1

I can't give exact numbers and figures but I am well read on the subject so here goes....if you need EXACT figures (which actually don't exist, just estimates) Heres the short, short answer: The Russians shot them or worked them to death, freeing a small percentage 5 to 25 years after the wars end. The Western Allies occassionaly shot them on the spot (especially the SS troops) but mostly treated them as the Germans treated their P.O.W.'s very humanely, sending them to England and the U.S. and later to France and Belgium to be held in prison camps where they were treated decently. The partisans shot them on the spot or tortured them for information.

THE LONG ANSWER: The Italian and German/Austrian/French volunteer/Bulgarian/Hungarian etc. troops who were attached to the Werhmacht (German Armed forces) and Waffen SS were captured and imprisoned by two differing armies, the Soviet Union and the United States/British Commonwealth (including Australian, New Zealand and Canadian troops, LETS NOT FORGET THEM!) troops. Also attached to the U.S./U.K. units were Free French/Polish/Czech etc. troops. In between these two were the partisans who were ex soldiers and civilians who fought out of uniform, they are comparable to insurgants in the Middle East today. Incidentally the Germans referred to them as terrorists. So we will break it down by who the Germans were captured by, the Western Allies (U.S./U.K.), the Eastern Allies (Soviet Forces) and Partisans. As the partisans method of disposing of captured P.O.W.'s was quite simple we shall start with them....

PARTISANS: Nine times out of ten when an Axis (German/Austrians/Italian etc.) soldier, salior or airmen was captured by an individual or group of partisans they were executed on the spot. This was because when the Axis troops captured partisans they were shot out of hand or tortured and questioned by the SS and the Gestapo. There was also a sense of revenge killings to them as many partisans had friends and family who had been killed out of hand by axis troops or were escapees from Nazi concentration camps. There were whole units of partisans on the Eastern front composed of Jewish volunteers and after hearing what the Germans had been doing to their fellow Jews it's no wonder they werent too keen on keeping captured germans alive. Occassionally partisans would hold a soldier prisoner in hopes of gaining information or possibly exchanging prisoners but not often. Most of the partisans equipment came from captured Axis troops. You start out with a revolver or even just a machete, kill a german soldier, take his rifle and grenades and use them to attack larger groups of germans.

The SOVIET UNION: About 50 percent of the time Axis troops captured by the Red Army were executed on the spot. This was due in part to similar feelings like those of the partisans as the Germans had murdered many hundreds of thousands of Russian troops and civilians during the Operation Barbarossa invasion in 1942 of the Soviet Union and also due to the fact that Axis troops would also shoot Russian P.O.W.'s upon capture 50 percent of the time. The other half were sent east into the heartland of The Soviet Union to P.O.W. camps and slave work camps. During and after the was many hundreds of thousands of captured Germans were sent to be worked in salt mines, coal pits, forests cutting down timber, etc. Most did not live through the experience dying of overwork, disease and starvation. After the war a million plus German P.O.W.'s were marched east to reside in these camps, those who survived the ordeal not being freed and allowed to return west for many years, in some instances not untill the 1960's. You can't really blame the Russians for treating them thus, the Germans treated Russian P.O.W.'s HORRIBLY aswell.

THE WESTERN ALLIES: When captured by U.S./U.K. troops most German P.O.W.'s were treated fairly and decently being escorted west behind the fighting lines to be collected and sent to P.O.W. camps in England and the United States. There were quite a few here in Texas where I live as a matter of fact. The were housed and fed well and even allowed to pracitce patriotic excercises such as assembling to salute the German flag in the morning and for those who were ardent Nazis to assemble to discuss Nazi ideology. There were some instances of outright shooting and torture but it was a war, what do you expect? Give a bunch of 19 year old kids weapons, allow them to watch their friends be shot by Germans for years on end in battle and sometimes tempers would rise. Sometimes when a german was shot out of hand it was because they simply couldnt spare the men to escort them to the rear in the heat of battle. At the end of the war a German soldier was expected to serve out 2 years in a P.O.W. camp before being set free, but most were allowed to go home sooner than that. From what i've read, the U.S. troops were less harsh in their treatment of German P.O.W.'s than their French/U.K. counterparts but thats understandable because the U.S. had experienced less personal lossess than their european allies, e.g. the U.S. was never invaded by Germany and had very few civilian casualties. The exception to this rule of humane treatment would have been captured SS troops. They were considered a separate breed from those serving in the regular German/Italian armed forces. The SS were political soldiers, devout raving Nazis who often would NOT take U.S./U.K. troops prisoner but execute them outright, so the allies oftentimes returned the favor. However, towards the end of the war the treatment of SS prisoners was less harsh as by that time the SS had begun to draft German civilians who were not Nazis into their ranks with the result that the SS troops instances