German Pows facts
While investigating facts about German Pows In Russia and German Pows In America, I found out little known, but curios details like:
Master Sergeant Roddie Edwards, the ranking US officer at a Nazi POW camp. When Nazis told him to assemble his Jewish soldiers, he instead assembled all of his soldiers and told the German commandant that "we are all Jews here." He saved up to 200 Jewish soldiers.
what was the irony of how german pows were treated?
During WW2, captured German officers were sent to Britain as POWs and lived in luxury in Trent Park to make them feel relaxed. However, they were being listened to by 100 ‘listeners’. They revealed secrets about the holocaust, events in Berlin, Hitler's madness and V2 rocket bases.
What happened to german pows after ww2?
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what happened to german pows. Here are 50 of the best facts about German Pows Who Stayed In Britain and German Pows In Canada I managed to collect.
what happened to german pows in russia?
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A British POW started a hobby of stitching while in captivity. His work was so good it was hung on the wall by the German guards, not realising the secret message stitched on it. The message 'God Save The King' and 'F--- Hitler' was stitched in Morse code.
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In World War 2, German POWs in America were shocked by how African Americans were treated. This was due to the prisoners working alongside them in the fields, allowing them to become closer over their shared labour.
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Hanns Scharff, German Luftwaffe's "master interrogator," instead of physical torture on POWs used techniques like nature walks, going out for a pleasant lunch, and swimming where the subject would reveal information on their own. He helped shape US interrogation techniques after the war.
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German soldiers in American POW camps dramatically burned their German uniforms after being shown films of the atrocities of the Holocaust.
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Rupert Trimmingham, a black US Army soldier serving in WW2 who wrote a letter to the Army magazine about having to eat behind a train depot restaurant while German POWs were served inside in 1944, sparking support from other soldiers and contributing to the integration of the army in 1948.
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British officers imprisoned in Colditz castle, an 'escape-proof' Nazi POW camp, tried to escape by tunneling out. They emerged instead in a German colonel's wine cellar, where they proceeded to drink 137 bottles of wine, fill them with urine, and place them back on the shelves.
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When Kurt Vonnegut served in WW2 he was captured by Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He was a POW in Dresden and survived the bombing of the city by hiding in a meat locker in a slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned. This inspired him to write the anti-war novel Slaughter-House Five.
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British officers imprisoned in Colditz castle, an 'escape-proof' Nazi POW camp, tried to escape by tunneling out. They emerged instead in a German colonel's wine cellar, where they proceeded to drink 137 bottles of wine, fill them with urine, and place them back on the shelves.
What is true about german pows?
You can easily fact check it by examining the linked well-known sources.
A British PoW captured by the Germans in World War I was freed to see his dying mother - but went back to the prison camp after giving the Kaiser 'his word' he would return.
When Lena Horne entertained troops during WWII for the USO, German POW's were given front row seats while black servicemen were relegated to the back of the theater. She walked off the stage to the row where the black troops were seated and performed with the Germans behind her. - source
During WWII, over 400,000 German POWs were sent to the United States. In the POW camps, they often held theatrical and musical performances, were allowed to leave the camps without guards on the honor system, and were able to work on farms, mills, and other places for fair wages. - source
A German POW escaped his American prison camp near the end of WWII, and lived in the US for 40 years under a fake name, before finally admitting the fraud on the Today Show. His name was Georg Gärtner.
After WWII ended in Europe, German soldiers in US custody were not considered POW’s. No longer protected by the Geneva Convention they were not entitled to similar shelter or the same quantities of food as U.S. troops. Consequently, tens of thousands of prisoners died from hunger and disease - source
When were german pows released after ww2?
In 1942 in a German POW camp north of Toronto the prisoners rebelled using pipes and sticks and were subdued by a group of baseball bat weilding Canadians. The Battle of Bowmanville.
How many german pows died in allied captivity?
30 british officers tried to escape POW camp "Castle Colditz" (Oflag IV-C) by digging a tunnel. Because they read the compass wrong, they landed in the wine cellar of a german colonel. There they drank 137 bottles of wine, filled them with their urine and placed them back.
In World War 2 it was common for desensitized US troops to murder German POWs if they were wearing American boots, as it was a reminder that one of their buddies had been killed
About Oskar Speck; a German man who paddled by folding kayak from Germany to Australia from 1932-1939 only to be arrested as a POW upon arrival.
In a 1945 German POW camp near Ziegenhain, Germany, the Germans demanded that all of the Jews step forward. The ranking US Officer, Roddie Edmonds, ordered all US personnel to step forward, refusing to give up the Jewish soldiers under his command. He was finally honored 70 years later.
Most Nazi soldiers brought to the US as POWs left with positive feelings about the country at the end of WWII, and after their Geneva Convention required German repatriation, about 5000 of the soldiers emigrated back to the States, with thousands of others returning later to visit.
