What was it really like to be a POW in world war II germany?

Question

or any war for that matter...

please, so silly answers. only people who had real expierence or those who know someone who did. thanx.

Answer 1

I can't speak for the POW's held in Germany but I worked with a man who was a German POW held some where in the Southern part of the U.S.  He was treated well but he told me that he hoped that he would never have to pick cotten again.

Answer 2

Germans were known to execute prisoners before ever making it to a camp. Once there, it all depended on the state of degradation that Germany's situation happened to be, and just who was in charge of the camp you happened to be in.

Answer 3

generally if you were white anglosaxon e.g blond, blue eyes you stood a better chance of being treated under the Geneva convention.

but if you were swarthy or black or jewish, then god help you!

Answer 4

It depends on who captured you. If you were a USAAF, RCAF or RAF airman captured over n**i Europe, you would go to a Stalag Luft camp run by the Luftwaffe and be treated under the Geneva Convention. If you were an Allied soldier captured in the front by the Waffen SS, Hitlerjugend, and other paramilitary SS units, you would be treated like garbage especially if you were an American or Russian soldier of Jewish descent like what happened to captured US soldiers at Malmedy massacre in Belgium or Canadian paratroopers captured by a Hitlerjugend unit during D-Day. Check out this website about the USAAF, RAF, RCAF airmen's experience as POWs in a Stalag Luft camp run by the Luftwaffe:

http://www.merkki.com/

And check out this book about American soldiers captured by the SS:

http://www.amazon.com/Soldiers-Slaves-Am...

Answer 5

Depends who captures you. Sometimes your captors are pretty good and decent guys and make you forget there's even a war at all but sometimes your captors treat you worse than dirt.

Answer 6

I know three ex-PoWs (one RAF, two Canadian Army) and they said there were crude conditions, mediocre food (and not enough of it) and nothing to do but talk to your buddies. Boring, boring, boring.

One escaped during a forced march at the end of the war and said that part was scary as h**l. The home guard in Germany was trigger-happy and he once figured he was doomed -- but escaped and rode through the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in a British armoured car, having been picked up by a British unit

It was no fun, but a helluva lot better than being captured by the Japanese.