Repatriation of German POWs home

[Ordvark]

When it star and when it ended from ? And numbers of repatriants ,returned home by year,please ...

[Simon H]

Hello Ordvark,

This may help to give you an idea. Certainly in UK the repatriation of prisoners of war was seen as a high priority after the cessation of hostilities. However, there was also a serious manpower shortage in England at that time and German prisoners were also being used for labour on farms.

You will see from below that the desire to return POWs to Germany as soon as possible was both acknowledged and being put into action.

According to a House of Commons debate on 12th February 1946

"Asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many anti-Nazi German prisoners of war are available for the Oberon scheme for repatriating German prisoners of war; how many prisoners of war have thus been repatriated; and what steps he is taking to accelerate the repatriation of anti-Nazi prisoners of war in order that they may help in the reconstruction of a democratic Germany.

There are at present in this country some 19,000 anti-Nazi German prisoners-of-war who have been screened for consideration under this scheme. Some 2,200 have been selected as suitable for return to Germany. About 650 have been repatriated. Three hundred and fifty miners have also been 172 selected for priority return. The Control Commission in Germany are ready to accept any number of anti-Nazi miners, bank officials, lawyers, factory managers, police, as well as experienced workers in agriculture and food processing, transport, post and telegraph services and public utilities. Repatriation of these prisoners is proceeding as fast as possible.

Regards,
Simon.

[AJFFM]

This question has been on my mind too. From my readings it seems that many German PoWs were simply disarmed and let go not far after the war ended (Gunter Grass for example!?). Some German units it seems remained active even after the war ended doing patrols and securing locations ( think a Sub ace was mistakenly killed by a German sentry months after the war ended).

Could some one help in answering these questions.

[Helmut0815]

Some German units it seems remained active even after the war ended doing patrols and securing locations ( think a Sub ace was mistakenly killed by a German sentry months after the war ended).

This incident happenend at the Naval Academy in Flensburg-Muerwik where the Flensburg Government was established. Captain Wolfgang Lueth, commander of the Marineschule and one the second highest decorated U-Boat aces was shot on 13 May 1945, see http://www.uboat.net/men/luth.htm

regards


Helmut

[AJFFM]

Thanks Helmut for the info.

So when the Flensburg government ended did the practice end? What about other regions of Germany not controlled directly by the Flensburg government like Bavaria? Did allies let the remnants of the Wehrmacht and the Nazi government to manage things locally until full occupation was conducted?

[Carl Schwamberger]

Thanks Helmut for the info.

So when the Flensburg government ended did the practice end?

As quickly as Allied soldiers could arrive. Surrender & disarmament of German garrisons in Norway dragged on to June. the last German military unit to be taken into custody was a weather station crew on a island in the arctic ocean. they were not picked up until late summer. German miltiary attaches and 'agents' in the few remaining nuetral nations were slowly taken into custody, or some not at all.

What about other regions of Germany not controlled directly by the Flensburg government like Bavaria? Did allies let the remnants of the Wehrmacht and the Nazi government to manage things locally until full occupation was conducted?

All members of the Wehrmacht were disarmed and sent to PoW collection sites, then sent on to more permanent camps. Civilian administration was left in place to some extent. That is the government employees like the sanitations workers, the technicians running the water supply. The politicians were often swiftly dismissed by the Allied civil affairs adiminstrators, tho the practice varied as to how through any purge was. Everyone in the government had to join the nazi party, but not all were committed nazis.

Occupation control by the Allied civil affairs organizations followed closely behind the combat units. Usually they were setting up in a town within a day or two after the combat ceased, usually their presence overlapped that of the local division or corps control.

[AJFFM]

Thanks for the info.

Obviously PoWs were released on successive groups, when was the first major group of PoWs were released?

What about PoWs who did not hand themselves and melted into the population, did the allies go after them?

It would help if you direct me to a good book about occupied Germany because I never read about it extensively.

[David Thompson]

AJFFM -- You asked:

Obviously PoWs were released on successive groups, when was the first major group of PoWs were released?

Here's a brief chronology, with references, for releases in the US Zone:

15 May 1945 -- Supreme Headquarters gave authority to discharge certain categories of prisoners of war and members of the disarmed enemy forces. Those to be discharged first were all men of German nationality who were agricultural workers, coal miners, transport workers, and other urgently needed workers provided that they lived in the area in which they were imprisoned and were not war criminals, security suspects, or members of the SS. All women members of the German armed forces were also to be promptly discharged, provided that they lived in the area in which they were imprisoned and were not war criminals, security suspects, or members of the SS. (US Army Occupation Forces in Europe 1945-46, part 5, p. 132).

18 May 1945 – Supreme Headquarters gave authority to discharge all prisoners of war over fifty years of age, provided that they lived in the area in which they were imprisoned and were not war criminals, security suspects, or members of the SS. (US Army Occupation Forces in Europe 1945-46, part 5, pp. 132-33).

5 Jun 1945 – Nationals of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg who were prisoners of war or in the status of disarmed enemy forces and not wanted for war crimes by a country other than their own were released to their respective governments. (US Army Occupation Forces in Europe 1945-46, part 5, p. 133).

30 Jun -- General discharge was authorized for all Germans except war criminals, security suspects, the large number in automatic arrest categories, and those whose homes were in the Soviet zone. Of these exceptions, the last were held pending an agreement with the Soviet Union on their transfer; the others were discharged on condition that they be held as civilian internees for trial or other disposition. (US Army Occupation of Germany 1945-53, p. 90).

Jul 1945 -- authority was given to release to their governments all non-Germans who were not security suspects or wanted as war criminals by a country other than their own, with the exception of Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Poles not claiming Soviet citizenship, and dissident Yugoslav and neutral nationals with ardent Axis sympathies. (US Army Occupation Forces in Europe 1945-46, part 5, p. 133).

mid-August 1945 -- 732,000 POW's and 588,000 disarmed Germans were held by US armed forces in Germany. Both received the POW ration. (US Army in WWII - The Quartermaster Corps; operations in the war against Germany, p. 534).

Sept 1945 – Rheinwiesenlager camps closed. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinwiesenlager)

Oct 1945 -- Prisoners of war and disarmed enemy forces of all services in the custody of the United States in October numbered 1,474,074. Of these, 3,243 were in the Bremen enclave, 157,000 in Italy, 609,948 in Theater Service Forces, 355,351 in the Zone of Interior, and the remainder -- 348,532 -- in the United States zone of Germany. (US Army Occupation Forces in Europe 1945-46: Disarmament and Disbandment of the German Armed Forces, pp. 45-46).

Nov 1945 -- The US had 1,007,807 prisoners in custody in Europe in Nov 1945 – 81,823 in hospitals, 400,615 in camps and 525,369 in work programs. (US Army Occupation Forces in Europe 1945-46: Disarmament and Disbandment of the German Armed Forces, p. 32).

15 Jul 1946 – US held 206,657 POWs in Europe. (US Army Occupation of Germany 1945-53, p. 90).
viewtopic.php?p=1667004#p1667004

There is a chronology of the captures of German POWs in western Europe a little further up on the pages of that thread, at viewtopic.php?p=1666714#p1666714

[AJFFM]

Thank you very much David.