POWs from Stalingrad

[_Viktor_]

_Viktor_ not all Germans were Nazis, just like not all Russians, Ukrainians, etc were Communists/Bolsheviks. Such generalizations and oversimplifications are made during wartime. It has ended 60 years ago.

Then why don't you post this after each message about "Russian occupation", "Russian brutality", etc, etc ???

And please don't oversimplify my words. I did not say all Germans were Nazis, but rather that it is ridiculous to expect that Nazi PoWs should have been treated according to the Geneva convention in Russia.

[poor_bloody_infantry]

The NAZI's starved 2,800,000 Soviet POW's to death in the first eight months of the war, a horror considered to be the most concentrated act of mass murder in human history.

That's an interesting figure, considering that it exceeds the number of Soviet servicemen taken prisoner in 1941 by a healthy margin. I think what you have there is probably one of the several estimates for the total number of Soviet POW dead during the whole war, for all reasons. If not, it is clearly very greatly exaggerated.


cheers

The sources that I've seen online in addition to the figures quoted from gendercide.org estimate the number of Soviet soldiers captured during 1941 alone to be 3,500,000 total.

http://www.eisenhowerinstitute.org/prog ... nceww2.htm

http://www.samford.edu/groups/global/Dr ... %20II.html

[Stephan]

As I understand Quists excellent summary, it is true only 6 000 of 90 000 Stalingrad POW made it.

And.

But of the total at least - ie over - 60% made it.

Although a death rate of up to almost 40 % (including the Stalingrad POW´s!) is high - it proves the Sovjet POW-camps were surely harsh, but were not death factories. And we are talking of a period of 10-12 years... I mean, some would die even if it were luxury hotels with own first rate hospitals. No 40% but surely a good couple of thousands...
And as I said in the beginning - much of the time they were not in POW-lagers but rather in criminal lagers. We know Gulag was harsh, harder then most POW-lagers...

Still. 6/90=5,5 percent against over 60 percent. Odd.

Here are two possible explanations:
1. the sovjets were extra harsh against the prisoners from Stalingrad. We know such things happened, but in so a grand scale??

Or. 2. Majority of the death was because their extrem exhaustion and starvation before taken prisoner + of course the Sovjets were not quite prepared to have so many prisoners at once.
(Beevor also points out the sovjets underestimated the total of the germans forces. But Beevors great fault is him underestimating the big fatigue and starvation would by itself result in death in thousands and thousands).



Next question I want to ask:
. 6 tusen germans of 90.000 returned home.
But. We know there were also allied divisions: hungarian, rumänian, italian??
So. Either there were more prisoners than 90.000 - and of course more difficult for the sovjets to get them all in a hurry to prisoners camp - them being unaccustomed of taking such big numbers of POWs.

Or, if the 90.000 (and from beginning over 300.000) was the total amount of axel-soldiers - then not all of the soldiers were german. So it is perhaps not 6 of 90 but perhaps 6 of 50....

Hope somebody know the correct numbers of which number and nation is which.

[Andreas]

According to Axworthy 'Third Axis, Fourth Ally', 12,607 Romanians were inside the encirclement, and 2-3,000 of them survived to become POW. No figure for survivors.

All the best

Andreas

[Victor]

Then why don't you post this after each message about "Russian occupation", "Russian brutality", etc, etc ???

And please don't oversimplify my words. I did not say all Germans were Nazis, but rather that it is ridiculous to expect that Nazi PoWs should have been treated according to the Geneva convention in Russia.

Actually I did.

I am curious, how could you tell a non-Nazi German POW from a Nazi German POW?

Andreas, most likely very few of the 2,000-3,000 survived. Probably the officers who were better treated. Of the captured generals:
-brig. gen. Constantin Bratescu returned after 5 years and a half of captivity and a medical commision declared him 80% crippled
-brig. gen. Romulus Dimitriu was released on 7 April 1945 and participated in the organization of the second Romanian volunteer division (Horia, Closca si Crisan).

Some of the Romanian POWs joined the two volunteer divisions, but most of them were of those taken at the Don's Bend and in relative better shape than those that were taken inside Stalingrad.

[Qvist]

Casualty numbers on all sides are taken from tables presented in; Ellis, John, World War II, A Statistical Survey, Facts on File, New York, 1993.

Hello PBI

The Eisenhower link as far as I see contains nothing on Soviet POWs, or anything else that is pertinent to this subject, except that it that it states the Red Army lost at least 11 million killed and missing. The second link is an online manuscript about collaboration in the Ukraine in WWII, at best a somewwhat approximate source which is built on no research into this subject specifically, though it appears a good article on the subject it deals with. Its figure for POWs in 1941 ("3-4 million") apart from being vague also appears as more than a little speculative. It is certainly much larger than Krivosheev's figure for missing in 1941, which is 2,335,482. That however is not neccessarily a critical contradiction, because a) it is partly a matter of definition who is a POW (and German figures for such are invariably higher than Soviet) and b) Krivosheev's 1941 figures are not extremely reliable. In any case this is an article that mereely mentions a vague figure of POWs in passing, whereas all sources quoted above discuss the issue extenseively, it being the main forcus of the investigation. But I am rambling - the main point here is that the vague estimate it mentions is not impossible, given the above mentioned factors, and also the overall figure it provides is roughly in the same range as the other sources previously quoted. However, this also does not tally well with 2.8 million Soviet POWs starving to death in the first eight months.

cheers

[Qvist]

I did not say all Germans were Nazis, but rather that it is ridiculous to expect that Nazi PoWs should have been treated according to the Geneva convention in Russia.

Why?

Either you accept the standards of the convention, or you do not.


cheers

[Qvist]

Hello Stephan

Without having in any way gone specifically into the fate of the Stalingrad POWs, I should think it's fairly obvious that the state which the soldiers were in when they surrendered must have had a great deal to do with the high mortality - remember, they had been starving and extensively deprived of medical supplies for many weeks. Also, if I recall correctly, there was generally a very high mortality rate among Germans captured early in the war (not in itself unnatural, given that this meant a longer period spent in captivity). Most analysis seems to focus on lack of food as a major cause of the high mortality - this was however a fate German POWs shared with Soviet civilians, whose rations were equally meagre.

cheers

[20/20 vision]

a large number of german pows died from a typhus empedemic that hit in the spring of 1943..a large number had already died due to cold starvation etc before this happened. Dont forget those that were captured in stalingrad had already suffered terribly in the previous 3 months and were not fresh healthy troops at the point of surrender.

i dont think it is a huge surpirse that only 6000 returned... it would be interesting to compare the survival rates of other german pows captured in other operations.

i think also the difference between german pows and russian pows is the length of time each were interned..as much as 14yrs as against 4yrs....surely this would have an affect also?

[_Viktor_]

I am curious, how could you tell a non-Nazi German POW from a Nazi German POW?

I think Wehrmacht PoWs can call be called "Nazis" for many obvious reasons. They were many orders inside the army and many actions that directly reflected the Nazi idea of "war of total annihilation", the "war of races" and crap like that. Based on the fact that probably certain individuals in the army were secretly anti-Nazis and never resorted to things like stripping clothes off women and children in winter, you cannot argue Wehrmacht as a whole should not be treated as Nazis.

Why?

Either you accept the standards of the convention, or you do not.

It is utterly ridiculous and impertinent to accuse USSR of not treating Nazi PoWs according to the Geneva convention, not because USSR did not sign it, but because they were invaders guilty of unthinkable atrocities.

[_Viktor_]

i dont think it is a huge surpirse that only 6000 returned... it would be interesting to compare the survival rates of other german pows captured in other operations.

Plus, as was already pointed out, USSR did not have the resources to deal with those PoWs, especially of those number. Plus, their treatment (transportation, housing, medical help) does not seem to be too different from the treatment of "enemies of the people" in the 30s. So from the Soviet perspective, there was nothing in the treatment of the PoWs that can be described as systematic and purposeful murder.

[dragos]

Testimonies of Romanian soldiers captured at Don's Bend (north of Stalingrad):
http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=2060

[Qvist]

Viktor

It is utterly ridiculous and impertinent to accuse USSR of not treating Nazi PoWs according to the Geneva convention, not because USSR did not sign it, but because they were invaders guilty of unthinkable atrocities.

That Geneva convention regulates behavior in time of war and the proper treatment of prisoners of war, it is not a standard of nicety to be applied to enemies who have deserved it. If you accept the standards set by the convention, then you accept them - period. Whether the enemy is invaders or defenders is utterly irrelevant. If individuals among them have committed atrocities, then there are also acknowledged methods for prosecuting this.

cheers

[Qvist]

Then perhaps this link will clarify matters for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_war


cheers

[Andreas]

An Off-topic discussion was removed by me and I will consider with the other moderators whether it should go into the HWC section.

Everybody, the topic is what happened to the POWs taken at Stalingrad. Stay on topic. Further off-topic posts are at risk of deletion without warning.

Thank you.

Andreas