The link posted by David Thompson contains the following:
Because of its very great importance, the problem of mine-lifting had a determining influence on the development of Articles 51 and 52 during the 1949 Diplomatic Conference. The relevant facts are as follows. The question arose for the first time in North Africa in March 1943, when it was decided that German prisoners of war should remove mines laid by the German army. Such work was prohibited during hostilities by Article 31 of the 1929 Convention, and once hostilities were over it remained prohibited, under Article 32 of the same Convention. The representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross immediately made a protest and although he was not entirely successful he did obtain the concession that only men who had served as sappers should in future be assigned to mine-removal.
The problem arose in an acute form in France at the beginning of 1945. Public opinion considered that mines should be cleared by those who had laid them. In September 1945, the French War Ministry estimated the number of mines to be cleared in France at about one hundred million. The monthly rate of fatal accidents among German prisoners engaged on this work was two thousand [1]. Special safety precautions were subsequently taken, however, and the accident-rate decreased almost to nil [2].
That would seem to support the position taken by Pingpongtweet, namely that compelling German POWs to clear minefields, both during the war and after the German surrender, was in breach of the laws of war applicable at the time.
Perhaps it would be worthwhile investigating whether there were any cases of Germans forcing Allied POWs to clear minefileds, and if so, whether that act was considered by Allied legal authorities to have been a crime and whether the Germans who committed those acts were prosecuted.
The issuing of proper mine-lifting equipment to POWs compelled to carry out the work, and proper supervision, such that the danger to them was no more than in general mine-clearing work, would seem to be irrelevant if this particular use of POWs was prohibted, although of course measures to reduce the danger would mitigate the offence.
The French case described above does suggest criminal negligence on the part of the French authorities who compelled the German POWs to do mine-clearance work. The fact that the accident rate was reduced to almost nil after the special safety precautions were introduced suggests that the 2000 fatal accidents per month occurring prior to that introduction were avoidable, which means that the French authorities must be considered criminally liable for allowing those fatal accidents to occur by not immeduately introducing the safety precautions.
