German Prisoners of War in Britain

[bescheid]

Perhaps not so many are/were aware of the war time German POW camps in Britain {Großbritannian}. In total, were of 600 spread out over the common wealth. Inspite of the war, the war prisoners were very well treated, and in many cases, formed very strong lasting friendships that far exceeded the war. For some, married and stayed in England to raise thier families with no wish to return to the home land.

Note: some terms will be noticed. {Fallschirmjäger} is a parachutist. {The 12th Panzer division} is that of the Waffen SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend.

www.fortunecity.com/campus/dixie/921/PoWs/pows.htm

The above url is neccesary for the long length of the story. Please do bear with it, as it is an interesting war time event, and testamount to the British manner of fair play and compassion. A manner is turning what was then an enemy, into that of post war lasting friendship and allie.

Charles

[pieter]

Charles,

Excuse me if I hurt your feelings, but I have the idea that fellow Polish-American, Polish and European
Forum members are not so interested in the cause of German Prisoners of War.
It is subjective, but most of us were on the other side, saw and see the Germans as the bad guy
and the allied forces as the good guy. Subjective as it may sound, but that is the simple truth.
Besides that the SS is labeled as an criminal organisation by the war tribunal in Nürnberg.
A Dutch family member was killed on liberation day by Dutch waffen SS in a Dutch town
where family of mine lived, Hengelo. His brother, an uncle of mine lived a few kilometers
from the German border, but he refused to cross the border, and never bought German
products. The SS was an ideological drilled and brainwashed organisation who fought to
the bitter end (may 1945) for a lost cause, the wrong leader and the wrong ideology.
Besides the many Polish, Dutch and other victims of the SS and other German military
and police forces, the SS has spilled much German blood.

The good thing is that the generation of the war is fading away, and that a new generation
of Germans is replacing the Nazi generation.
Great frustration and irritation after the war gave the fact that many bad guys got
good positions in Germany and Austria, ex-nazi's came back as police officers, doctors,
politicians. War criminals living quiet lives, and treating new patients.
There was a disappointment under many resistance people in many European
countries that there hadn't been a judgement day, and that the SS people weren't
exterminated. I heard my father whispering, the Russians in the East did a better
job, at least they have butchered as many German soldiers as they could.
His generation was always full of distrust towards older germans, I heard him
talking when he saw a group of older german men and women;
"Are these former Hitler Jugend, Bund Deutscher mädel, or NSDAP leute"?
I was raised that way, and when being in Western-germany and especially
East-Germany, my fahter could be very agigated, quarelling with East-German
border guards of Vopo's, saying they have esactly the same uniforms and
rotten mentallity as the Germans I witnessed in the second world war,
the same arrogance, brutality and rudeness.
In a way he enjoyed shouting in German to the East-germans as if
he was their Oberstürmbahnführer, it was a sort of revenge of an
adult on his experiance as a boy with the Grüne Polizei, Wehrmacht
and SD in Rotterdam, where he saw executed Dutch civilians lying
on the street, which the Germans executed as a reprisal for Sabotage
actions of the Dutch resistance.
Once he was brought to the SD headquarters with other classmates,
because they mocked with their Dutch Nazi-sympathiser teacher,
who stood in front of his class in the uniforms of the Dutch Nazi
organisation NSB, first in a Landstorm uniform, later in a WA uniform.
They took away his hat and played with it.
This guy was a dangerous collaborator, who had a riffle with him
and was dressed in the notorious uniform of the Dutch version
of SS, WA (Weer Afdeling/Wehr abteilung).
I have had inherited a sort of war memory which is not of my own,
because I have always had a very old Dutch family, and so all the family
stories were from the thirtees, fourtees and a little bit about the
fiftees and sixtees. Later I heard the Polish version of the war.
Where other people of my generation had parents from after the war
or parents who were born at the end of the war (1944/1945),
my parents are from 1927 (father) and 1934 (mother).

An ambivalent generation that war generation, but aren't we all,
we human beings are a strange kind!

[pieter]

Dutch collaborating organisations:
members.home.nl/aniewold/Lege%20pagina%209.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Movement_in_the_Netherlands
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Volunteer_Grenadier_Brigade_Landstorm_Nederland

[pieter]

Bescheid,

Please try to understand why the Poles are sometimes more hostile towards the Germans than
the Dutch and other Western-Europeans. The Dutch occupation was bad ofcourse, but "we"
were a Germanistic Brüder Volk, and because of that the Nazi's (with a Austrian hierarchy
in the Netherlands) were patient and fairly moderate in the beginning (1940-1941).
Poland however was considered a country of inferior (Slavian and Jewish) Untermenschen,
who had stood in Germans way for one thousand years, in Germans rightious Drang nach Osten
für Lebensraum, Poland always stood inbetween Germany and the furtile lands of Ukraine.
The Brutalilty of the Nazi's in Poland was much worse in Poland, where 20% of the people
lost their lives.

[bescheid]

Pieter

Thank you for speaking your mind. If one thinks, then it should be spoken. With your message, I truly do believe you speak the thoughts that of others.

Thank you for your honesty and straightforwardness.

Charles

[pieter]

My mother always tells me how fundamently differant the Poland from before september 1939
and the Poland of 1945 was, because the destruction of the top level of the society by the
Nazi's and the Sovjets, the new Stalinist rulers were of a primitive Proletarian level without
culture, education and knowledge, their were ideological Puppets of Moscow.
Scientists, teachers, professors, doctors, priests, writers, artists, poets and others had been killed.
In fact spiritually, culturally and in the sense of Human Capital Poland came very poor out of the
war, nearly every family lost family members, and many suffered mentally from the attrocities
that took place in the villages, towns and cities of the country, many disappeared in the
Crematoria of the camps or anonimous mass graves.
And people never learn, although the world said "Never Again" in 1945, but we got Biafra (Nigeria),
the Stalin Gulach camps, Maoist China, Vietnam (destruction of civilians by Napalm bombs),
Cambodja, Ruanda, Former Yugoslavia, Chechenia (the genocide of Chechens by the Russians
in 1996, 2000 and after that. Which is completely ignored by the West.), Dafur in Sudan.

In fact the EU, and the foundation and settlement of the Federal Republic of Germany,
decades of peace and the exellent realtions between France and Germany, and between
Germany and the rest of Europe is very hopeful and very positive.

In my opinion the clash of the new (young) and old generation in Germany in the
sixties and seventees, with the movement of 1968 (Rudi Dutschke and Daniel Cohn-Bendit)
and der Deutscher Herbst (1977) changed Germany completely, together with the
Marshall plan, Entnazificierung, the Wirstschafstwunder, cultural, scientific, technical
and sport achievements. Germans moved abroad to other European countries, you
got mixed marriages (even Polish-german weddings), and so Germany became incorporated
in the new Europe of Democratic nations.
I am speaking of the Germany of the second and third generations, while the war generation
is fading away slowly. We will not forget the past but the eye witnesses are dying.
It will be a glorious day when the last Nazi dies, the Neo-nazi's are only a bunch of pathetic
losers, as you once stated yourself.

[pieter]

bescheid said:

Pieter

Thank you for speaking your mind. If one thinks, then it should be spoken. With your message, I truly do believe you speak the thoughts that of others.

Thank you for your honesty and straightforwardness.

Charles

Bescheid,

Thanks for your guts to reply, I just wanted to state that I am absolutely and utterly
anti-Nazi, hate fascism and Communism, like most Americans.
The French revolution, the 19th century Left-Hegelianism and Marxism paved the way
for the brutal atheïst ideological totalitarian systems, regimes and so states of Russia
(1917/18; Bolsjewist October revolution; and Stalinism which came to power in 1927),
The Brown terror of the SA thugs in the twenties and thirties, and the Black terror of the
SS Deathheads in the fourtees, Maoist terror in the second half of the twentieth century,
and as a result of both Brown (Nazi) and Red (Bolsjewist) terror, the DDR was an ideal
experiment which came out of both terror ideologies.
Today we see that Neo-Nazism is florishing in Eastern-Germany, because the Prussian
state disciplin of the DDR (FDJ/jungpioniere/SED party system) was an extention of the Third Reich in a new Collective system.
I make a differance between Nazism and Neo-Nazims, so when I said that I would be glad when the last Nazi has finally passed away, his offspring will be the Neo-guys, but those
guys are not 100% Nazi, because they come from a Democratic society, and many of them are convinced to leave thier Nazi-kreisen by special German police organisations and social workers. You can see that the New (positive) German patriotism has freed itself from the dark past, and does not want to be associated with the Nazi's.

Long live the Bundes Republik Deutschland, German art and culture, German literature and young Germans!

I grew up with Nina Hagen, Nena and Kraftwerk! German popmusic, Derreck,
der Alte, Tatort, Reiner Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders and BASF cassettes tapes.

I love Germany of before 1933, and after 1945 (1948-2006)!
Europe's culture is partly based on Kant, Bach, Beethoven and Albrecht Dürer!
Amd we will remember those Germans who resisted against the
Nazi barbary, Hans und Sophie Scholl and Dietrich Bonhoeffer and
he Bishop of Münster in Westphalia, Clemens August Graf von Galen.
Hans and Sophie were real examples for me and others, and I read the book
about "der Weißen Rose", how a tiny minority had the courage to see and
experiance that the system they lived in was morally and ethically injust,
from a Christian perspective, and that it was their Christian duty to oppose
it activly, and gave their lives in their opposition against the Endlösung and
the Nazi system.

Das so eine schrek regimes und scheiß systems niemals wieder die chance
haben soll an die macht zu kommen, NIE WIEDER!

Und nich nur Nazismus, keine einziches Toralitairen systems darf in
Europa's oder das Freie Westen and die macht kommen, also auch
kein Communismus, Militairismus and Religiosen terror mehr.

In diesen zeit ist der Islamismus den neuen Fascismus,
und bewegungen wie der Scientology sind auch totalitar!

We have to be aware of every force that is against Freedom,
equal opportunity and so Democracy!

Pieter

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Resistance
www.dhm.de/lemo/html/nazi/widerstand/weisserose/index.html
www.sophiescholl-derfilm.de/freiheit/

[bescheid]

Pieter

Thank you for your very courtious reply. It was unexpected, but, very apprecitated.

I understand your responses to the information I had post in as the title reads. Also I am very cognicent of the position we as individuals must adhere to, for we are in our selves, an ambassador of our countries with our conduct and interaction with others.

upon receipt of your post, I become so very angry and very disappointed in you and become very suspicioius of the entirety of the forum and situation. In as such, my personal rule is: if action is enitiated as an emotional response, then no action or response is to be conducted.

{Now, I am ok, and not angry at you. For once again, we have a new day, and once again, we are friends.}

You have made mention of the "Neo-Nazi people. Yes, they are here also. Two weeks past, they held a ralley in a neighouring city of Olympia {capital of Washington State}. They are well watched and knowledgable of that. These people are not the thugs now. They are adapting and becoming sophisticated in their approache and manner. But, they ares still Neo-Nazis.

There will always be these extremist, it is just a matter of correct choices that people must make in as much as to recognizing what is truth and what is a lie.

As a war time child, I am between the old and the new. My working life and education has been with goverment and as such, my logic or thinking. As a person my trust is in people, as from my working life, I can not afford to trust. And as such, the reasons of some things I say, and many things I do not say.

I like the folks on this forum, it is the only one I currantly will access. It also is a lesson to me, as I learn from one another of attitudes and the situations that are Polish.


Lieber Herr Pieter

Ich bin produkt des Krieges {1940} und zerteile vom alten doch, die neue pfostenkriegwelt. Ich habe gearbeitet, um mein Teil am Bilden unserer pfostenkriegwelt, eine bessere Welt zu tun. Meine Arbeit is beenden {unterhaltung}.

Von diesem Punkt in der Zeit, ist es die Entscheidung von Ihnen und von anderen Ihres Alters, was Sie mit da.

Tun Es ist mein Vertrauen, das Sie und die Leute Ihres Alters. Trifft die Korrekten Entscheidungen und bildet es eine besser Welt.

Mit freundlichem Grüß

Charles

[pieter]

bescheid said:

Pieter

Thank you for your very courtious reply. It was unexpected, but, very apprecitated.

I understand your responses to the information I had post in as the title reads. Also I am very cognicent of the position we as individuals must adhere to, for we are in our selves, an ambassador of our countries with our conduct and interaction with others.

upon receipt of your post, I become so very angry and very disappointed in you and become very suspicioius of the entirety of the forum and situation. In as such, my personal rule is: if action is enitiated as an emotional response, then no action or response is to be conducted.

{Now, I am ok, and not angry at you. For once again, we have a new day, and once again, we are friends.}

You have made mention of the "Neo-Nazi people. Yes, they are here also. Two weeks past, they held a ralley in a neighouring city of Olympia {capital of Washington State}. They are well watched and knowledgable of that. These people are not the thugs now. They are adapting and becoming sophisticated in their approache and manner. But, they ares still Neo-Nazis.

There will always be these extremist, it is just a matter of correct choices that people must make in as much as to recognizing what is truth and what is a lie.

As a war time child, I am between the old and the new. My working life and education has been with goverment and as such, my logic or thinking. As a person my trust is in people, as from my working life, I can not afford to trust. And as such, the reasons of some things I say, and many things I do not say.

I like the folks on this forum, it is the only one I currantly will access. It also is a lesson to me, as I learn from one another of attitudes and the situations that are Polish.


Lieber Herr Pieter

Ich bin produkt des Krieges {1940} und zerteile vom alten doch, die neue pfostenkriegwelt. Ich habe gearbeitet, um mein Teil am Bilden unserer pfostenkriegwelt, eine bessere Welt zu tun. Meine Arbeit is beenden {unterhaltung}.

Von diesem Punkt in der Zeit, ist es die Entscheidung von Ihnen und von anderen Ihres Alters, was Sie mit da.

Tun Es ist mein Vertrauen, das Sie und die Leute Ihres Alters. Trifft die Korrekten Entscheidungen und bildet es eine besser Welt.

Mit freundlichem Grüß

Charles

Bescheid,

I have to explain to you why I wrote what I wrote, because without an explenation
you probably would'nt understand the reason of my reply to your post.
First of all I do not always communicate with tact, like the pragmatic friendlyness
and kindness or a little bit distance of the Americans, because I am an European and
because I am a Dutchman. The Dutch way of expression, without etiquette or social
conventions (like the Brits, Americans and French have) can get accros like bluntness
in it's directness. That is the Dutch lack of politeness and empathy, which has it's
roots in a sort of Calvinist merchant mentality. Saying directly what you mean!

I do know that there were many Germans who did'nt like the Nazi regime and even opposed the war, were forced to participate in it, because the regime was so brutal,
that there was'nt a possibility to hide or oppose orders and the rule without severe
consequences (death penalty, torture, concentrationcamps or lonely Isolation in the
cold cells of Gestapo or SD prisons).
I regret the suffering of ordinary German citizens who lost their inocent sons, husbants,
uncles, cousins or fiancé's, because they were forced to praticipate in a war they did'nt
choose themselves. And I admire those Germans who as Conservative Prusians or Bavarians, Catholics or Lutheranians, workers or students, clergymen or academics
opposed as they could, with the limited means they had as the minority they were of
their communicity, profession, organisation they were in and country.
I know that there were even people who were member of the NSDAP burocracy or the
SS, who changed their views and helped victims or tried to sabbotage the satanic regime.
Also under those German POW there must have been good guys, the "Moderates" in the stories of your link, which I read with great interest.

Pieter

[sciwriter]

Charles, Some German POW's were interned in USA during WW2, and after the war Britain turned over Russian POW's who fought in Hitler's army over to Stalin for certain death. Carl

[bescheid]

Carl

Thank you for your information. I know there were some camps in the US, but at the moment, I am not sure the locatin or number.

The were I am sure, 26 camps in Canada. Some in the Eastern Provinces of Ontario and New Brunswick. There were several in Alberta, at the moment I am only able to think of two locations that of: Lethbridge and Medicine Hat.

In Canada, if the POWs wanted to work, many worked in the local woodproducts mills {Lumber} and on the local farms.

The url above depicts proof of the Britishers very good treatment of their POWS. I tend to believe they knew that the POWS once returned to Germany after the war, would be the new Germany.

Canada was exceptional then as now. In as much that I am aware of. Similarly in Canada as in Britain, the POWS were very well treated. By Canadian law and British requirement as a common wealth partner, the POWS were required to be returned to Germany. But, later, many were able to return for immigration to Canada.

{One of the prime areas of entering the US for immigration, was first to aquire Canadian citizenship, then enter the US as a Canadian for US iImmigaration. For many years, through the chuch sponseship, Ukrainians and Russians used this method of immigration into the USA}

{As a by and by, I accidentally had occasion to meet a manager of a chemical firm in Trail BC that had been a former SS. He was just ok, we did not become friends, but, tolerated acquaintances for the day I was there. I only was aware of his war time status through a first casual conversation when it slipped out.}

The area in which I had lived, Castlegar. There were many Ukrainian families and just a few German families there. The remainder were British, Irish and a few French Canadians. This was and is today, a Doukhobor region.

www.britishcolumbia.com/regions/towns/?townID=3484

www.castlegar.com/

Charles

[pieter]

Treatment of POWs

The treatment of prisoners of war can depend on the resources, social attitudes and policies of the governments and militaries in question. For instance, in World War II, Soviet prisoners of Nazi Germany and German prisoners of the Soviet Union were often treated with neglect and brutality. The Nazi Regime regarded Soviet POWs as being of a lower racial order, and many Soviet POWs were consequently subject to enforced labour or were murdered in keeping with the Third Reich's policy of "racial purification". An official justification used by the Germans for this policy was the fact that the Soviet Union had not signed the Geneva convention; this was not legally justifiable however as under article 82 of the Geneva Convention (1929), signatory countries had to give POWs of all signatory and non-signatory countries the rights assigned by the convention.
Prisoners from Britain and the US were generally treated much better by the Germans than the German's treatment of Soviet prisoners, comparable to how the Allies treated them, with rare exception. When American or British were made to work, they were compensated, and British officers, as per their regulation were not forced to work. On the Soviet side, German POWs were regarded as having forfeited their right to fair treatment, because of the widespread crimes committed against Soviet civilians during their invasion campaign. This combined with the fact that much of the Soviet workforce was now in the hands of Nazi Germany, also led to employment of many German POWs as forced labour (this forced labour was similar to that imposed by the Soviets on their own civilians for a range of criminal and political crimes)[citation needed].
In the Pacific Theater, some of the harshest treatment of POWs were dealt by the Japanese. Prisoners held by Japanese armed forces were subject to brutal treatment, including forced labour, medical experimentation, vivisection, starvation rations, beatings for escape attempts, and were denied medical treatment. Whereas Allied POWs had a death rate of about 2% to 4% in German POW camps, which was usually attributed to natural causes, the death rate in Japanese camps was generally in the range of 20% to 35%[citation needed]. This was due in part to physical maltreatment by the Japanese, but was exacerbated by deliberate starvation, forced labour and the withholding of medicine by the Japanese. Similarly, during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, American prisoners were often beaten and tortured.
By contrast, POW facilities held by Allied nations like the USA, UK and Canada usually complied strictly to the Geneva Conventions, which sometimes created conditions POWs found were more comfortable than their own side's barracks. (A notable exception was the use of handcuffs on Canadian prisoners taken at Dieppe. This resulted after the Germans captured a copy of the Canadian operations order indicating that German prisoners were to be shackled. The Germans felt this was a violation of the Geneva Convention and ordered Canadian prisoners held in Germany to be handcuffed for a set period of time each day. German prisoners in Canada were then shackled in reprisal, until the conflict was resolved.[citation needed]) This approach was decided on the idea that having POWs well treated meant a ready supply of healthy and cooperative laborers for farmwork and the like, as allowed by the Geneva Conventions, which eased personnel shortages. These "forced" workers were also compensated for their work, as is required by the Geneva Convention. There were also the benefits of a lower chance of having to deal with escapes or prisoner disruption. In addition, as word spread among the enemy about the conditions of Allied POW camps, it encouraged surrenders which helped further Allied military goals efficiently. Furthermore, it may have raised morale among the Allied personnel when the usefulness of this approach was accepted by reinforcing the idea that this humane treatment of prisoners showed that their side was morally superior to the enemy. There were however some secret locations for prisoner interrogation where torture was used to extract information[citation needed]. These were not made known to the Germans due to fear of retaliatory treatment. These locations were contrary to the image that the US and the UK never broke the Geneva protocols and were rarely used.

Prisoner nationality Number

U.S.S.R 4 - 5.7 mln (2.7 - 3.3 mln died in German POW camps)
(ref. Krivosheev, Streit) World War II (Total)

France 1,800,000 Battle of France in World War II

U.S.A 130,000 (95,532 taken by Germany) World War II

Germany 3,127,380 taken by U.S.S.R. (474,967 died in captivity)
(ref. Krivosheev) World War II

Britain (135,000 taken in Europe, does not include Pacific or
Commonwealth figures) World War II

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_war

[pieter]

home.arcor.de/kriegsgefangene/usa/album/photo_album.html
www.in-forum.com/specials/century/jan3/week23.html
www.historyonthenet.com/WW2/german_pow_britain.htm
www.gentracer.com/gpowphotos.html

[rdywenur]

One thing I had learned from a news article in the paper was the chilling fact that there was a DP camp right here in the USA and only about an hours drive from my backyard. The people were not allowed out of the area to go into town and not always treated the best.

www.oswegohaven.org/

[justjohn]

sciwriter said:

Charles, Some German POW's were interned in USA during WW2, and after the war Britain turned over Russian POW's who fought in Hitler's army over to Stalin for certain death. Carl

We had a POW camp here in NH. I believe it was in Stark, NH.