rulemylife
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Joined: 8/23/2004
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Daddysredhead
quote:
ORIGINAL: rulemylife
The Germans actually treated our prisoners well in both world wars, as well as Italy in the second.
Um, no...
My 84 year old dad just called a bullshit on this. His cousin was a prisoner of war in Germany. He was captured and beaten, and when he finally made it back home, he weighed all of 85 pounds. He didn't go over there looking like a skeleton who could barely walk, and died soon after coming back to the US.
So, the myth that American POW's in WWII were basically treated gently and given room service at the Berlin Hilton is the biggest crock I think I've read thus far.
I'm guessing that you are not from a military background. I could be wrong, but it seems that non-military familiar people tend to think that war is something fluffier than it is.
~ Red
Well you would be wrong in your guess, but I do have to love the condescension by those who somehow think being opposed to torture makes someone a pacifist.
As far as your Dad's cousin, I probably should have qualified my statement by saying relatively well, as opposed to the atrocities Japan imposed like the Baatan Death March.
World War II [/link]Germany and Italy generally treated prisoners from the [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations]British Commonwealth, France, the U.S. and other Western allies in accordance with the Geneva Convention (1929), which had been signed by these countries.[/link]
It is noteworthy that this also applied to [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew]Jewish POWs wearing the British Army's uniform, who were treated on an equal footing with other British soldiers and excluded from application of the murderous Final Solution policies effected against virtually all other Jews who fell into Nazi hands. (For example, Major Yitzhak Ben-Aharon - later a prominent Israeli trade unionist and politician - was captured by the Germans at Greece in 1941 and underwent four years of captivity under fairly tolerable conditions).
Nazi Germany did not apply the same standard of treatment to non-Western prisoners, such as the Soviets, who suffered harsh conditions and died in large numbers while in captivity. The Empire of Japan also did not treat prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva Convention. Moreover, according to a directive ratified on 5 August 1937 by Hirohito, the constraints of Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907) were explicitly removed on Chinese prisoners.[15]
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[link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_war#cite_note-14]. The main complaints of British, British Commonwealth, U.S., and French prisoners of war in German Army POW camps-especially during the last two years of the war-concerned the bare bones menu provided, a fate German soldiers and civilians were also suffering due to the blockade conditions.
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