Interview with WWII reconaissance pilot

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by Splitter

Some of it depends on which country you were fighting for. Germany tended to treat British and American prisoners reasonably well and vice versa. Then again, there seemed to be a special hatred between German and Russian troops and neither side had a good track record of treating the other's prisoners very well.

Splitter

With regard to the German attitude to the Soviets there are a number of factors here but three stand out:

- British and US soldiers (aside from African Americans) were seen by Germans as racially advanced whereas the Slavic races were regarded as "under races".
- Britain, US and German all had signed the Geneva Convention,. Russia had not. this gave the German's a loophole to ignore the Geneva Convention with Russian troops.
- Wehrmacht troops committed war crimes but SS divisions were far worse

In terms of the Pacific war there was a huge difference between Japanese Navy personnel and Japanese army. The Japanese Navy was very professional, treated prisoners with respect and in fact often tried to avoid handing POW's over to the Japanese army as they knew they were being systematically abused.

Australians, traditionally quite fearless and ruthless, tended to not take prisoners at all and not accept surrender in the field killing them immediatley. However once they got stuck with a prisoner they usually treated them well.