What happened to German soldiers after World War II?
What happened to German soldiers after World War II?
Discussion of German and Soviet POWs during World War II.
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Transcript
NARRATOR: Stalingrad, January 1943 - an entire German army is defeated. At least 700,000 have died on both sides. Over 100,000 Wehrmacht soldiers end up in Soviet captivity. They're transported to Siberian camps.
EBERHARD BECKER: "It was a biting cold where the briefest time outside was enought to give you frostbite.
NARRATOR: By the end of the war more than 3 million German soldiers end up imprisoned in the east. Crammed into freight wagons, they are scattered all over the Soviet realm. Many of the camps are in and around Moscow where the German assaults caused the greatest destruction. But the Soviet camp system stretches as far as Siberia. No one at home knows where the POWs have been taken. The Soviet leadership maintains that the Wehrmacht was guilty of Hitler's war of destruction. German soldiers followed the order to capture living space in the east by any means.
ADAM MATTHES: "It was a terrible war in that we flattened everything that stood in our path without exception."
NARRATOR: By the end of the war more than 5.5 million Soviet infantrymen have ended up in German captivity. Over two-thirds of them die of disease, exhaustion or starvation.
GRIGORIJ CHOLNIJ: "There was cannibalism. We found the butchered corpses of prisoners of war. Chunks of meat had been torn from the bodies. No one wants to talk about it. There were terrible things."
NARRATOR: Now German prisoners are made to suffer for the war of aggression on the Soviet realm with hard labor and Siberian temperature of -40 degrees. For how long, no one knows.
WILLY BIRKEMEYER: "The worst thing was that you had no rights. You were helpless, exposed to arbitrary abuse, having to submit to beatings. That was the worst, the very worst."
NARRATOR: Of the prisoners at Stalingrad only 6,000 survive. The western powers also establish camps for millions of German POWs. By the end of the war, the so-called Rheinwiesen camps were set up by the U.S. Army on German soil. The American are ill prepared for such large numbers of prisoners. About 8,000 Germans lose their lives, mostly through starvation. But treatment in supplies in the western camps are often better than in beleaguered Germany and most of the prisoners are soon released. Whereas many imprisoned in Soviet camps only return home years later, the last in 1955. One and a half million German soldiers die in captivity as well as many millions of soldiers of other nations.
EBERHARD BECKER: "It was a biting cold where the briefest time outside was enought to give you frostbite.
NARRATOR: By the end of the war more than 3 million German soldiers end up imprisoned in the east. Crammed into freight wagons, they are scattered all over the Soviet realm. Many of the camps are in and around Moscow where the German assaults caused the greatest destruction. But the Soviet camp system stretches as far as Siberia. No one at home knows where the POWs have been taken. The Soviet leadership maintains that the Wehrmacht was guilty of Hitler's war of destruction. German soldiers followed the order to capture living space in the east by any means.
ADAM MATTHES: "It was a terrible war in that we flattened everything that stood in our path without exception."
NARRATOR: By the end of the war more than 5.5 million Soviet infantrymen have ended up in German captivity. Over two-thirds of them die of disease, exhaustion or starvation.
GRIGORIJ CHOLNIJ: "There was cannibalism. We found the butchered corpses of prisoners of war. Chunks of meat had been torn from the bodies. No one wants to talk about it. There were terrible things."
NARRATOR: Now German prisoners are made to suffer for the war of aggression on the Soviet realm with hard labor and Siberian temperature of -40 degrees. For how long, no one knows.
WILLY BIRKEMEYER: "The worst thing was that you had no rights. You were helpless, exposed to arbitrary abuse, having to submit to beatings. That was the worst, the very worst."
NARRATOR: Of the prisoners at Stalingrad only 6,000 survive. The western powers also establish camps for millions of German POWs. By the end of the war, the so-called Rheinwiesen camps were set up by the U.S. Army on German soil. The American are ill prepared for such large numbers of prisoners. About 8,000 Germans lose their lives, mostly through starvation. But treatment in supplies in the western camps are often better than in beleaguered Germany and most of the prisoners are soon released. Whereas many imprisoned in Soviet camps only return home years later, the last in 1955. One and a half million German soldiers die in captivity as well as many millions of soldiers of other nations.