JF Ptak Science Books Post 1212
By April 21, 1945–the date that this photograph was published–I should think that those left fighting in the Wehrmacht would have thought that it was time now to be taken prisoner by the British or the Americans, and to not be taken by the Soviet Army. Thousands of German soldiers made their way west at the tail end of the war, trying to evade capture by the Russians, to find some sort of respite from the fear of being taken away by the Red Army to work and disappear somewhere inside the heart of Mother Russia. There was a heavy dose of vengeance being unleashed on the captured German forces in the east in partial payback for the devastating assault on the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) by the Nazis beginning on 22 June 1941, and which caused millions of citizens and soldiers their lives. (Barbarossa was to have been a multi-month long campaign to secure the minerals and farm lands and forests of the Urals and Siberia and the Ukraine, but it lasted for more than three years along an 1800-mile front. The initial operation was very successful for Germany, but the Blitzkrieg ended quickly, and a long slogging campaign began, one which would be decided not only by weather, but by massive production of Soviet materiel and overwhelming army strength.)
The caption of this Illustrated London News photograph states that this is but a small fraction of the 2,000,000 prisoners then held by the Allied Forces. Shortly before this it was estimated that the Nazis held some 1.7 million Allied prisoners, which meant that in early 1945 more than 4 million soldiers were held as POWs in Europe. This enormous figure is exclusive of Japanese prisoners (estimated at about 150,000 in early 1945, with this number being exclusive of any Chinese prisoners), and the number of prisoners held by the Soviet Union.
Te return rate of German prisoners from Allied camps was very high; that same rate for Germans in possession of the Soviets was very low, something along the lines of 20%. The Nazi campaign through the Soviet Union showed small mercy and great cruelty; the Soviets reciprocated with the German soldiers they captured.
Overall, this is a tough photograph. The soldiers were evidently awaiting delousing before being sent onto trains to deliver them to more formal detention facilities. At least when these soldiers got on those trains with what sound like hgih-tin whistles, they mainly survived their ordeal, and the showers that they were going to receive were using water, and not zyklon-B.
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