Why was the Nazi treatment of Soviet POW's so much worse than that of other Allied POW's?

Question

What was it that the Nazis had against the Soviets that they didn't have against say the Americans, British, Canadians etc etc. And I wonder how did the Nazis treat Allied POW's (aside from Soviets) who were Jewish? Thanks.

Answer 1

imperialpoetpurple got his facts wrong. the death in abandoned railway cars was done by Stalin to ex-soviet troops and their families- those who cose to fight on the side of the germans, ended up in the west and were "extradited" to the USSR after the WW2 ended



the basic reason the soviets were treated badly was the fact that they were not part of the Geneva and Hague accords

the second reason is that the soviet security forces routinely tortured and murdered any german soldier they caught



nazism and communism are both socialist ideologies. no place for humanity in either of them

Answer 2

The western allies were just as brutal as the germans in some cases more so, the russians to brutality to far greater level than any other nation. Many of the allies atrocities are seen as acceptable such as the bombing of civilians, people forget that britain bombed german cities seven times before the germans started to do the same. 120,000 innocent men women and children burnt to death in one raid on dresden how can that be anything but a crime. Look up joachim piper(spelling may be wrong) He commanded some germans i think in the battle of the bulge they captured some americans that they were not able to keep prisoner so they shot them. Joachim was not present but as they were his men he took responsibility. He and his men were tried in a court that even many americans considered unfair they were tortured and and sentenced to death. Due to protests from some americans the sentences were commuted to prison sentences. Joachim was murdered by cowards when he was very elderly. Now i saw all this on a documentary another documentary has american soldiers talk of the battle of the bulge where one proudly admits that they were unofficially given orders to execute prisoners. I have seen an interview with british soldiers on D-day where one said two of his friends took two german prisoners behind a sand dune and stabbed them so they could send the helmets home of men they had killed. The germans committed no more crimes than the allies the only difference was the germans lost had the won churchill and arthur harris would certainly have been hanged for war crimes

Answer 3

It was because of 2 reasons



1. Stalin did not sign relevant international agreements (mostly Red Cross) and therefore Soviet POWs were not protected by those agreements.



2. There were too much Soviet POWs to give them all the amenities required by treaties even if Nazi would decide to give humane treatment as a gesture of good will.

Answer 4

The Nazi's considered the Russians to be "untermensch" or sub-human, and therefore normal treatment did not apply to them. Normally, a Jewish P.O.W. if he was in the armed forces , would expect to be treated as any other P.O.W. because Germany still kept to the Geneva Convention. As far as I am aware, they were mostly treated the same way as their comrades.

Answer 5

A.H. regarded the Russians/Slavs as 'subhumans' and the USSR was his primary enemy ie. he considered Bolshevism a 'jewish disease.' German and Polish Nationalist forces even allowed over 70,000 Russian prisoners to freeze to death and die of starvation on abandoned cattle cars... It was really premeditate savageness ie. part of the holocaust.



Also, if one reads the doctrine of how Operation Barbarassa was to be carried out, one soon realises that A.H. from the very beginning had the agenda of being extremely brutal. In fact, A.H.

had even woo'ed the pope into a plan to destroy the Russian/Eastern Orthodox church...and to replace it ostensibly/finally with the Roman Catholic church... Also, Russia was viewed by A.H. as his 'lebensraum' and A.H. argueably was as obsessed with anti-Russian sentiments as he was with antisemitism ie. A.H. once exclaimed 'When it comes to Russia, I just cannot help myself...' and he constantly uses the words bolshevik and jew as interchangeable words...ie. he would give speeches on building the reich as a bulwark against bolshevism which he considered a jewish disease, and he also considered the Russian people as tainted slavs...who would in essence be the slaves of the new reich.





A.H. and other top nazis also seemed to believe that the West was really deep down on their side in the fascist war against Russia ie.Rudolf Hess' mysterious flight to England has been resonably speculated as an attempt to woo Britain into a peace with Germany so as to be an ally in a war against the USSR...and for many decades this was an issue of dispute/mistrust between Russian/British/US officials in regard to Hess and his long confinement...





Allied POW's from other countries were at greater risk if they were identified as jewish...but one thing that tended to save them - was that unlike Russia - the West had signed the 1920's Geneva Convention, so a captured allied soldier of the West was ikely to be treated better by the Germans. I would emphasize the word 'likely' because a lot would of course depend on the circumstances of being captured. Russians also tended to be captured in masses...in greater numbers...and subject to sweeping harsher conditions...of combat ie. subject to death march conditions ...

Answer 6

What the other respondent said and also they thought the Russians were subhuman.