This day in 1944: Hunger, frostbite, gangrene

(Drazen Kramaric)

It should be noted that both sides on Eastern front treated POWs
brutally. However, those who survived to reach POW camps had more
chance to survive in Soviet captivity than German one.


Tell that to the roughly 95% death rate of the German POWS taken at Stalingrad.
Most of those died before the war ended. The fact that many of them were not
repatriated until the early 1950s didn't help things either.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

On 31 Dec 2003 19:31:35 GMT, (B2431) wrote:


Tell that to the roughly 95% death rate of the German POWS taken at Stalingrad.
Most of those died before the war ended. The fact that many of them were not
repatriated until the early 1950s didn't help things either.

POWs captured at Stalingrad were a sort of special case. Most of them
died soon after capture from dyarhea. When Soviets captured them they
were already starving, frozen, weakened. Also, this was the first time
Soviets captured so many POWs and facilities to accomodate them did
not exist in the Stalingrad area.

Later, when Soviets got more experience, the survival rate increased.
In total, far more Axis POWs survived captivity in USSR then vice
versa.


Drax
remove NOSPAM for reply

"Drazen Kramaric" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 09:31:37 -0000, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:



There was no fire fight, the soldiers involved werent front line
infantry they were members of a fieeld artillery observation
battallion being transported by truck when they were surprised
by 1st SS Panzer . What happened next is simply that they adopted
their usual method of dealing with POW's as developed on the
eastern front and herded them into a field and shot them

It should be noted that both sides on Eastern front treated POWs
brutally. However, those who survived to reach POW camps had more
chance to survive in Soviet captivity than German one.

There was retribution at Bastogne for Malmedy and that is the reason history
pretends that the 82nd saved the 101st there. The heaviest fighting my
father was involved in at Bastogne was the ten days after the Bulge
officialy ended. Those SS troops could either quit, or die, but we weren't
having them get home to fight again.

Can't understand why there were so many Allied casualties on the Western
fronts! When I was stationed in Germany with NATO in the early 1960's most
Germans I met said they fought on the Eastern front. Only met one fellow
that admitted he was a Nazi and fought in the West. He wondered where all
the other ones had gone!!

"Ed Majden" wrote in message
news:u7ZJb.943064$6C4.233119@pd7tw1no...
Can't understand why there were so many Allied casualties on the
Western
fronts!

Because there was a lot of fighting there. The fighting around
Caen was some of the most brutal of the war with armoured
units firing through buildings at each other in villages such as
Villiers-Bocage. By the end of July many of the Canadian and
British units who had been fighting several Panzer divisions
for more than a month had taken 50% casualties. When the
Americans made their breakout 7 out of the 9 Panzer divisions
available to the Germans were locked into the fight around Caen
and were unable to take part in the weak attack at Mortain

By the last week in July, according to ULTRA intercepts of coded
German radio communications, the enemy in Normandy had sustained
casualties of more than 100,000 enlisted men and 2,360 officers killed
and wounded. Rommel wrote to his son "It was casualty reports, casualty
reports, casualty reports wherever you went, I have never fought with
such losses"

Keith

"Keith Willshaw"
Because there was a lot of fighting there. The fighting around
Caen was some of the most brutal of the war with armoured
units firing through buildings at each other in villages such as
Villiers-Bocage.

You have missed my point! Of course there were many brutal battles on
Western fronts. My comment was aimed at the Germans that would not admit
they had participated in these events. Some even lived next door to
concentration camps and would not admit that these camps existed let alone
what was going on inside of them.