Talk:Prisoner of war

US Indoctranation of POWs

I'm surprised that it is not mentioned in the article that the USA did not release it's Germany prisons held in North America until after an intese schooling of the soldiers in 'how they should run their country' after the war. There was no torcher or 'mistreatment' involved. This was traditional schooling in a classroom like setting with a teacher, blackboard, and the students taking notes with a lot of information about how democratic government works. I'd hardly call it an attorcity but it was in violation of the Geneva accords.

N.Korea US pows

I took out the image caption - "2/3 of US prisoners of war in communist captivity did not survive the war." <<< Seems a bit suspect. I remember one US Army general saying that north koreans suffered treatment worse under SK and US captivity than the North Korean treatment --maxrspct ping me 23:40, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Source? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.180.65.118 (talk) 05:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Contributions by 213.156.55.135

You need to properly cite valid references. See WP:NOR. --Wikiscient (talk) 10:00, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

the prsiosoners of the war were very mistreated! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.58.160.209 (talk) 23:06, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

3,000 British WW 1 internees in Switzerland?

In the section Release of prisoners under WW 1, it stated in the first sentence that:

At the end of the war in 1918 there were believed to be 140,000 British prisoners of war in Germany, including 3,000 held in Switzerland.

What were 3,000 British POW's doing in neutral Switzerland? If those 3,000 Brits were internees -- including civilians -- it might be believable, but 3,000 British military internees seems unbelievable. The Swiss border is 100's of kilometers from the British WW 1 areas of operation in northwestern France and Belgium. Does anyone have any insight into this situation? Possibly escaped POW's from German camps?--TGC55 (talk) 12:35, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Switzerland was a preferred landing zone for damaged Allied airplanes.Ekem (talk) 03:43, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

You must be talking about WW 2 in which your statement was certainly true.--TGC55 (talk) 15:09, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikiproject Prisons

If anyone is interested, I have proposed a new Wikiproject concerning prisons here.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 22:47, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

---

polisario pows

this page is heavily pro-nazi... you can tell a German wrote most of it. Im surprised they stopped short of denying the halocaust.

Image deletion

Please provide your reasons for deletion of an image with Japanese POW. Thanks, Biophys (talk) 23:33, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Kilinski.jpg

The image Image:Kilinski.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

The following images also have this problem:

• File:19558.jpg

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --03:07, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Palestinean POWs

I belive there was a large number of Palestinean POWs taken by Isreal--Villa88 (talk) 00:54, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

supposedly "notable" POWs

I removed some names from the List of notable POWs section because:

• a google search for Akbar Abotorabi Fard returns only copied text from this article, but nothing mentioning him to be a notable POW
• a google search for "Leslie Wayne Tennyson" returns 4 results (a google search for his filmmaker grandson returns 1 (!) hit)
• E.R. (Bon) Hall - in all name variations searched and nothing noteworthy found
• Wallace R. Benson - nothing to be found (and as head of the photogrammetry department of the Wyoming Highway Department he would never merit his own article)
• Alija Izetbegovic "was held as hostage for several days" - no POW by any means
• Manda Manchiani - nothing to be found about her on the net
• Arthur Koestler was never a soldier and therefore was never a POW

also Friedrich Paulus was no outspoken critic of Adolf Hitler - he was one of Hitlers most loyal generals until August 1944 when he co-signed some calls to German troops to surrender

--noclador (talk) 13:32, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Bold/Italic numbers

Is there any reason for the bold and italicized numbers in the second paragraph of WWII-Treatment of POWs by the Allies?--Pokeronskis (talk) 03:44, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Did "only" 474,967 German POWs die in Soviet captivity?

Krivosheev's figure is more than doubtful and differs absolutely from the figure of the German Red Cross. To my knowledge this figure says, that more than a million German POWs have died in Soviet captivity quite sure(?) and 1.3 million were missed at the end of the war, of whom obviously about 90% finally were at the eastern front. [1]

Maybe 1 or 1.5 million were killed soon after surrender and never registered or (likely) Soviet archives are very fragmentary. (Even American records about the many German POWs at the end of the war were of a remarkable incompletion.)

But not doubtful is the criminal treatment of Soviet POWs in German captivity. Once an eyewitness told me, that he, when being injured in a hospital for German soldiers, saw Soviet POWs starving - some of them died - in a camp, separated only by a guarded barbwired fence from the hospital area. Any contact to the POWs was strictly forbidden and the message was clear: If you ever surrender, there will be no mercy. Your fate will be no better!

Only a few single not collaborating Soviet POWs could be so lucky, to experience the totally opposite. So I remember a published letter to the editor of my homenewspaper during the late Gorbatchev area, where a former Soviet POW told, that he never could write before and if someone knews about his former "host family" to whom he had been ordered then, to help on their farm and who treated him like a son. (May be, they kept in mind their own son, being at the front.) They had also covered him, when getting the message, he should be picked up for another place. But this man had great luck!

To reconciliation now the story of a Soviet sergeant, who saved the life of one of my uncles, who in 1945 was a 17 year old -looking younger - soldier of the Waffen-SS, who - days after the end of the war - was within a group of civilian clothes wearing buddies, who tried, to leave Bohemia through the woods to access Germany. In doing so, they suddenly came across a Soviet check point. They had no chance to escape, but the days before they had seen some civilian (real civilian) victims of so-called partisans (- an insult to partisans like AK -) so that they were determined, not to become captured alive. For some seconds it was a surreal situation. Both sides silent. Then the sergeant came to them, speaking some German words in a friendly manner. "Home?" "Yes." Once he run his hand over my uncle's hair and asked him: "Home to mum?" "Yes." Then he took the map and illustrated the way, they should go and which routes were dangerous. When they were alone again, they first didn't believe, but strictly followed the advice, came never over a Soviet check point again and finally reached the western part of Germany. My uncle told, this man had saved his live. At the check point this man was only an enemy for him and he had not hesitated one second, to take his pistol and shoot him dead, if only a superiors had told him one word. My uncle, later became a great fan of Russian culture, was engaged in partnership of his town in Westgermany with a Russian town, had close connections to some Russians and it was self-evident for him, to subscribe money when there was a crop failure in the SU etc.

This, for sure, was nothing, which belongs to an encyclopedia, but something, which illustrates something.

--Henrig (talk) 05:59, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Denial of POW status

I'd like to suggest a new section for "Denial of POW status", which can then also link to the DEF/SEP articles and other examples. "Qualification" is within "Modern times" section, but this matter is not limited to modern times, so perhaps both it and "Denial of POW status" should be top-level sections coming somewhere towards the end of the article. Any comments? Euan McKay (talk) 14:54, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Photo

How can a 1915 photo be in colour?--99.237.222.73 (talk) 23:27, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

colour photography has been around since the late 1800's - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_photography Lostcause1798 (talk) 19:00, 25 October 2009 (UTC)