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A prisoner of war (POW, PoW, or PW) is a soldier, sailor, airman, marine, or any combatant who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. By international law and several mutually agreed conventions, prisoners of war are required to be treated humanely and diplomatically. However, nations vary in their dedication to following these laws.

Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention protects captured military personnel, some guerrilla fighters and certain civilians. It applies from the moment a prisoner is captured until he or she is released or repatriated. One of the main provisions of the convention makes it illegal to torture prisoners, and states that a prisoner can only be required to give his or her name, date of birth, rank and service number (if applicable).

The status of POW does not include unarmed non-combatants who are captured in time of war; they are protected by the Fourth Geneva Convention rather than the Third Geneva Convention.

Qualification as POW

In principle to be entitled to prisoner of war status the captured service member must have conducted operations according to the laws and customs of war, e.g. be part of a chain of command, wear a uniform and bear arms openly. Thus, franc-tireurs, terrorists and spies may be excluded. In practice these criteria are not always interpreted strictly. Guerrillas, for example, may not wear a uniform or carry arms openly, yet are typically granted POW status if captured. However, guerrillas or any other combatant may not be granted the status if they try to use both the civilian and the military status. Thus, the importance of uniforms — or as in the guerrilla case, a badge — to keep this important rule of warfare.

Treatment of POWs

The treatment of prisoners of war can depend on the resources, social attitudes and policies of the governments and militaries in question. For instance, in World War II, Soviet prisoners of Nazi Germany and German prisoners of the Soviet Union were often treated with neglect and brutality. The Nazi Regime regarded Soviet POWs as being of a lower racial order, and many Soviet POWs were consequently subject to enforced labour or were murdered in keeping with the Third Reich's policy of "racial purification". An official justification used by the Germans for this policy was the fact that the Soviet Union had not signed the Geneva convention; this was not legally justifiable however as under article 82 of the Geneva Convention (1929), signatory countries had to give POWs of all signatory and non-signatory countries the rights assigned by the convention.

Prisoners from Britain and the US were generally treated much better by the Germans than the German's treatment of Soviet prisoners, comparable to how the Allies treated them, with rare exception. When American or British were made to work, they were compensated, and British officers, as per their regulation were not forced to work. On the Soviet side, German POWs were regarded as having forfeited their right to fair treatment, because of the widespread crimes committed against Soviet civilians during their invasion campaign. This combined with the fact that much of the Soviet workforce was now in the hands of Nazi Germany, also led to employment of many German POWs as forced labour (this forced labour was similar to that imposed by the Soviets on their own civilians for a range of criminal and political crimes).

In the Pacific Theater, some of the harshest treatment of POWs were dealt by the Japanese. Prisoners held by Japanese armed forces were subject to brutal treatment, including forced labour, medical experimentation, vivisection, starvation rations, beatings for escape attempts, and were denied medical treatment. Whereas Allied POWs had a death rate of about 2% to 4% in German POW camps, which was usually attributed to natural causes, the death rate in Japanese camps was generally in the range of 20% to 35%. This was due in part to physical maltreatment by the Japanese, but was exacerbated by deliberate starvation, forced labour and the withholding of medicine by the Japanese. Similarly, during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, American prisoners were often beaten and tortured.

By contrast, POW facilities held by Allied nations like the USA, UK and Canada usually complied strictly to the Geneva Conventions, which sometimes created conditions POWs found were more comfortable than their own side's barracks. (A notable exception was the use of handcuffs on Canadian prisoners taken at Dieppe. This resulted after the Germans captured a copy of the Canadian operations order indicating that German prisoners were to be shackled. The Germans felt this was a violation of the Geneva Convention and ordered Canadian prisoners held in Germany to be handcuffed for a set period of time each day. German prisoners in Canada were then shackled in reprisal, until the conflict was resolved.) This approach was decided on the idea that having POWs well treated meant a ready supply of healthy and cooperative laborers for farmwork and the like, as allowed by the Geneva Conventions, which eased personnel shortages. These "forced" workers were also compensated for their work, as is required by the Geneva Convention. There were also the benefits of a lower chance of having to deal with escapes or prisoner disruption. In addition, as word spread among the enemy about the conditions of Allied POW camps, it encouraged surrenders which helped further Allied military goals efficiently. Furthermore, it may have raised morale among the Allied personnel when the usefulness of this approach was accepted by reinforcing the idea that this humane treatment of prisoners showed that their side was morally superior to the enemy. There were however some secret locations for prisoner interrogation where torture was used to extract information. These were not made known to the Germans due to fear of retaliatory treatment. These locations were contrary to the image that the US and the UK never broke the Geneva protocols and were rarely used.

Islam

See Ma malakat aymanukum.

POWs since Geneva Convention (1929)

A list of nations with the highest number of POWs in any war since the Geneva Convention, Relative to the treatment of prisoners of war (1929) entered into force 19 June, 1931. The USSR had not signed the Geneva convention. Clark, Alan Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict 1941-1945 page 206, ISBN 0-304-35864-9 All except one took place during World War II. Listed in descending order.

Prisoner nationality Number Name of conflict
U.S.S.R 4 - 5.7 mln (2.7 - 3.3 mln died in German POW camps) (ref. Krivosheev, Streit) World War II (Total)
France 1,800,000 Battle of France in World War II
U.S.A ~130,000 (95,532 taken by Germany) World War II
Germany 3,127,380 taken by U.S.S.R. (474,967 died in captivity) (ref. Krivosheev) World War II
Britain (135,000 taken in Europe, does not include Pacific or Commonwealth figures) World War II
Pakistan 93,000 Indo-Pakistani War of 1971

List of notable POWs

This is a list of POWs that attracted notable attention or influence by this status.

Alternative definitions

Some groups define Prisoner of War in accordance with their internal politics and world view. Since the special rights of a prisoner of war, granted by governments, are the result of multilateral treaties, these definitions have no legal effect and those claiming rights under these definitions would legally be considered common criminals under an arresting jurisdiction's laws. However, it must be noted that in most cases these groups do not demand such rights.

November Coalition definition

November Coalition uses the term Prisoner of War to also refer to Prisoner of Drug War or Prisoner of War on Drugs. Every person charged with the crime under the statues of the Drug War fits that definition, regardless of whether that individual's arrest and conviction was legal.

The American term EPW -- Enemy Prisoner of War

The term enemy prisoner of war (EPW) is used by the United States to refer to a captured enemy service member in their custody, but is not a term under the Geneva Conventions.

Further reading

  • Pierre Gascar, Histoire de la captivité des Français en Allemagne (1939-1945), Éditions Gallimard, France, 1967.
  • Bob Moore,& Kent Fedorowich eds., Prisoners of War and their Captors in World War II, Berg Press, Oxford, UK, 1997.
  • David Rolf, Prisoners of the Reich, Germany’s Captives, 1939-1945, 1998.
  • Richard D. Wiggers "The United States and the Denial of Prisoner of War (POW) Status at the End of the Second World War," Militargeschichtliche Mitteilungen 52 (1993) pp. 91-94.

Documentaries about POWs

- Philippe SUNOU, un article dans Le Soir du 26 mai 1973 : Prisonniers de guerre et bataille du charbon

- Philippe SUNOU, La Convention de Genève et le régime disciplinaire des prisonniers de guerre allemands en Belgique de 1945 à 1947, dans Les Actes du XLIII Congrès de la Fédération des Cercles d'Histoire, Archéologie et, Folklore de Belgique.

- Philippe SUNOU, Les Prisonniers de guerre allemands en Belgique et la Bataille du charbon, 1945-1947, Bruxelles, Musée royal de l'Armée, 1980.

- P. SUNOU, Une crise de l'énergie en Belgique après la deuxième guerre mondiale, 1945-1947, dans Histoire et Enseignement, 1983, n°1-2, pages 5 à 14.

- Philippe SUNOU, Les prisonniers de guerre dans la "Bataille du charbon", dans La Belgique militaire, Revue bimestrielle, n°173, novembre 1985, p. 15 à p. 17.

See also

References

  2. Gendercide site
G. F. Krivosheev, ed., Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century, Greenhill Books, London, 1997.
  1. Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941-1945, Dietz, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3801250237

External links

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Prisoner of war".

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