AR banner
Search Tips Advanced Search
Back to Top

• Kracker Archive
• Allied Losses
• Archiwum Polish
• Paradie Canadian
• RCAF
• RAAF
• RNZAF
• USA
• Paul McGuiness RAAF Archive
• Searchable Lists

Nazi Germany operated around 1,000 prisoner-of-war camps (German: Kriegsgefangenenlager) during World War II (1939-1945). The most common types of camps were Oflags ("Officer camp") and Stalags ("Base camp" – for enlisted personnel POW camps), although other less common types existed as well.

Germany signed the Third Geneva Convention of 1929, which established norms relating to the treatment of prisoners of war. Article 10 required PoWs be lodged in adequately heated and lighted buildings where conditions were the same as for German troops. Articles 27-32 detailed the conditions of labour. Enlisted ranks were required to perform whatever labour they were asked if able to do, so long as it was not dangerous and did not support the German war-effort. Senior non-commissioned officers (sergeants and above) were required to work only in a supervisory role. Commissioned officers were not required to work, although they could volunteer. The work performed was largely agricultural or industrial, ranging from coal- or potash-mining, stone quarrying, or work in saw mills, breweries, factories, railroad yards, and forests. PoWs hired out to military and civilian contractors were supposed to receive pay. The workers were also supposed to get at least one day a week of rest. Article 76 ensured that PoWs who died in captivity were honourably buried in marked graves. According to some scholars (like Christian Gerlach) Germany largely adhered to the Geneva Convention when it came to other nationalities of prisoners of war.
Prisoner of War
1126 archive reports
← Back to report
No reports match your search.
Pages of Outstanding Interest
History Airborne Forces •  Soviet Night Witches •  Bomber Command Memories •  Abbreviations •  Gardening Codenames
CWGC: Your Relative's Grave Explained •  USA Flygirls •  Axis Awards Descriptions •  'Lack Of Moral Fibre'
Concept of Colonial Discrimination  •  Unauthorised First Long Range Mustang Attack
RAAF Bomb Aimer Evades with Maquis •  SOE Heroine Nancy Wake •  Fane: Motor Racing PRU Legend
  You can show you value this content by offering your dedicated research team a coffee!  

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning we will remember them. - Laurence Binyon
All site material (except as noted elsewhere) is owned or managed by Aircrew Remembered and should not be used without prior permission.
© Aircrew Remembered 2012 - 2026

×

Generating summary…