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Faunsdale, AL | The Germans thought they would win the war fast so when they invaded the Soviet Union and captured whole armies in several encirclements, they basically held them in large enclosures with so little food, water and shelter etc that they starved most of them to death within a year. At the same time they were shooting Jews in Poland and Eastern Europe as they over ran their towns, cities and villages.
Later, after about 1942, once they realized that manpower was so short and was going to get shorter as the war went on, they made some effort to get some use out of the Russian prisoners as well as the French, Belgian and Dutch populations and POW’s, Eastern Europeans etc.
During that later part of the war, the aim was to get as much work for as little maintenance cost and especially with the Russians, if some died, who cared. That’s the policy that resulted in the death rates your father quoted.
Then there were the camp systems that we think of when we refer to the genocide of the Jews that culled through the Jews from Germany and Western Europe, immediately killing those judged not worth working to death.
As the Russians pushed the Germany back toward Germany, they went to great efforts to eliminate or intern anyone that might have been working for the Germans or even not having fought them sufficiently. Seems like it was an occasion to eliminate any group that might resist communism as they had done during the 1930’s in Ukraine. For further reading look up Holodomor. In the case of Poland they let the Germans have a breather to destroy the Polish resistance before finally pushing them out and mopping up what was left themselves.
Russian POW camps for German soldiers had staggering death losses and kept soldiers for many years after the end of the war.
You didn’t want to be a prisoner of the Germans or the Russians or a civilian living in areas they captured!
Timothy Snyder calls Poland, Ukraine and Belorussia the blood lands for good reason.
https://youtu.be/hT8FQaneLf8?si=zZxhLHBxi8c7Sgss
Edited by ccjersey 4/15/2024 15:50
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Life Magazine Nov 29 1943 German Troops trying escape
