What Happened to the German and Japanese POWs? - COLD WAR DOCUMENTARY 

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My grandfather was in a camp toghether with Japanese pows. I guess that means he was very far to the east. He never told me much about it. If you asked him, he would shiver

my great grand father was captured in the battle of stalingrad and got home by 1947, my ggmother couldnt recognize him at all when he managed to walk all the way from the gulag to east germany, he told her and to my gfather how he recieved almost no food at all and when he was dying there the guards just let him free outside the camp thinking he would fall dead in the road but with determination and some good samaritan that gave him just a bite of bread every now and then managed to get back home.

My Dad, a German went into a Russian POW camp at age 14. He escaped two years later and weighed less than 100 pounds. I can't believe he made it, but for the obvious reason, I'm glad he did.

My grandfather's younger brother, a German speaking Soviet citizen born in the Ukraine, was captured at the battle of Stalingrad, fighting for the Germans. Prior to that, he had been fighting in the Red Army but captured by the Germans. As an ethnic German with Soviet citizenship, the Germans gave him the option of joining the war effort on their behalf, or going to a prison camp. So he switched sides, and that is why I assume the Soviet Union kept him in prison camp through about 1955 or so when he was eventually released to live in West Germany (this is my guess as to the reason why he wasn't let out. He had a low rank, below sergeant, so I assume he was not accused of some war crime. But I probably won't ever know one way or the other why he was kept so long after the end of the war). He said that he survived in the Soviet prison camps because of two things. First, he never believed anything his prison keepers said - they often engaged in trickery to get the prisoners to confess to certain acts. Some fell for that according to him, and well, the outcome wasn't ever good. Second, his calorie requirements were low compared to the other prisoners. He was short and had a slight build. When I saw him in 1974 while he was living in Germany, he was much smaller than me and I was 15 (I was average sized for my age). He said the larger and taller men tended to starve more quickly.

My great grandfather was a teacher during WW2, he was eventually drafted into the Afrika Korps, got captured there and sent to the USA. He remained in a POW camp for 10 years, and he used to say those were the best years of his life lol

When you remember purposely destroying that one building in stalingrad only to see yourself rebuilding it years later

There was a camp for German POWs from WW2 in my home county of Spartanburg , South Carolina . There is account of a few POWs taken into the forest as a work gang . They were issued axes , shovels and such to work with . The overseers came to trust them and would sometimes leave them unattended . One day they were forgotten and left in the woods . After a couple of days it was realized that they weren't at the base camp . The overseers returned to the spot they left them and they were still there , waiting to be picked up .

Will you do a video about German and Japanese POW's in other Allied countries, mainly US, UK, France and China?

My great uncle used to fondly talk about his time in a Siberian POW camp. He was an equivalent to a Major, so he wasn't made to do any hard labour. He talked about eating frozen rye bread with borscht soup, but instead of eating the bread he'd keep it to catch wild birds to eat. Sometimes the guards would even lend him their mosin to shoot swans with. He said he spent most of his time outside of leading the labourers, talking to his guards who would share their cigarettes and vodka with him in return for stories. This was when I was pretty small, so I didn't really know about how bad conditions in Soviet camps usually are, so I didn't really doubt his stories. But now I wonder if things really were that tranquil, or if he was making stuff up not to scare me. Though, I doubt his experience was that negative, as he always used to make borscht, he apparently acquired a taste for it in Siberia. He did however mention that it was constantly freezing.

My Onkel Georg - a German paratrooper - was captured by the Americans shortly after D-Day when his unit fought and then surrendered after running out of food and ammunition. He was shipped to a POW camp in Texas, where they were treated far better than the black folks they occasionally ran into. At the end of the war, he was shipped to England where he was used as slave labor on an English farm for about 2 years, finally returning home to Germany in late 1947.

Only 5% of the 105,000 captured at Stalingrad ever made it back to Germany.

My great grandfather served in the Japanese army and was stationed in Manchuria when the Soviets invaded. He and his group of other soldiers were taken as POW and did labor work, such as cutting down trees and building railroad tracks in the remote areas of Russia. The Soviets also made their pows learn the Russian language and forced them to memorize communist songs. He told me how shocking it was at first seeing female officers in the Soviet army since that was unimaginable in Japan at that time and felt little bit humiliated being watched by them. He also said he had a chance to interact with the local Russian civilians and that they were really nice giving him bread and vegetables since pow werent fed enough. He also met German and Hungarian pows and would have friendly competitions to see who could get the day’s work done faster.

My grandfather was injured by shrapnel and subsequently captured in Stalingrad. Spent a year as a Soviet POW. He escaped his camp and somehow made it all the way back to Germany. He got recaptured by the Allies and spent another 3 years in French captivity. He never told anyone how he managed to get back home, only that it was his only option to survive. Staying in the Soviet camp would have meant certain death for him.

How different was the whole process on the western side? Could you expand more on these?

Try watching "the human condition trilogy" about a Japanese man who runs a forced labor camp, gets thrown into the army, and then becomes a russian POW. It's an amazing series of films, and doubly amazing being a japanese film extremely critical of themselves during WW2 and war in general.

We had a pow camp outside of port Arthur Canada. They loved Canada. Many returned to Canada.

You really should do some research and a video on the America and British POW's that vanished upon being liberated by the Red Army. About 2000 American and British POW's held by the Germans (who the Germans confirmed through the international red cross that they had them), disappeared after being liberated by the red army. Very hard to find details on this, but there was even a case where the Red Army overran a POW column being marched west. The Soviets shot the German guards, and started marching them east. Two GI's got away, and made it to the American lines (which were only dozen miles away) letting them know what was up. The information was sent up the chain of command, and while senior leadership was busy trying to make a decision, the POW's were getting further and further away, and they were wasting day light. Having seen first hand the brutality and barbarism of the Red Army, the field commander got tried of waiting, and took his unit to go get these POW's. They drove through the Russian lines, and didn't encounter any resistance (other then being mobbed sometimes by over enthusiastically happy Red Army soldiers). It was once they got past the front line troops, that they started having problems, running into rear echelon units, especially political officers and NKVD units. They caught up with the POW's, and got into a pissing match with the Red officers. Eventually they had to disarm the Russians and take the POW's by force. Loaded them onto trucks, half-tracks, M-10's, then started back to their lines. They had to fight their way past several road blocks, and had a running gun fight with some of the Russian units. Again, once they got closer to the front line Red Army units, thing got a whole lot less hostile (and tossing them k-rations, cigarettes, and a few bottle of booze didn't hurt). They got back to American lines, and the commander was promptly relieved of command. The incident was covered up. Not only because the Reds were our Allies, but they held a lot of US prisoners, and incidents like this put them into jeopardy. It also didn't look good that a field commander took decisive action while senior leadership was busy finger fucking themselves instead of making a command decision. And the unit that "showed them up" as a Colored (African American) Tank Destroyer unit. So, the whole incident was squashed, hard.

I live in a building in Belgrade, which was built by German POWs in early 50s.

a romanian pow said in his memoirs that the japanese were singing odes for stalin because their only goal was to serve the emperor, and the only way to do this was to survive by any means. when the japanese were shipped home, the japanese commander who supervised this kind of behaviour commited harakiri .

I've learned a lot about WWII and the Cold War but have never thought about this topic. Thank you teaching me something new!

I was born in the USSR; my family left in 1975. I was 11yo. Your set brings back memories.

I'm from a small farming town in Yorkshire, UK. We had German POWs working on the farms here until the mid 50s. Most of them refused to go home and married local girls.

What a wonderful channel, thank you for posting. And as my English is not the best I find your annunciation and pronunciation very easy to follow.

you know you should of say In the title "What Happened to the German and Japanese POWs IN THE SOVIET UNION?". what happen to those under the allies control.

Nightmare of the Soviet Union - went to the *GULAG* never returning - horrible conditions one could not describe.

"Only went to war with Japan at the last moment" overlooks a major Soviet offensive against Japanese forces in China that involved nearly three million soldiers on both sides.

The re-education of German POW's begun during WWII was carried out in the US in my area. The idea was to isolate educated "Nazi's" with western sympathies. They attended classes, held discussions, ran mock government scenarios etc. They were then part of the cadre of repatriated prisoners who would begin the governing of the new Germany albeit (West). Narragansett Bay.

I highly doubt the release numbers until 1949. I had grandparents and great grandparents being in captivity until the late 50's with none of them being war criminals. Moreover, many of the POW released were severly ill or weakened, which meant that even when people came home they died months or weeks later. This should have been considered as well in the number of survivors.

The soviets gave the same treatment to their own POWs that were captured in foreign nations upon their return to the USSR.

Excelent video! What about the romanian,polish hungarian prisoners taken by the USSR?

there was a book by a German POW. After the war, each POW was asked repeatedly, what did you eat on this day, that day, etc. He answered only rations. As soon as a POW confessed to eating a chicken, pig etc, he was convicted of stealing state property, and sentences to 5-10 years.

How about a story on the American and British POW's held by the Germans, who were "liberated" by the Red Army, and then they vanished. Up to 5000 disappeared. These we POW's who the Germans had confirmed though the international red cross that they were alive and in their custody.

My Russian language tutor at Friendship Airport in Baltimore before I went to work on the hotline lived in Kuibyshev during the war. He said many of the prisoners from Stalingrad were there. The Italian and Romanians were often lightly guarded and the professor would visit the camps for the music. The Hungarians and Germans were closely guarded and the Hungarians were considered more vicious.

Very interesting video. Thanks for creating it. Both my Opa and my great uncle were captured by the Allies. My Opa, by the Soviets. He spent time in Coal and salt mines and forestry camps. My Uncle was captured in North Africa by the Americans and spent the rest of the war working anywhere from Louisiana to Texas on farms and civil construction projects. It is interesting how many similar stories there are here.

My maternal grandfather was young enough that by the time he went to boot camp, the war was almost over. When the war did end, the army released him to ride a bus back home from the training camp on the Eastern Seaboard. My grandmother always said that she and the kids were so happy to see him walking down the road toward them.

You should do one on how USA held Germans in the Rhineland camps. Where Germans slet in the open, drowned in mud during rain at night, no sanitation, dysentery, typhus, lack of food, deaths from all of the above. And these included civillians, hitler youth teenages, and many women. Shamefull

Don't forget about András Toma a Hungarian pow who didn't get released until 2000. They lost his paperwork and thought he was crazy because nobody spoke Hungarian.

The untold stories are the most educative. Thank you. Greetings from Amsterdam 🇳🇱

The Soviets weren't the only ones to keep prisoners after WWII. I knew a former German Luftwaffe member who spent several years after the war as a French POW. He and his fellow prisoners were told that since the Germans caused the destruction in France, they could rebuilt it. He was put to work building roads and bridges, a skill which he later brought to the USA when he immigrated. I met him in the 1970s when he was working on the construction of the US interstate highway system (I-10) in Florida.

Unlike your comment about the percentages of deaths of prisoners of the USSR where you give both low and high estimations, you than compare those figures to the prisoners of the Japanese but only give a ridiculously low estimate of "as low as 12%" (?) It's generally accepted to be around 33%. My father was one of six survivors from a total of more than 2,400 Australian and British POW's from the Japanese camp at Sandakan in North Borneo and the Death March to Ranau. That's a death rate of 400 to 1. I enjoy "The Big Boom Celebration Day"

My Great Uncle Gus August was captured in Stalingrad. They sent him to a camp near Saratov. He wouldn't speak of his experiences in the Gulag.

Keep going. This is what history channel should be.

First off, I could sit and speak with you every single day and talk history. Thank you for what you do, and I would be greatly interested in contributing to this channel and Kings and Generals (primarily Armenian-related items). I would like to ask you to confirm a statement you made. You mention German P.O.W.s were used in building the Georgian oil industry; is this correct? It seems Azerbaijan would be the correct location. Please, let me know.

Imagine how painful it would be to endure these camps potentially from the beginning of the invasion and endure brutal conditions until 1956 only to be sent home, *to east Berlin where you could only watch as the west enjoyed their lives*

How very interesting. Always thought that German prisoners were treated in a horrible way. But I had no idea how badly till seeing this video. Nice job. My compliments to those who made this channel a reality.

David, you have presented a difficult topic in a balanced, factually supported-manner, leaving lots of room for those of us who have 'background' and 'contextual' grounding to form our own opinion. Very enjoyable show. I will be a repeat visitor.

Great video, the book AFTER STALINGRAD provides a gruesome insight in the life of German POW's. Great you guys covered the Japanese POW's since I didn't knew much about that. There is a Korean movie named MY WAY that tells the story of two Koreans ending up at the German side on D-day that also spent some time in a Soviet POW camps after the battle of Khalkhyn Gol.

You should read about how the Japanese treated our troops captured on Bataan and Corregidor. Some units lost up to 54 percent of their soldiers in the Japanese death camps.

German pwo camp structures are still standing in Wisconsin. They were given the chance to work in farming for the most part. They thrived. The reason they thrived in my opinion is the were given liberties based on the merit of their contribution. Many were granted leave from the camp to go to town and purchase goods and also patronize the local taverns. The mps were very liberal as far as security and curfew. We have many Americans that became a new generation of Americans from German POW s that never went back to the father land.

What about POW’s held by the United States for years? I would be interested in those stories. I know of a POW camp at Newport News. It was a labor camp where Germans were put to work sorting through the debris of military hardware from the battlefields of Western Europe to be recycled for the war effort. I know of German POW’s that worked in greenhouses in suburban Chicago planting seeds and tending plants. Where are those stories?

In the late 40s my grandfather was general manger at a state owned transportation company in western Azerbaijan. He used to tell us about German prisoners who were brought to work there. Aside from enemy part, he would speak highly of German prisoners and about their work ethics. Even my mom who is 78 now told us a story that as a kid she used to visit her dad at work and although she was not allowed to approach the fence where prisoners were held, she would drop some pieces of bread to the other side of the fence as she felt that they were not fed properly.

On the desk is probably an IKEA table light.

the lady at 12:10 that look in her eyes hoping to see her loved one just heart wrenching..

I don't know what is going wrong with your audio editing, but to your S'es sound wrong. Edit:love the channel

Awesome Video, I always curious about this topic.

Stalin asked for 4 million slaves to rebuild russia. And the allies clapped and approved.

I suspect that a large part of the low cost per German prisoner was due to the large number of DEAD ONES. If you ran a POW camp where many of them died (of numerous causes) you would look much more efficient if your meager food allotment actually fed fewer men than your accounting reported at any given time.

What a beautiful set of strings production added when narrator was talking about deaths of POWs. It almost broke my heart... Almost.

The last genocide of WWII. The genocide of the german POW in Sovietunion. Even the japanese death ratio is really high. About 3,5 % of the western POW died in german camps as a comparative figure.

How did I just discover this amazing channel??

Something I have always wondered about. Thank you for your efforts.

This looks like the Russian brutality was really one sided. When the Germans attacked Russia and came across huge amounts of prisoners that they were not prepared to deal with. They would hold them in huge groups and not feed them. This naturally resulted in deaths from starvation and canabalism. The 100,000 prisoners taken at the end of the battle for Staligrad were taken to prisoner of war camps and only 5,000 were ever repatriated to Germany after the war. Both sides committed atrocities that created animosity.

should include the many thousands of Balts sent to the east and north of Siberia both before the war and after the war. Ethnic Volga Germans died in huge numbers as well. There is a monument in Krasnoturinsk, Sverdlovsk oblast, to the ethnic Germans who died as forced laborers.

The shock they have when they get home years later and learn the war ended years ago

Excellent presentation. Great work. Thanks.

My grandfather (German) was 6 or more years in a Siberian prisoner camp. They had to work hard and didn't get much food. They actually ate water with bugs because the bugs was the only protein they got.

@13:05 Russia and Japan are still at war, at least on paper. The two neighbours in the Pacific Ocean never signed a peace treaty officially ending World War II.

Why have I only just found out about this series! *Immediately subscribed!*

if only memories of gulags prisoners could be translated in to english ... imagine that in -45c your shoes are piece of tire and you have to go to woods to chop trees

This video appears to be an apology for the Communist treatment of their POW.

Good facts is always refreshing

How about another documentary: What happened at the Rhine Meadow Camps (footage from 10:07 to 10:43)?

Seems like as soon as the Soviet Union lost all the free labour and scientific gains Wars, like WWll gave them, they were on the decline? Good video, will we touch on the Scientific advances the German gave the Soviets as well?

In Australia we had the Cowra breakout of Japanese Pow's

4.10 that german pow looked like Vladimir putin

I recall a remark made by one of the Red bldg construction overseers who was upset were the Germans to be repatriated due to the skill of the German carpenters - the Russians couldn't 'hang a door', set a window frame properly in place, etc..

Soviets held German nationals from the soviet union like forever in work camps in central asia. Also most of the unfortunate people in the territories that fell to the soviet union were forced labourers.

Imagine thinking the soviets were the “good guys”.

In my hometown of Rameskoye near Moscow, German POWs were used to build the city hall. At one time, a POW asked my granddad - then a teenager - "Is it good that we are to do this", and the grandpa answered "No". At one other point, the boys wanted to beat the Germans, but the girls stepped in and protected them.

In the North-West of Russia there are a lot of two-storey buildings that are called "German houses". Those are houses built by German POWs. Until recently people really preferred those to much newer Khruschev-era commieblocks because of great build quality of the former.

Aha and sleeping on the fields of Rhein, without shelter, when being a US prisoner was so much better. Or in other words, will the be the same video about the US prisoners?

my dad have multiple gun shot wounds scar all over body armament of before have less kinetic power compared to nowadays the bullets tend to change trajectory coming inside left coming out to any sides it hit the bones at times also density ---- my forever hero ---- a world a better place because of brave people like him

Great video! These are really well made

Don’t forget the Italian prisoners of war!

David, may I suggest you drop the music? Silence is golden plus less work for you.

Thank you for the vid, and the comments section will be even more interesting.

You sound like an apologist for the old Soviet Union...one of the bloodiest regimes in history.

I worked with a polish guy once he joined the polish army when Hitler attacked he was on the Russian front They took him prisoner and gave him a choice join the red army or be shot so he joined it. Fighting for the Russians he was taken prisoner by the Germans they gave him a choice join the german army or be shot, so he joined the German army Fighting for the German army he was taken prisoner by the British who hearing what he had been through sent him to England and wouldnt let him join the british army lets have a big cheer for the British He came back to England and went to a recruiting office they said dont need army personel we want airborne he said he was in that in Poland so he was in and dropped at arnham he survived the war and ended up working at Dobson and Barlow In the foundry His back pack is in a museum somewhere

I remember hearing about my Grand Uncle Siegfried returning home from the USSR. He was captured in Stalingrad. I remember my Grandma saying my Grandpa saw him and he could see his rib cage through his skin. My Grandfather was lucky and surrendered to a British Tank battalion South East of Germany. I have a question: what treatment did German Officers receive in the USSR? Also, what rank would be "a rank below a (Lefttenant? The word is what my Grandma used)?" The rank is what my Grandfather was when he was captured.

Pow living conditions? *Laughs in Stalin*

My father was a Japanese Army soldier who was caught by Soviet Army in Harubin, China (Manchuria). He was only 16 years old. He spent POW camp near Irkutsk for 5 years. He was repatriated from Vladivostok to Tsugaru, Japan when he was 21 years old.

Do a video on the Allied prisoners of war who were released by the Soviets from German POW camps, then shipped back to Russia. 20,00 died there, so I have read.

Great Video!!

What about german pow's in the usa like my great grandfather???

May i ask why you dont show the Swastika? In this channel its history and ps great channel

My dad was there in Germany when the war was over,he was 16 and lied about his age just so he could enlisted in to us army.he was in the Normandy invasion the battle of the bulge.and a hole lot more fight that he would no ever tell me about,my uncle who was drafted back then was over in Europe to plus fought the germans in Africa.my signed up for the army do he had to pull 4 years where my dads brother my uncle pulled only two years.my was a Machine gun Sargent,using a water cooled 30/06 Machine gun plus one guy who had to carry the bipod and another guy carried the ammo.i do remember them talking to my uncle his brother many many years ago about how bad and how much he hated going to some of the nazi death camps.he did get wounded 2 in battle and was hospitalized for a while but did not get or receive a purple hart medal at all.he was payed 21 dollars a mouth for his service,and had to stand guard over the germans women to.to make sure that they were working to clear away rubble and rebuild Berlin back again,this meant women to had to work and do the same things as the older men did back then.sometimes I do envy my dad for being it that big war and the thing he did and the places and people he saw still to this day and still love he very deeply for just bring my dad.my uncle unfortunately died 11 years ago and I ready loved him to for all the good times we had when I was younger,and well my dad hes still around now hes 93 now and lives about 129 yards away from my house with my mother to here on my big farm in the mountains of south west Virginia and not west Virginia eather that's about 25 miles away as the crow flies.anf so Is Kentucky and Tennessee and north Carolina.not far from Bristol va and Tennessee,and bluefield west Virginia to.our reagon is called the 5 state area,we've been here all our lives and our great grandparents have been here to.so do like me if you ever get to see or come across any person who served in ww2 thank then and shake there hand and talk with them because there's not very many more of them left these days ok 🇺🇸🤝👍‼

POWs in russia: when is this going to be over?? POWs in canda: i hope this will never be over

You should write about the American POWs from the Korean War who were sent to Siberia.

I always find it Ironic that Germany was far more developed and Educated, than the Soviets, but The Germans still had a higher survival rate living as a POW in the soviet union than the other way around.