Talk:German atrocities committed against Polish prisoners of war

Relevant category
Right now just on pl wiki: pl:Kategoria:Zbrodnie oddziałów Wehrmachtu na polskich jeńcach wojennych Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:54, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Misleading article
I am a bit surprised that the article doesn't mention that the treatment of Polish prisoners (with some exceptions) generally was in line with the Geneva Convention and their death rate was similar to that prisoners of war from Western Allied countries. The Italian military internees encountered more atrocities and had a higher death rate but their article doesn't get an "atrocities" in the title.

Judging from the article title one might get the impression that the treatment of Polish POWs was comparable to that of Soviet POWs, which is not accurate. It seems like bias could be avoided by renaming and rewriting to cover the entire experience of Polish POWs in German captivity. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  20:37, 24 June 2023 (UTC)


 * The intent of this article is not to summarize the overall treatment of Polish prisoners by Germans, but to describe the relevant attrocities, and serve as a parent article for Polish cases of Category:World War II prisoner of war massacres by Nazi Germany. On a side note, the topic you describe - the broad treatment of which the article here is a subtopic of - is certainly notable; I am suprised pl wiki does not have an article on this yet (see relevant category for people: pl:Kategoria:Polscy jeńcy wojenni w niewoli niemieckiej 1939–1945). Both wikis have an article for Polish prisoners-of-war in the Soviet Union after 1939, but yes, the German one is, puzzlingly, missing. So many things to do... (some reading for future:, , , , , , , , , , , ... Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 08:25, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

IMHO, the title of the article speaks for itself, focusing on the atrocities rather than describing the overall situation of Polish POWs in German captivity. Whether this article should be expanded and renamend or a separate article about the overall situation of Polish POWs should be created is, of course, open to discussion. WP:BOLD is should be applied here.Dreamcatcher25 (talk) 08:44, 25 June 2023 (UTC)


 * I think a bigger issue than the article scope is the lack of clarity that what is described in the article wasn't the usual treatment of Polish POWs. A reader who is not familiar with the topic could get the impression that executions of Polish POWs was common when the sources don't agree. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  14:28, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The definitio of "usual" and "common" is key here. Polish POWs were treated better than Soviets and exececuted "less", but were worse of than those from Anglo-American states. See for example this. For the POWs from the occupied states captivity was made more onerous by the fact that, while their captors were still in theory regarding them as subject to the terms of the convention just like British and American POWs, the absence of the threat of retaliation meant that in practice their treatment deteriorated. The living conditions of the remaining Polish prisoners, for example, were noted by the Swiss to be often considerably below those granted captured British servicemen... The differences in the treatment accorded Anglo-American and other POWs became even more stark in March 1944, when OKW issued instructions that all escaped prisoners would in future be secretly handed over to the SS Security Service (SD) and sent to the concentration camp at Mauthausen to be executed: "except," the order cautioned, "British and American prisoners of war" . In the author writes (p.160): Although never reaching the same defree of targeted mass killing of Polish prisoners at Katyn, Nazi occupiers followed a similar territorial pattern of committing very high levels of abuse against Polish prisoners... Since Poland was one of the eventual central sites for the Final Solution, German conduct toward prisoners remained extremely harsh... @Dreamcatcher25 may have better sources on this (Datner?). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  16:28, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The article could and probably should be expanded to cover living conditions as well, and comparison between different nationalities of prisoners of war. However, particularly as the "racial" distinction is mentioned in the article it seems reasonable to mention the counterpoint from Gerlach that, despite being 'racially' not very different from Soviets,  the conditions they were held in and death rate they suffered "differed in the extreme". (t &#183; c)  buidhe  17:48, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Personaly, it's hard for me to understand how this article could create an impression that the atrocities against Polish POWs were similar to the Nazi genocidal policy towards Soviet POWs. In the case of the latter, around 3.3 million were murdered or starved to death, while this article describes the war crimes that cost the lives of a few thousand Polish POWs. I know that this probably should be a subject of separate discussion but maybe relevant article should be named "extermination of Soviet POWs", rather than "atrocities committed against"?


 * Nevertheless, Piotrus asked about Szymon Datner. In his book Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu na jeńcach wojennych w II wojnie światowej ("Wehrmacht war crimes against POWs during Second World War") from 1961, he wrote (my rough translation):
 * "Sporadic atrocities against prisoners of war took place already during the September campaign of 1939. Although they are far smaller in scale compared to the atrocities of 1941-1945, their character and cruelty resemble many later major crimes" (p. 7). At the same page, Datner quoted a German order which stated: "Although they [Polish POWs - D25] are subject to the 1929 Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War until their release, those provisions which presuppose the existence of the Polish State as a warring power, such as the provisions on the rights and obligations of a "Protecting power", do not apply." Later on (page 8), he provides a few examples of how international law was violated by the Germans concerning the treatment of Polish POWs: 1) Those who were accused of various offenses were not court-martialed but handed over to Sondergerichts or Sicherheitspolizei, 2) Many were coerced into labor through "physical or mental terror". 3) In September 1943, Polish POWs became the first victims of the new policy towards escaped POWs, exemplified by the Dössel atrocity. 4) In 1944, serious attempts were made to force Polish officers who were POWs to work, and they faced the looming threat of physical annihilation as the German authorities attempted to collectively place them in concentration camps, 5) They were also utilized as human shields in areas that were heavily bombarded by the Allies.


 * On the other hand, Geoffrey P. Megargee in his book War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941 (Polish edition, p. 73) stated (again my rough translation): “Both in operational planning and during the German-Soviet war, Soviet POWs were assigned the lowest level in the hierarchy, while American and British prisoners were placed at the top. They [Americans and Brits – D25] were followed in the hierarchy by prisoners of other Western nationalities such as French, Norwegians, Belgians, and Dutch. Prisoners from the Balkans were placed below them, and finally, Poles.


 * Hope that could be of use.Dreamcatcher25 (talk) 18:38, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * @Dreamcatcher25 Thank you for looking at the sources. Perhaps we could add a sentence to the lead, and/or a small section to the body, called "comparison with other groups" or such, in which we could mention Gerlach statistics, as well as other stuff related to the hierarchy of prisoners and their treatment by the Germans. Such a section should be present in other corresponding articles about those groups too, and maybe it would serve as a basis of the proper article about treatment of POWs by Nazi Germany. Btw, I started a discussion about the name of the Soviet POWs article at its talk page. It was actually titled "extermination" early and maybe restoring that old n ame would help to underline the difference in horrific treatment of Soviet POWs compared to other groups? Polish POWs were subject to some "sporadic atrocities" (as Datner says, and that phrase might be good adding to the article here, if you could work it out, with a source - book title, page number, etc.), but Soviet ones were subject to what it seems to me indeed can be desrbibed as "extermination". Renaming the Soviet POWs article might also reduce the confusion anyone can feel from both articles being currently named in the same way. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  02:11, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Warsaw Uprising
@Piotrus I am sorry to say that but after this edit this article indeed may be partially misleading. Now the reader without the deepen knowledge about Warsaw Uprising may think that Polish POWs vere executed without exeption, while according to the capitulation Act from October 3, 1944, Home Army soldiers who surrendered in the last days of uprising were supposed to be treated as regular prisoners of war. This should be taken into consideration to ensure a more accurate understanding of the situation. Dreamcatcher25 (talk) 07:34, 26 June 2023 (UTC)


 * @Dreamcatcher25 I have no objections to restoring and expanding this, but as it was written, this paragraph seemed not relevant to the topic here as it does not discuss any POWs executions or other abuse. If it were to be restored in the current form, I'd tag it with or . Perhaps if you restored it and added a clarificaiton based on what you wrote just above it would result in more clear content? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  08:35, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Very well. I added some context to this information.Dreamcatcher25 (talk) 12:34, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * @Dreamcatcher25 Thank you, now this makes sense and the article is much clearer for the readers. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:56, 27 June 2023 (UTC)