As the war in Europe went on the Germans accumulated more and more prisoners of war. The demographics of these prisoners reflect the stages of the war. Fr example, in 1943 before the landings at Normandy but during increased activity by the U.S Army Air Force there would have been increased numbers of American pilot prisoners.
However, throughout the war there were several prisoners that the Germans viewed as high value simply because they were related to key members of enemy governments. These were the 'Prominente', and they were held at the most secure prison camp in Germany: Colditz Castle.
The Prominente were usually servicemen who were captured in the line of battle, but some were civilians. Giles Romilly, for example, was a war correspondent who was captured in the Norway campaign and was the nephew-in-law of Winston Churchill. Other Prominente were usually distant cousins or nephew of high-ranking generals in the armies of Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Poland.
These people were kept 'safe' and isolated from other prisoners in Colditz, and when the end of the war approached the Prominente feared that they had been saved only to be used as bargaining chips or worse, human shields. Eventually they were moved from camp to camp in the closing days of the war and by the end the officer in charge of the prisoners (who was regular army instead of SS and was afraid of SS reprisals if he surrendered) allowed the prisoners to go towards American lines, and he got a reduced sentence during the Nuremburg Trails for saving them.
In the end, the Prominente were little use to the Germans. Their potential value as hostages was overestimated ( a popular incident involves Hitler capturing one of Stalin's sons and asking to exchange him for a high ranking German officer and Stalin turned him down) and the end result was negligible. Until next time take care, and thanks for reading.
(Facts sourced from "Colditz: The Untold Story of WWII's Great Escapes" by Henry Chancellor)
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