A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in Northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, the Neuengamme camp became the largest concentration camp in Northwest Germany. Over 100,000 prisoners came through Neuengamme and its subcamps, 24 of which were for women. The verified death toll is 42,900: 14,000 in the main camp, 12,800 in the subcamps, and 16,100 in the death marches and bombings during the final weeks of World War II. Following Germany's defeat in 1945, the British Army used the site as an internment camp for SS and other Nazi officials. In 1948, the British transferred the land to the Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg, which summarily demolished the camp's wooden barracks and built in its stead a prison cell block, converting the former concentration camp site into two state prisons operated by the Hamburg authorities from 1950 to 2004. Following protests by various groups of survivors and allies, the site now serves as a memorial. It is situated 15 km southeast of the centre of Hamburg.
During World War I, German prisoner-of-war camps were run by the 25 Army Corps Districts into which Germany was divided. Around 2.4 million men were World War I prisoners of war in Germany.
Stalag II-B was a German World War II prisoner-of-war camp situated 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi) west of the town of Hammerstein, Pomerania on the north side of the railway line. It housed Polish, French, Belgian, Serbian, Dutch, Soviet, Italian and American prisoners of war.
The Mesopotamian campaign was a campaign in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I fought between the Allies represented by the British Empire, troops from Britain, Australia and the vast majority from British India, against the Central Powers, mostly the Ottoman Empire.
Oflag VII-B was a World War II German prisoner-of-war camp for officers (Offizierlager), located in Eichstätt, Bavaria, about 100 km (62 mi) north of Munich.
Stalag X-B was a World War II German prisoner-of-war camp located near Sandbostel in Lower Saxony in north-western Germany. Between 1939 and 1945 several hundred thousand POW's of 55 nations passed through the camp. Due to the bad conditions in which they were housed, thousands died there of hunger, disease, or were killed by the guards. Estimates of the number of dead range from 8,000 to 50,000.
The 8th Infantry Brigade was an infantry brigade of the British Army that saw active service in both the First and the Second World Wars, before being disbanded and reactivated in the 1960s. The brigade was finally being disbanded in 2006. It was formed before the First World War as part of the 3rd Division. As part of that division it spent the entire war on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918 in the First World War. The brigade was also active during the Second World War.
The Selarang Barracks incident, also known as the Barrack Square incident or the Selarang Square Squeeze, was a revolt of British and Australian prisoners-of-war (POWs) interned in a Japanese camp in Changi, Singapore.
After World War II there were from 524,000 Japanese personnel in the Soviet Union and Mongolia interned to work in labor camps as POWs. Of them, it is estimated that 60,000 died in captivity.
During World War II, Nazi Germany engaged in a policy of deliberate maltreatment of Soviet prisoners of war (POWs), in contrast to their general treatment of British and American POWs. This policy, which amounted to deliberately starving and working to death Soviet POWs, the bulk of whom were Slavs, was grounded in Nazi racial theory, which depicted Slavs as sub-humans (Untermenschen). The policy resulted in some 3.3 to 3.5 million deaths.
The Changi Chapel and Museum is a war museum dedicated to Singapore's history during the Second World War and the Japanese occupation of Singapore. After the British army was defeated by the Imperial Japanese Army in the Battle of Singapore, thousands of prisoners-of-war (POWs) were imprisoned in Changi prison camp for three and a half years. While interned there, the POWs built numerous chapels, one of which was named St George's Church.
Camp Ruston was one of the largest prisoner-of-war camps in the United States during World War II, with 4,315 prisoners at its peak in October 1943. Camp Ruston served as the "base camp" and had 8 smaller work branch camps associated to it. Camp Ruston included three large, separated compounds for POWs, a full, modern hospital compound, and a compound for the American personnel. One of the POW compounds, located in the far northwestern part of the camp was designated for POW officers. The officer's compound's barracks were constructed to house a lesser number of POWs affording more privacy and room for the officers. The enlisted men's barracks were designed to house a maximum of 50 POWs in two rows of bunks that ran along each side. POW latrines were separate buildings located at the end of each compound.
Approximately three million German prisoners of war were captured by the Soviet Union during World War II, most of them during the great advances of the Red Army in the last year of the war. The POWs were employed as forced labor in the Soviet wartime economy and post-war reconstruction. By 1950 almost all surviving POWs had been released, with the last prisoner returning from the USSR in 1956. According to Soviet records 381,067 German Wehrmacht POWs died in NKVD camps. A commission set up by the West German government found that 3,060,000 German military personnel were taken prisoner by the USSR and that 1,094,250 died in captivity. According to German historian Rüdiger Overmans ca. 3,000,000 POWs were taken by the USSR; he put the "maximum" number of German POW deaths in Soviet hands at 1.0 million. Based on his research, Overmans believes that the deaths of 363,000 POWs in Soviet captivity can be confirmed by the files of Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt), and additionally maintains that "It seems entirely plausible, while not provable, that 700,000 German military personnel listed as missing actually died in Soviet custody."
Members of the German military were interned as prisoners of war in the United States during World War I and World War II. In all, 425,000 German prisoners lived in 700 camps throughout the United States during World War II.
Stalag IV-D was a German World War II prisoner-of-war camp located in the town of Torgau, Saxony, about 50 km (31 mi) north-east of Leipzig.
Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp was an internment and transit camp for foreign-born Jews, located in Beaune-la-Rolande in occupied France, it was operational between May 1941 and July 1943, during World War II.
The Royallieu-Compiègne was an internment and deportation camp located in the north of France in the city of Compiègne, open from June 1941 to August 1944. French resistance fighters and Jews were among some of the prisoners held in this camp. It is estimated that around 40,000 people were deported from the Royallieu-Compiègne camp to other camps in the German territory of the time.
Niederzwehren is a small town in Germany, part of the city of Kassel, Hesse. It is notable for its First World War prisoner-of-war camp and a consequent sizable war cemetery for the British prisoners who died in captivity.
