From wikipedia:

3,060,000 German military personnel were taken prisoner by the USSR and that 1,094,250 died in captivity (549,360 from 1941 to April 1945; 542,911 from May 1945 to June 1950 and 1,979 from July 1950 to 1955).[4]

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    The vast majority of POW captures were in the final year of the war, when it was teenagers and middle aged people who were quickly trained and sent to the front lines, in many places.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(World_War_II)

    High-ranking fascists and Nazis who escaped from Europe via the ratlines after World War II: Ante Pavelić, Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele

    :-/

    More the opposite. The teenagers and war-wounded were forced to fight until the bitter end, buying time for the senior officers to surrender or flee. The POWs that were captured were bureaucrats and administrators, central to the functioning of the German industrial war machine but never responsible for pulling a trigger on the front lines. The surrendered or went underground en mass only after their children and grandchildren had been fed as cannon fodder into the maw of the encroaching American and Russian armies.

    • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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      2 months ago

      Your quote from wikipedia doesn’t corroborate your claim. Prisoners of war were in large majority soldiers, and not bureaucrats.

      Yes, these soldiers fighting on the front did exactly that, they bought time for the Nazi regime. If the soldiers were aware of that, who knows. But the average soldier that became a POW has little to do with the high ranking bureaucrats who escaped through the rat lines.

      In fact, while the soviet union, was murdering ordinary soldiers in its labour camps it was already offering amnesty and intelligence agency roles to many former high ranking Nazis.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Prisoners of war were in large majority soldiers, and not bureaucrats.

        They were military personal. And the military is flush with bureaucrats.

        But the average soldier that became a POW has little to do with the high ranking bureaucrats who escaped through the rat lines.

        Nuremberg Defense ass response.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            bureaucrats tend not to be on the front lines, where most POW are captured

            What do you think happens after the front-line collapses?

            • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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              2 months ago

              The army advanced quickly, using most resources to prevent the enemy from reforming a defensive line, and doesnt spend too many resources finding non-armed military personel (bureaucrats).

              Armed soldiers however need to be taken quickly or neutralised, as they obviously have the capacity to cause trouble. Only high ranking bureaucrats that can provide secrets or can be used aa bargaining chips are prioritised for capture.