Editing Prisoner of war (section)

=====Eastern European POWs=====
{{Main|German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war|German atrocities committed against Polish prisoners of war}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-B21845, Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene im Lager.jpg|left|thumb|An improvised camp for Soviet POWs. Between June 1941 and January 1942, the Nazis killed an estimated 2.8&nbsp;million Soviet prisoners of war, whom they viewed as "[[Untermensch|subhuman]]".<ref>Daniel Goldhagen, ''Hitler's Willing Executioners'' (p. 290)—"2.8&nbsp;million young, healthy Soviet POWs" killed by the Germans, "mainly by starvation ... in less than eight months" of 1941–42, before "the decimation of Soviet POWs ... was stopped" and the Germans "began to use them as laborers".</ref>]]

Between 1941 and 1945 the Axis powers took about 5.7&nbsp;million Soviet prisoners. About one million of them were released during the war, in that their status changed but they remained under German authority. A little over 500,000 either escaped or were liberated by the Red Army. Some 930,000 more were found alive in camps after the war. The remaining 3.3&nbsp;million prisoners (57.5% of the total captured) died during their captivity.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.historynet.com/wars_conflicts/world_war_2/3037296.html |title= Soviet Prisoners of War: Forgotten Nazi Victims of World War II |publisher= [[Historynet.com]] |access-date= 14 April 2012 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080330210330/http://www.historynet.com/wars_conflicts/world_war_2/3037296.html |archive-date= 30 March 2008 |df= dmy-all }}</ref> Between the launching of [[Operation Barbarossa]] in the summer of 1941 and the following spring, 2.8&nbsp;million of the 3.2&nbsp;million Soviet prisoners taken died while in German hands.<ref>{{cite book|last= Davies|first= Norman|title= Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory|publisher= Pan Books|location= London|year= 2006|page= 271|isbn= 978-0-330-35212-3|title-link= Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory}}</ref> According to Russian military historian General [[Grigoriy Krivosheyev]], the Axis powers took 4.6&nbsp;million Soviet prisoners, of whom 1.8&nbsp;million were found alive in camps after the war and 318,770 were released by the Axis during the war and were then drafted into the Soviet armed forces again.<ref name=autogenerated2>{{cite web |url= http://gpw.tellur.ru/page.html?r=facts&s=losses |title= Report at the session of the Russian association of WWII historians in 1998 |publisher= Gpw.tellur.ru |access-date= 14 April 2012 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120320223821/http://gpw.tellur.ru/page.html?r=facts&s=losses |archive-date= 20 March 2012 |df= dmy-all }}</ref> By comparison, 8,348 Western Allied prisoners died in German camps during 1939–45 (3.5% of the 232,000 total).<ref>{{cite book |author=Michael Burleigh |title=The Third Reich – A New History |publisher=Hill and Wang |location=New York |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-8090-9325-0 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/thirdreichnewhis00burl/page/512 512–513] |author-link=Michael Burleigh |url=https://archive.org/details/thirdreichnewhis00burl/page/512 }}</ref>

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 192-208, KZ Mauthausen, Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene.jpg|thumb|Naked Soviet prisoners of war in [[Mauthausen concentration camp]]]] 
The Germans officially justified their policy on the grounds that the Soviet Union had not signed the Geneva Convention. Legally, however, under article 82 of the [[Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War (1929)|Geneva Convention]], signatory countries had to give POWs of all signatory and non-signatory countries the rights assigned by the convention.<ref name="art%2E%2082">{{cite web |url= http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/305-430083?OpenDocument|title= Part VIII: Execution of the convention #Section I: General provisions |access-date= 29 November 2007}}</ref> Shortly after the German invasion in 1941, the USSR made Berlin an offer of a reciprocal adherence to the [[Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907)|Hague Conventions]]. Third Reich officials left the Soviet "note" unanswered.<ref>Beevor, ''Stalingrad''. Penguin 2001 {{ISBN|0-14-100131-3}} p. 60</ref><ref>James D. Morrow, ''Order within Anarchy: The Laws of War as an International Institution'', 2014, p. 218</ref>