Editing Prisoner of war (section)

==Numbers of POWs==
This section lists nations with the highest number of POWs since the start of World War II and ranked by descending order. These are also the highest numbers in any war since the [[Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War (1929)|Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War]] entered into force on 19 June 1931. The [[USSR]] had not signed the Geneva Convention.<ref>Clark, Alan ''[[Operation Barbarossa|Barbarossa]]: The Russian-Geran Conflict 1941–1945'' p. 206, {{ISBN|0-304-35864-9}}</ref>
{|class="wikitable" 
! width=150|Army
! Number of POWs held in captivity
! width=150|War
|-
| style="color:#000;"| {{flag|Nazi Germany}}
|
* About 3&nbsp;million taken by USSR (474,967 died in captivity (>15%))<ref name=autogenerated1 /><br>Historian [[Rüdiger Overmans]] maintains that it seems entirely plausible, while not provable, that one million died in Soviet custody.<br>He also believes that there were men who actually died as POWs among those listed as missing-in-action.<ref>Rüdiger Overmans: "Die Rheinwiesenlager 1945" in: Hans-Erich Volkmann (ed.): ''Ende des Dritten Reiches – Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges. Eine perspektivische Rückschau''. Herausgegeben im Auftrag des Militärgeschichtlichen Forschungsamtes. Munich 1995. {{ISBN|3-492-12056-3}}, p. 277</ref>
* Unknown number in [[Yugoslavia]], [[Poland]], [[Netherlands]], [[Belgium]], [[Denmark]] (the death rate for German prisoners of war was highest in Yugoslavia with over 50%)<ref>Kurt W. Böhme: "Die deutschen Kriegsgefangenen in Jugoslawien", Band I/1 der Reihe: Kurt W. Böhme, [[Erich Maschke]] (eds.): ''Zur Geschichte der deutschen Kriegsgefangenen des Zweiten Weltkrieges'', Bielefeld 1976, {{ISBN|3-7694-0003-8}}, pp. 42–136, 254</ref>
* Over 4.5&nbsp;million taken by the Western Allies before the formal surrender of Germany, another three million after the surrender{{efn|see references on the pages [[Western Front (World War II)]] and [[North African Campaign (World War II)]]}}
* 1.3&nbsp;million unknown<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.stern.de/politik/geschichte/kriegsgefangene-viele-kamen-nicht-zurueck-3548272.html |title=Kriegsgefangene: Viele kamen nicht zurück|publisher=Stern.de – Politik |date=6 February 2012 |access-date=14 April 2012|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326033207/https://www.stern.de/politik/geschichte/kriegsgefangene-viele-kamen-nicht-zurueck-3548272.html|archive-date= 26 March 2023}}</ref>
| [[World War II]]
|-
| style="color:#000;"| {{USSR}}
| 5.7&nbsp;million taken by Germany (about 3&nbsp;[[German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war|million died in captivity]] (56–68%))<ref name=autogenerated1>''Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century'', Greenhill Books, London, 1997, G. F. Krivosheev, editor (ref. Streit)</ref>
| World War II (total)
|-
| style="color:#000;"| {{FRA}}
| 1,800,000 taken by Germany
| World War II
|-
| style="color:#000;"| {{ROC}}
| 1,000,000+ taken by Japan<ref>{{Cite book|last=Tianyi |first=He |date=2007 |title=亚洲的奥斯威辛: 日军侵华集中营揭秘 |trans-title=Asia's Auschwitz: Unveiling the Japanese Army's Concentration Camps in China |page=3 |publisher=Chengdu: Sichuan People's Publishing House |script-quote=zh:日军在中国设立的战俘集中营有四十余个,关押战俘约五十万人。如果算上日军在各地临时设立的战俘收容所、留置场,足有上百个,关押战俘约在百万人以上。|trans-quote=The Japanese army set up more than forty prisoner-of-war camps in China, holding around 500,000 POWs. If temporary prisoner-of-war holding facilities and detention centers set up by the Japanese army in various locations are also counted, the total number of camps exceeded one hundred, with more than one million POWs held.}}</ref>{{efn|Including civilian forced laborers held in the prisoner-of-war camps}}
| World War II
|-
| style="color:#000;"| {{POL}}
| 675,000 (420,000 taken by Germany; 240,000 taken by the Soviets in 1939; 15,000 taken by Germany in Warsaw in 1944)
| World War II
|-
| style="color:#000;"| {{UK}}
| ≈200,000 (135,000 taken in Europe, does not include Pacific or Commonwealth figures)
| World War II
|-
| style="color:#000;"| {{IRQ}}
| ≈175,000 taken by [[Coalition of the Gulf War]]
| [[Persian Gulf War]]
|-
| style="color:#000;"| {{flag|Kingdom of Italy}}
|
* 114,861 lost or captured by US and UK
* 60,000 captured by [[Soviet Union]]
| World War II
|-
| style="color:#000;"| {{US}}
| ≈130,000 (95,532 taken by Germany)
| World War II
|-
| style="color:#000;"| {{flag|Empire of Japan}}
|
* 16,000–50,000 captured by Western Allies
* 560,000–760,000 captured by the [[Soviet Union]], of them, it is estimated that between 60,000 and 347,000 died in captivity<ref name="news.bbc.co.uk"/><ref name="UN Press Release"/>
| World War II
|}