Western Prisoners of War Tried by Court Martial for Insults to the Führer and Criticism of Nazi Germany

Abstract

The fact that the Geneva Convention of 1929 placed prisoners of war (POWs) under the laws in effect in the army of the detaining state meant that western POWs in Nazi Germany were exposed to the extremely repressive Nazi wartime legislation. Hundreds of western POWs had to appear in front of German court martials as a result of a joke on Hitler, a critical comment on the conditions of captivity or the behavior of German soldiers. They were judged under the Nazi anti-subversion laws, which led to thousands of death sentences for civilians and German soldiers (although none for a western POW). Even private remarks in a letter to family could lead to several years in military prison. German judicial practice against POWs became more repressive as cases multiplied and as the judges and civilian witnesses became more nervous toward the end of the war, leading to rapid and harsh judgments based on dubious evidence and frivolous denunciations. The court martials sometimes reflected the attitudes and subversive thoughts of German witnesses. The fact that the sentences were legal according to the Geneva Convention of 1929 prompted the drafters of the 1949 Geneva Convention to revise the provisions for trials of POWs.