When Germany surrendered in 1945, more than 11 million German soldiers became prisoners of war. Those captured by U.S., British, and French forces were typically held in relatively humane conditions, often put to work rebuilding the shattered infrastructure of post-war Europe. Most of these POWs were released and sent home by 1948. However, soldiers taken by the Soviet Union faced a much darker fate. Deemed responsible for massive destruction on Soviet soil, they were sent to labor camps where they endured starvation, brutal forced labor, and disease. Tens of thousands died, and many survivors weren’t released until as late as 1956. This stark contrast in treatment reveals how different the postwar world looked depending on which side of the line a soldier ended up on—and how the end of fighting didn’t always mean the end of suffering.
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