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Article milestones Date Process Result April 24, 2024 Good article nominee Listed November 12, 2024 Featured article candidate Not promoted
	A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on May 16, 2024. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Soviet prisoners of war were the second-largest group of victims of Nazi mass killing?
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The following are reference ideas for German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war. Click [show] for details. The following reference(s) may be useful when improving this article in the future: Hilger, Andreas; Meier, Esther (2023). "Forced Labor of Soviet Prisoners of War during the Second World War" (PDF). Bulletin of the German Historical Institute. 72: 69–89. Soleim, Marianne Neerland (2023). "Graves of the 'Other': Norway and the commemoration of soviet prisoners of war". Heritage, Memory and Conflict. 3: 15–18. doi:10.3897/hmc.3.71298. ISSN 2666-5050.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link) Soleim, Marianne Neerland (2020). Prisoners of War and Forced Labour: Histories of War and Occupation. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5275-5399-6. Berkhoff, K. C. (2001). "The "Russian" Prisoners of War in Nazi-Ruled Ukraine as Victims of Genocidal Massacre". Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 15 (1): 1–32. doi:10.1093/hgs/15.1.1. Wachsmann, Nikolaus (2015). KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-11825-9. Janz, Nina (2017). "The Documents on Soviet prisoners of war in the German Archives. Sources, documents and research opportunities". Occupation, Annihilation, Forced Labour: Papers from the 20th Workshop on the History and Memory of National Socialist Concentration Camps. Metropol. ISBN 978-3-86331-346-3. Linne, Karsten (2006). "„Die Arbeitskraft sämtlicher Kriegsgefangenen ist rücksichtslos auszunutzen." Die Zwangsarbeit sowjetischer Kriegsgefangener für die Wehrmacht im Osten". Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. 54 (2): 190–206. ISSN 0021-4019. Polian, P. M. (2005). "First Victims of the Holocaust: Soviet-Jewish Prisoners of War in German Captivity". Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 6 (4): 763–787. doi:10.1353/kri.2005.0057. AAS, STEINAR (2015). "Cold War era silence: the movement of the graves of Soviet prisoners of war in northern Norway". Beyond Memory. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-315-68850-3. Morawiec, Arkadiusz (2020). "Polish Literature and the Extermination of the Soviet Prisoners of War". Narracje o Zagładzie (6): 115–139. ISSN 2450-4424. Alexander, Jennifer K. (2006). "An Efficiency of Scarcity: Using Food to Increase the Productivity of Soviet Prisoners of War in the Mines of the Third Reich". History and Technology. 22 (4): 391–406. doi:10.1080/07341510601003107. Berkhoff, Karel C. (Karel Cornelis) (2005). "The Mass Murder of Soviet Prisoners of War and the Holocaust: How Were They Related?". Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 6 (4): 789–796. doi:10.1353/kri.2005.0047. ISSN 1538-5000. Nagel, Jens (2010). "Remembering Prisoners of War as Victims of National Socialist Persecution and Murder in Post-War Germany". Memorialization in Germany since 1945. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 134–145. ISBN 978-0-230-24850-2. Karsten Linne: Hunger und Kannibalismus bei sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen im Zweiten Weltkrieg S. 242–262 https://www.jstor.org/stable/41051646

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Launchballer talk 22:21, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Overcrowded camp in Smolensk

• ... that Soviet prisoners of war were the second-largest group of victims of Nazi mass killing? Source: Kay 2021, p. 294.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/List of prime ministers of Pakistan ‎

Created by Buidhe (talk).

Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 244 past nominations.

Post-promotion hook changes will be logged on the talk page; consider watching the nomination until the hook appears on the Main Page.

(t · c) buidhe 23:44, 24 April 2024 (UTC).[reply]

• Nominated soon enough after GA. Meets length and citation requirements. Hook is absolutely interesting and the right length. The content of the hook is referenced in the article and a citation is appended immediately after where it appears. The image appears to come from a Nazi German government source, which means it's almost certainly in the public domain. Only concern is with the image's visibility at a smaller scale; going to just leave that up to promoter discretion. QPQ done (a quick-fail of novice nomination). Overall great work! ~ Pbritti (talk) 21:47, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Buidhe and Pbritti: Where in the article is the hook?--Launchballer 21:48, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Launchballer : in the death toll section : "By this time, more Soviet prisoners of war had died than any other group targeted by the Nazis;[32][235][236] only the European Jews would surpass this figure." (t · c) buidhe 22:19, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As I am getting deeper into the literature on Prisoners of war in World War II, this article increasingly strikes me as poorly researched and not neutral. We had a discussion above about the relevance of German crimes against Polish POWs - and here I am reading Moore (2022), used in this article extensively, and he writes that "Although much attention has been paid to Hitler’s ‘war of annihilation’ against the Soviet Union as marking the break with the norms of warfare associated with the Geneva Convention there is evidence that elements of the ‘criminal’ behaviour associated with that war had developed incrementally during and after the Polish campaign of 1939". This is obviously relevant, yet it has not been included and it is being edit warred away, again, with spurious edit summaries. Well, Moore thinks it is relevant, sigh. If we have room to mention (in the preceeding sentence to which I appended my new text) that "During the invasion of France in 1940, 1.9 million prisoners of war were housed and fed; historian Alex J. Kay cites this as evidence that supply and logistics cannot explain the mass death of Soviet prisoners of war", we can mention this too.

Also, from Moore: "Although it is possible to highlight a whole range of factors that contributed to the unprecedented mortality rates among the Soviet prisoners, there is no consensus among scholars as to where the responsibility lies. At one end of the spectrum is the thesis put forward by Christian Gerlach that this was part of a wider scheme of calculated murder against Soviet soldiers and civilians, and at the other end are the explanations that try to deflect criticism away from the Wehrmacht and its leadership altogether."

The above is quite relevant as the article seems to be written from Gerlach's POV, treating his thesis as representing consensus. This needs addressing. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:16, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"that this was part of a wider scheme of calculated murder against Soviet soldiers and civilians" What is the opposing view, that the Germans were resorting to ad hoc decision-making on what to do with the prisoners? Dimadick (talk) 15:36, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See Moore (2022), page 237 and subsequent, for his argument. I do not have a strong opinion here, except to note that scholars seem to have no consensus on some key issues discussed here, and we should make sure to present their differing views instead of those of one side in a debate. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:00, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PS. From the book - note I have no side here, just trying to answer your question: "Gerlach’s case for a deliberate policy of killing ordinary Soviet prisoners (as opposed to just targeted groups such as commissars and Jews) can point to large-scale massacres in White Russia, many of which seem to have had no a rationale at all, and to plenty of examples of torture and sadism, including the use of prisoners for target practice.'4* While the empirical evidence of mistreatment is overwhelming, actual policy statements are rare and often contradictory. For example, Gerlach cites a statement made by Wagner on 13 November 1941 at meeting in Orscha that non-working Soviet prisoners would be starved to death. However, opponents of his thesis have pointed out that a more recently discovered longer version of the document in question does not contain the same phrases. The mere fact that policies towards the Soviet prisoners were not altogether consistent and that there were changes of heart about their usefulness and their fate at the highest levels in the autumn of 1941 suggest a more complex explanation. Prisoners were often left in wholly unsuitable camps simply because there was neither the will to provide resources to supply them nor the wherewithal to move them. At the very bottom of the list of German priorities, they were then at the mercy of the worsening weather and the attitudes of their guards, who had been conditioned to see them as dangerous Bolshevik Untermenschen and who were, at the very best, indifferent to their fate. " (that's from p. 239). Also, earlier in the book (p. 8-9) he writes: "The specific debate on the fate of the Soviet prisoners of war and the reasons for the horrendous death rates they suffered was then addressed by several leading historians, most notably Rolf Keller, Christian Hartmann, Riidiger Overmans.” All three looked at how specific military polices, the attitudes of responsible agencies, and individuals as well as localized circumstances conspired to bring about the deaths through cold, ill-treatment, or starvation of more than two million men in the early stages of the conflict. They also addressed, either directly or indirectly, the thesis proposed by Christian Gerlach that this was a policy of calculated murder.* _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:06, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That said, I noticed the article actually says "There is still disagreement between historians to what extent the mass deaths of prisoners in 1941 can be attributed to ideological reasons as part of the planned racial restructuring of Germany's empire versus a logistical failure that interrupted German planners' intent to use the prisoners as a labor reserve". Which is fine - we should just add a cite to Moore and perhaps expand a bit based on his analysis. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:27, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"interrupted German planners' intent to use the prisoners as a labor reserve" No surprise there. Nazi Germany kept using forced labour policies for its prisoners and detainees, but was also killing its own labor force at a fast pace. Even as a teenager studying books on the topic, I could not figure what the heck were they thinking. Dimadick (talk) 18:21, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Dimadick Extermination through labour was a part of this. More at Forced labour under German rule during World War II (which I started way back in 2008...). We need an article on forced labor of prisoners of war too; maybe I'll get around to writing it up one day. Moore (2022) has a lot on that, but for now I want to finish Prisoners of war in World War II (still can't believe it was missing), together with a bunch of related overviews (like, we don't have an article about German POWs, Italian POWs, heck, most of allied POWs are missing too...). And it's not an easy topic, I am burning out again writing about darker sides of WW2... if you have the time, check out some other stuff we were discussing above few weeks ago. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:23, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for providing the full quote. As Moore suggests, the emphasis he is putting on violations in the German–Polish war is not common among other scholarly works in general. It raises issues of whether Piotrus' edits present this as having more weight than it should really be due, given the sources that exists. (t · c) buidhe 03:21, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article has plenty of cherry picked details and POVs. Who else discusses French POWs for example in this context? Almost nobody. Moore's monograph is the best work we have on WW2 POW and his points are very due. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:24, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And this is hardly a point that Moore just invented (which, by the way, he makes twice in his book, at least - also in conclusion, p 483: "In many respects, the war against Poland set the tone for both German and Soviet behaviour towards enemy soldiers captured on the battlefield. Although some reported atrocities carried out against Polish prisoners occurred in this grey zone immediately after surrender, many others did not and represented a departure from the norms of war.". There is other scholarship that makes the same points. Ex. the view of Alexander B. Rossino, discussed here: [1] under a telling subheading "GERMAN "CRIMINAL" POLICIES IN POLAND FROM 1939: Just a Transitional Phase to the "War of Destruction" in the USSR?"". Or ust one of many examples from other works I recently saw, ex. Chinney ([2], in the context of prisoners death during transport: "It was a scene repeated on many occasions with Polish and later Soviet prisoners of war and was part of a plan to reduce the prisoner-of war population by means other than a bullet in the back of the neck"...). There are others, this is a point made by many scholars and hardly controversial. Nazis treated prisoners from the Slavic groups worse than those in the West, and among the Slavs, Soviets were treated worse than most other groups. But Moore is one of the best sources (reliable, recent) - no need to refbomb this. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:43, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PS. From Rossino: "The treatment of Polish prisoners of war is also worth examining in this context for what it reveals about indiscipline and brutality during the German campaign in Poland. Scholars agree that unlike the war in the Soviet Union, when the deliberate maltreatment and execution of Red Army POWs caused millions of deaths, the German army in 1939 did not intend a similar fate for captured Polish soldiers. The lack of an institutional impulse for mass murder notwithstanding, there were in fact hundreds of incidents during which Polish POWs were beaten, tortured, murdered, or otherwise mistreated by German troops" (p.179), followed by few pages discussing specific incidents, including comments on Germany's common violation of Geneva's Convention (which you denied a while ago, which spurred me to create a lengthy paragraph in a relevant article, now with 8 RS or so, about how many scholars do indeed say that Germany violated Geneva, and Gerlach's passing claim which you used is an exception to the consensus...) and concluded on p. 185: "The intensity of combat and the insecurity of German soldiers on foreign soil arc likely reasons why such violence erupted, hut another explanation can be found in the brutalizing influence of National Socialism, which valorized barbaric behavior against Germany's racial enemies as worthy and correct. [...] This reality did not bode well for future campaigns that the German army would fight in Eastern Europe what Slavs and particularly Jews would be subjected to violence that was terrific in scale and genocidal in intensity." Drawing an escalating line from what begun in Poland in '39 to what happened in USSR a few years later is hardly a fringe theory. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:14, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The word "women" only appear 4 times as of now (one being about "relationships with German women", so let's make it actually 3), and "female" only 2 times. This doesn't seem fair, as even fewer of them (5-10% at most, it seems) survived, if they happened to not be shot on the spot without even making it to POW status. They recieved a special (bad) treatment, and deserve a section, I think. Even though I am aware of a slippery slope of having a section for different categories of POW, which could result in a huge number of new section for different categories, but I think we can manage 2A01:E0A:1DC:4570:6D90:77EE:C9A0:EA6D (talk) 12:27, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to find evidence for the claim that female combatants were specifically or more targeted than men whether for execution or otherwise or even just treated worse than men and found no evidence for this what so ever. Unless someone finds sensible source for this claim, it should be removed. 2001:14BA:CB:C500:3A2C:4AFF:FEB9:EAA (talk) 17:46, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's cited to 3 sources at the end of the summary execution section. No citations in the lead is standard practice if the information is cited elsewhere in the article. (t · c) buidhe 20:20, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Himmler besichtigt die Gefangenenlager in Russland. Heinrich Himmler inspects a prisoner of war camp in Russia, circa... - NARA - 540164.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 09:43, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]