What happened to the Generals

[paul.mercer]

Gentlemen,
At various times during the last war there were several surrenders on all sides, now we know what happend to most PoW's up to the rank of Colonel, Wing Commander etc, but what happed to the senior ranks like Generals when they were captured - were they treated differently?

[RF]

Well, the senior British commander at Singapore, General Percival, spent most of his wartime imprisonment at the hands of the Japanese in a camp in Manchuria. He and his men were subjects in Japanese medical experiments.

Generally the generals were treated the same way as other officers by both Germans and Japanese, though of course there were substantially different atitudes to the concepts of POW's by these Axis countries.

The British also treated captured generals in the same way as other officers. Arnim was allowed to surrender and retain his sword (in recognition of Arnim being involved in saving the lives of sick British POW's) whilst Italian generals were content to sit out the war in whatever camps the British put them in.

The Soviets used captured generals such as von Paulus as willing participants in anti-fascist propaganda.

[Mostlyharmless]

The British were the most imaginative. According to Wikipedia "During World War II Trent Park was used as a special prisoner of war camp for captured German generals and staff officers. They were treated reasonably hospitably with special rations of whisky and regular walks in the grounds. Many of the rooms inside the mansion had been equipped with hidden microphones and listening devices, and thus the British military was able to gather important military information and an intimate inside-view into the minds of the German military elite."

[RF]

Indeed, the British methods of abstracting useful information were far more successful than the methods used by the Gestapo and the various branches of the SS concerned with intelligence.