Prisoners of war
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A Prisoner of war (POW) is any person captured or interned by a belligerent power during war. 
In the strictest sense it is applied only to members of regularly organised armed forces, 
but by broader definition it has also included guerrillas, civilians who take up arms 
against an enemy openly, or noncombatants associated with a military force.


In the 16th and early 17th centuries some European political and legal philosophers expressed 
their thoughts about the amelioration of the effects of capture upon prisoners. The most famous 
of these, Hugo Grotius, stated in his De jure belli ac pacis (1625; On the Law of War and Peace) 
that victors had the right to enslave their enemies, but he advocated exchange and ransom instead. 
The idea was generally taking hold that in war no destruction of life or property beyond that 
necessary to decide the conflict was sanctioned. The Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which released 
prisoners without ransom, is generally taken as marking the end of the era of widespread enslavement 
of prisoners of war.

In the 18th century a new attitude of morality in the law of nations, or international law, had a 
profound effect upon the problem of prisoners of war. The French political philosopher Montesquieu 
in his L'Esprit des lois (1748; The Spirit of Laws) wrote that the only right in war that the 
captor had over a prisoner was to prevent him from doing harm. The captive was no longer to be 
treated as a piece of property to be disposed of at the whim of the victor but was merely to be 
removed from the fight. Other writers, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Emerich de Vattel, 
expanded on the same theme and developed what might be called the quarantine theory for the 
disposition of prisoners. From this point on the treatment of prisoners generally improved.


By the mid-19th century it was clear that a definite body of principles for the treatment of war 
prisoners was being generally recognised in the Western world. But observance of the principles 
in the American Civil War (1861 to 65) and in the Franco-German War (1870 to 71) left much to be 
desired, and numerous attempts were made in the latter half of the century to improve the lot of 
wounded soldiers and of prisoners. In 1874 a conference at Brussels prepared a declaration relative 
to prisoners of war, but it was not ratified. In 1899 and again in 1907 international conferences 
at The Hague drew up rules of conduct that gained some recognition in international law. During 
World War I, however, when POWs were numbered in the millions, there were many charges on both 
sides that the rules were not being faithfully observed. Soon after the war the nations of the 
world gathered at Geneva to devise the Convention of 1929, which before the outbreak of 
World War II was ratified by France, Germany, Great Britain, the United States, and many other 
nations, but not by Japan or the Soviet Union.

WWII, German POW camps:

For the army, Officers were held in Oflags, other ranks in Stalags.  
For Air force all ranks were held in Stalag Lufts. 
For Royal Navy all ranks in Marlags
For all Merchant Navy in Milags.

During World War II millions of persons were taken prisoner under widely varying circumstances and 
experienced treatment that ranged from excellent to barbaric. The United States and Great Britain 
generally maintained the standards set by the Hague and Geneva conventions in their treatment of 
Axis POWs. Germany treated its British, French, and American prisoners comparatively well but treated 
Soviet, Polish, and other Slavic POWs with genocidal severity. Of about 5,700,000 Red Army soldiers 
captured by the Germans, only about 2,000,000 survived the war; more than 2,000,000 of the 3,800,000 
Soviet troops captured during the German invasion in 1941 were simply allowed to starve to death. 
The Soviets replied in kind and consigned hundreds of thousands of German POWs to the labour camps 
of the Gulag, where most of them died. The Japanese treated their British, American, and Australian 
POWs harshly, and only about 60 percent of these POWs survived the war. After the war, international 
war crimes trials were held in Germany and Japan, based on the concept that acts committed in violation 
of the fundamental principles of the laws of war were punishable as war crimes.

Soon after the end of World War II the Geneva Convention of 1929 was revised and set forth in the 
Geneva Convention of 1949. It continued the concept expressed earlier that prisoners were to be 
removed from the combat zone and be humanely treated without loss of citizenship. The convention of 
1949 broadened the term prisoner of war to include not only members of the regular armed forces who 
have fallen into the power of the enemy but also the militia, the volunteers, the irregulars and 
members of resistance movements if they form a part of the armed forces, and persons who accompany 
the armed forces without actually being members, such as war correspondents, civilian supply contractors, 
and members of labour service units. The protections given prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions 
remain with them throughout their captivity and cannot be taken from them by the captor or given up by 
the prisoners themselves. During the conflict prisoners might be repatriated or delivered to a neutral 
nation for custody. At the end of hostilities all prisoners are to be released and repatriated without 
delay, except those held for trial or serving sentences imposed by judicial processes. In some recent 
combat situations, such as the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks of 2001, 
fighters captured on the battlefield have been labelled 'unlawful combatants' and have not been afforded 
protections guaranteed under the Geneva Conventions.

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