MovieChat Forums > The Great Escape (1963) Discussion > Was it a summer camp?

Was it a summer camp?

posted 7 years ago by TVippy
8 replies | jump to latest

I thought nazis were supposed to be animals, but they treated prisoners like kings. What gives?

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[–] Corky666 7 years ago

The Nazis were the worst human beings on earth but to their credit they obey the rules of war especially regarding prisoners
Now go learn your history you DOPE

[–] Kawada_Kira 7 years ago

The Nazis were the worst human beings on earth but to their credit they obey the rules of war especially regarding prisoners

Only on the Western front, because they identified culturally with the Western powers. On the Eastern front they slaughtered, raped and enslaved systematically because they viewed the people there as subhuman. You're the one who needs to learn history.

[–] Corky666 7 years ago

I love DOLTS like you who makes *beep* up as you go along

[–] ConnerysToupee 7 years ago

Dorky just got owned!

Murdoch: Climb, baby, climb!

[–] stevekaczynski 7 years ago

The film somewhat romanticises their situation but I wouldn't say shooting dead Ives when he goes wire-happy is treating them like kings. With Western prisoners the Nazis generally made some attempt to adhere to the Geneva convention. The USSR was not a signatory and after Barbarossa the Nazis, who in 1941 expected swift victory, often simply left large numbers of the Soviet POWs to starve to death. Sometimes they tried to identify Jews among them, often shooting any identified Jews on the spot.
In 1942 treatment of Soviet POWs somewhat improved - the war was lasting longer than expected, POWs were potential slave labour and so had this much value, and lastly the Nazis hoped to get Soviet POWs to join the Vlasov movement or various collaborationist militias. Even so, they were almost invariably treated worse than Western POWs - the Nazi belief that Slavs were inferior never went away.

"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."

[–] Dave-R011 7 years ago

the Nazis, who in 1941 expected swift victory, often simply left large numbers of the Soviet POWs to starve to death. Sometimes they tried to identify Jews among them, often shooting any identified Jews on the spot.

Do note that it wasn't the SS, the officially Nazi security services, who did this, but the non-partisan Army.

[–] stevekaczynski 7 years ago

Yes. It was also the army, not the SS or the Nazi Party, that ran a military brothel system in occupied Europe, often using female slave labourers. It was not unknown for young women or girls, especially in Poland and the occupied USSR but sometimes also Western Europe, to simply be kidnapped off the street to be used as prostitutes by the German army. It resembled the Japanese "comfort women" system, but attempts to bring up the subject at Nuremberg failed and there has often been an attempt to whitewash the Wehrmacht as opposed to the SS.
In France, Gestapo interrogators of Resistance suspects sometimes threatened to have the wives, daughters or sisters of suspects removed to German army brothels. It was a bit of psychological pressure used on suspects who did not talk under torture.
The SS have been described as the "alibi of a nation" - the SS record was horrendous but blaming it has sometimes served to cover up the role other institutions played, such as the German army.

"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."

[–] marktayloruk (2378) 2 years ago

Try to.escape with armed guards around and you'll be shot.