French officers who escaped from Oflag X C were handed over to the
Gestapo and disappeared; others were murdered by their guards; others
sent to concentration camps and exterminated. Among others, the men of
Stalag VI C were sent to Buchenwald.
Frequently prisoners captured on the Western Front were obliged to march
to the camps until they completely collapsed. Some of them walked more
than 600 kilometers with hardly any food; they marched on for 48 hours
running, without being fed; among them a certain number died of
exhaustion or of hunger; stragglers were systematically murdered.
The same crimes have been committed in 1943, 1944, and 1945 when the
occupants of the camps were withdrawn before the Allied advance;
particularly during the withdrawal of the prisoners of Sagan on 8
February 1945.
Bodily punishments were inflicted upon non-commissioned officers and
cadets who refused to work. On 24 December 1943, three French
non-commissioned officers were murdered for that motive in Stalag IV A.
Many ill-treatments were inflicted without motive on other ranks:
stabbing with bayonets, striking with riflebutts, and whipping; in
Stalag XX B the sick themselves were beaten many times by sentries; in
Stalag III B and Stalag III C, worn-out prisoners were murdered or
grievously wounded. In military jails in Graudenz for instance, in
reprisal camps as in Rava-Ruska, the food was so insufficient that the
men lost more than 15 kilograms in a few weeks. In May 1942, one loaf of
bread only was distributed in Rava-Ruska to each group of 35 men.
Orders were given to transfer French officers in chains to the camp of
Mauthausen after they had tried to escape. At their arrival in camp they
were murdered, either by shooting or by gas, and their bodies destroyed
in the crematorium.
American prisoners, officers and men, were murdered in Normandy during
the summer of 1944 and in the Ardennes in December 1944. American
prisoners were starved, beaten, and otherwise mistreated in numerous
Stalags in Germany and in the occupied countries, particularly in 1943,
1944, and 1945.