German Prisoners of War in France

For all the post-War conversation about German fanaticism during the Second World War, the vast majority of German soldiers preferred surrender to fighting to the death. This held especially true in regards to Germany's war against the Anglo-American alliance. For example, during the years 1944-45 the Wermacht suffered 80,819 dead, 265,526 wounded and 490,624 missing in the fight against the Anglo-American led alliance. In spite of the severity of such losses however the numbers of German prisoners of war taken by the Western Allies dwarfed the other permanent losses suffered by the Wermacht with 2,057,138 German POW's taken by the Allies from 1944-45.

Courtesy US National Archives, ARC identifier no. 195459