The prisoner of war camp at Andersonville, Georgia, was operational for only 15 months, but it was by far the largest and most notorious such facility operated by the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Over 41,000 Union captives were interned there, and almost one third of that number died while confined within its walls.
On the 16th of February 1940, a boarding party from the British Royal Navy seized the German supply ship Altmark in the territorial waters of then-neutral Norway and freed several British POWs. This incident contributed to Nazi Germany's plan to invade Denmark and Norway.
Detaining powers face many challenges when handling prisoners of war and civilian internees, not the least of which is the need to provide accommodation or living quarters for captives. In some conflicts, belligerents are able to make advance preparations, but more often, arrangements must be made much more hastily. As a result, prisoners have u...
Dulag Luft, the German prison camp through which tens of thousands of Allied airmen captured in western Europe passed, was the most efficient interrogation center of World War II. Dulag Luft (the word is a corruption of the German “Durchsgangslager Luftwaffe”, or air force transit camp) was near the town of Oberursel, about 10 miles (16 km) nort...
As the first Nazi concentration camp, Dachau set the tone for all subsequent facilities of this type. The rationale for the establishment of the camp followed the suspension of the German democratic constitution on 28 February 1933, with the ensuing "protective custody" measures against all critics of the Nazi regime.
Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany operated from 1937 to 1945, during which tens of thousands of inmates were put to death by the SS-Schutzstaffel, including several thousand Soviet POWs and several Allied intelligence officers.
In April 1945, British forces liberated Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp complex near Hanover, Germany. The contents of the "Horror Camp" shocked and disgusted hardened soldiers and medics alike. Because of extensive British film and press coverage of conditions in the camp, it was held up as a symbol of the cruelty of the Nazi regime and pro...
One of the most notorious atrocities committed against POWs in the Pacific theater of World War II, the Bataan Death March took American and Filipino troops to prison camps in the northern Philippines after they surrendered to the Japanese on the Bataan Peninsula on 9 April 1942. As a result of their three-month defense of the peninsula, America...