German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war

Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) held by Nazi Germany and primarily in the custody of the German Army, were starved and subjected to deadly conditions. Of nearly six million that were captured, around 3 million died during their imprisonment.

In June 1941, Germany and its allies invaded the Soviet Union and carried out a war of extermination with complete disregard for the laws and customs of war. Among the criminal orders issued before the invasion was the execution of captured Soviet commissars. Although Germany largely upheld its obligations under the Geneva Convention with prisoners of war of other nationalities, military planners decided to breach it with the Soviet prisoners. In 1941, millions of Soviet soldiers were captured, mostly in large-scale encirclement operations during the German Army's rapid advance. The majority of them died from starvation, exposure, and disease during the winter of 1941/1942.

Soviet Jews, political commissars, and sometimes officers, communists, intellectuals, Asians, and female combatants were systematically targeted for execution. A larger number of prisoners were shot for being wounded, ill, or unable to keep up with forced marches. Millions were deported to Germany for forced labor, where they died in large numbers in sight of the local population. Their conditions were worse than civilian forced laborers or prisoners of war from other countries. More than 100,000 were transferred to Nazi concentration camps, where they were treated worse than other prisoners. Nearly a million Soviet prisoners of war served as volunteer auxiliaries to the German military; others joined the SS. Collaborators were essential to the German war effort as well as to the Holocaust in Eastern Europe.

The deaths among Soviet prisoners of war were numerically exceeded only by the (civilian) Jews and has been called "one of the greatest crimes in military history". Nevertheless, few received any reparations and their fate is much less well studied. Changing and contradictory orders issued by German military leaders has led to debate as to whether the Nazi leadership planned and intended mass deaths of Soviet prisoners of war in 1941 or whether it was initially intended to use Soviet prisoners for forced labor.