German POW's in Soviet hands definitely got what they deserved. that's why all of them wanted to surrender to US or Canadian forces.
Gee, that's a big'un in the middle front row there.
The Germans went where they weren't welcome, committed barbaric acts, and attempted to destroy entire populations, all under the watchful eye of a malicious little corporal who had a whackadoodle idea and found himself in a position to wade in and take a shot. The regime they served was evil, and is still shorthand seventy-five years later for the worst of inhuman behaviour.
That being said, did every captured German soldier deserve to be treated as slave labour for up to ten years after the end of the war? Surely many did. Many deserved to be worked to death on starvation rations and buried in an unmarked hole in the bush. But there's a danger to painting with an overly broad brush.
My old landlord was a sweet guy, baker by trade. Came to Canada in 1957, worked his ass off, saved his money, build a little apartment building (five units) and retired to a comfortable position. Herr Strelau was a decent man. The Russians captured him (and his field kitchen) in 1944. They turned him loose in 1955 with the last batch to come home.
Did he deserve twelve years of imprisonment in conditions western nations would consider unconstitutional? He'd committed no atrocities. He ran a kitchen. One could say "through his labours he supported a criminal regime, so he's guilty by association", but does any reasonable person think he had any choice in that?
I had a shirttail cousin, lived in Bavaria through the war. 50+ years old. Sat out the war because he was too old. 1945 rolls around,
"Ivan ist kommt" and representatives of the local Gauleiter drop by the house for a chat. He's presented with a choice - join the Volkssturm with the other oldies, or we'll hang you from this lightpost here as an example to the others. That's not a lot of choices. He took the armband and the rifle and went to Western Europe to oppose the Yanks. The second he could desert he did. Walked home a couple hundred miles, died shortly after he walked in the door. Exhaustion and pneumonia. A sad and entirely pointless death among millions of others.
Had he been sent east and captured, would he have deserved years of imprisonment, and likely death?
I'm in no way excusing the excesses of the German military during WW2. They should never have gone to Russia. But I don't think we can reasonably state that everyone who went deserved what they got when captured.
