Which Country Has The Worst Track Record Of Brutality And Violence Against Minorities By Law

Which country was the most brutal towards POW's in WWII?

We can find horror stories about treatment of prisoners for all the major combatants in World War Two.For example: American soldiers killed 73 unarmed Italian and German prisoners of War in the Biscari Massacre of 1943, the British had an interrogation centre that was accused of harsh treatment of POWs* and stories of German, Soviet and Japanese brutality to prisoners are commonplace.So, to answer this question more systematically, we need to look at the big picture.As a proxy for the brutality of prisoner treatment, the figures for prisoner survival** are:So we can see that in general, the Western Allies treated their German prisoners adequately, as did the Germans in respect to the Western Allies. However, although the Germans largely treated Western prisoners in a civilised manner, on the Eastern Front ideology intervened. The Soviets were regarded as sub-humans and hence not worthy of anything approaching humane treatment. The Soviets and Japanese both treated their prisoners in a similarly poor manner.You can also note that there are no figures for survival of Japanese prisoners. The conventional wisdom is that this is because they refused to surrender (although in fact over the course of the war some 40,000 did manage to surrender). However, more than one account suggests that their reluctance to surrender was matched by an equal unwillingness to take prisoners.***ConclusionIf we accept the figures above, then there's a clear answer:Germany's treatment of Soviet prisoners was by far the worst.Soviet prisoners---References* Biscari massacre & The secrets of the London Cage** Ferguson, Niall (2004), "Prisoner Taking and Prisoner Killing in the Age of Total War: Towards a Political Economy of Military Defeat", War in History ***Japanese prisoners of war in World War II