The occupiers grew increasingly harsh as their needs and
their setbacks mounted. They had progressively greater difficulty
in winning over the occupied nations. Millions of prisoners
or war had been taken in the 'lightning wars.' These languished
in oflags and stalags. Because the Germans wanted to employ
them as cheap manual labour, they freed only very few, and
sometimes, as in the case of the Dutch prisoners, took them
back. They used extreme measures to bring prisoners to heel.
Because Soviet Russia had not signed the Geneva Convention
the Germans felt free to deal the crudest treatment out to Soviet
prisoners.
World History
