| Original caption: “German POWs- 10,000 Nazi Prisoners” Thousands of captured Nazi German soldiers, mostly Hilfswilliger (“auxiliary volunteer”) Eastern European soldiers that the Heer (“German Army”) captured on the Eastern Front, in the Nonant-le-Pin Prisoner of War Camp. On the eve of the Normandy invasion, there were just 59 Wehrmacht divisions in France and the Low Countries, compared to 165 fighting an exhausting, losing battle against the Soviet Union. As a result of the heavy fighting in the East, the Western Front tended to be allocated the poorest quality troops, with a large proportion of older, less physically fit men supplemented by foreign recruits of questionable loyalty and stamina. As the invasion date became obviously closer, more capable units were transferred from the Eastern Front and new units, like the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, were raised in Germany. The Hilfswilliger, or “Hiwis,” volunteered for service in France for better food and conditions. 1/6 of the 7th Army, which was tasked with defending Normandy and Brittany, consisted of Osttruppen (“East Troops”) drawn from the Reich’s eastern territories. Contradicting Nazi ideas of so-called “racial purity,” these “Hiwis” were technically untermenschen (“subhuman”) according to the Nuremberg Laws. The Nazis reclassified them as “Cossacks” to get around incorporating Eastern Europeans into the Heer. Others had been pressed into service from Poland, Lithuania, Italy and the Ukraine. The Battle of the Falaise Pocket, August 12-21, 1944, resulted in some 50,000 Axis prisoners. Nonant-le-Pin was 25 miles (40 kilometers) south-southwest of Falaise. While the open-air camps were crowded, the prisoners were fed and had medical care. Escapes were uncommon, as vengeful French civilians would kill any Germans they found. Inside the camps each section would have a prisoner designated Lagerfuhrer (“camp leader”). The compound police and kitchen personnel were all prisoners. The Lagerfuhrer would liaise with influential camp figures; the Allied camp commanding officer, physicians, chaplains and legally required prisoner representatives. In the camps the Allies attempted to separate the fanatical Nazis who could cause trouble (and who they wanted to interrogate) from the less ideologically motivated prisoners. Tensions would rise between those still ideologically bound to the German cause and more moderate prisoners. The Allied discovery of the German concentration camps is widely acknowledged (and recorded by the Red Cross) to have affected the treatment of PoWs, but the end of the war also lifted spirits. Almost 185,000 German soldiers were captured by the Allies during the 2 1/2 months long battle of Normandy; 37 percent of the roughly 500,000 German troops engaged on the battlefield. This was 3 times the estimated number by Overlord planners. While pows were already available in numbers, the lack of tools did not always enable their effective utilization. Tension soon arose between German prisoners and French civilians regarding who would perform labour for the Allies. In their eagerness to recover from the war, a French workforce was very willing to work for the Allies, even for ignominious tasks. They despised having to cede this opportunity to the former occupiers. With the influx of more and more prisoners and the parallel reinforcement of the Allied bridgehead in Normandy, the organization of prisoner of war utilization of labor became more precise and more systematic – much to the disadvantage of civilian labor. The official history of the United States Quartermaster Corps states that, “the number of local civilians employed [with the Graves Registration Service] was negligible,” when compared to the prisoner workforce. On July 15, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) issued instructions for the classification and the payment of work done by German prisoners. Payment was made monthly, according to the rank of the prisoner. 1 part of the amount was credited into an individual account, the remainder was handed out to the prisoner in the form of coupons to be used in camp canteens. A pay schedule for pows increased frustration among those French laborers that were seeking work with the Allied troops; more and more, French civilians attempted employment only to be in vain. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0501.jpg |
| Image Size | 614.41 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2931 x 2054 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | August 21, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | Nonant-le-Pin |
| State or Province | Normandy |
| Country | France |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NLR-PHOCO-A-6654(1) |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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