[WW] The Rules of War

[Arne Reuter <reuter@tse-online.de>]

Dear List!

I don't know how many of you actually have been (or are) soldiers.
Those who were (are) probably remember some of the Geneva conventions.

The current rules were instituted _after_ wwII, in part because of
transgressions against those rules during the war.

In World War II however, the rules in effect (supposedly) were those
of the 1907 peace convention of The Hague

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague04.htm

and the 1929 Geneva Convention Relating to Prisoners of War:

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/geneva02.htm

Talking about commando-style operations, a PC group should observe
the differences (at least theoretically) given in status to normal
prisoners of war, spies, and resistance fighters.

The former get the best treatment, while the latter mostly were
exempt from the safety of regulations (be that the case legally or
not).

That means, while soldiers of wars don't get shot or tortured once
captured, Spies and Guerillas might.

Of course, evil Nazi scientists might not really care about the law
;-).

And conventional wisdom claims, that especially the treatment of PoWs
on _all_ sides was less than correct. The Soviet Union probably
treated their prisoners worst of all - many of the German soldiers
captured on the eastern front vanished into siberian camps, never to
return (an gross estimate of 5% of those deported returned!). There is
a very gripping story about Oberleutnant "Clemens Forell" who escaped
1949 from a Siberian camp and made his way home christmas 1952. Its
based on a real story by Josef Martin Bauer, "So weit die Fuesse
tragen".

Regards,

Arne Reuter

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