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More than 2.8 million German soldiers surrendered on the Western Front between D-Day and the end of April 1945; 1.3 million between D-Day and March 31, 1945;〔2,055,575 German soldiers surrendered between D-Day and April 16, 1945, ''The Times'', April 19 p 4; 755,573 German soldiers surrendered between April 1 and 16, ''The Times'', April 18 p 4, which means that 1,300,002 German soldiers surrendered to the Western Allies between D-Day and the end of March 1945.〕 and 1.5 million of them in the month of April.〔''The Daily Telegraph Story of the War'', Vol. 5 p153, ‘The Allied armies in the west captured more than 1,500,000 prisoners during April.’〕 From early March these surrenders seriously weakened the Wehrmacht in the West, and made further surrenders more likely, thus having a snowballing effect. On March 27, Dwight D. Eisenhower declared at a press conference that the enemy were a whipped army.〔''The Times'', March 28 page 4, headline ‘A WHIPPED ARMY, REVIEW BY SUPREME COMMANDER.’ … ‘Quarter of a million German soldiers have been captured since March 1,’ press release dated March 27.〕 In March the daily rate of POWs taken on the Western Front was 10,000;〔Eisenhower, ''Crusade in Europe'', William Heinemann 1948, p 421〕 in the first 14 days of April it rose to 39,000〔''The Daily Telegraph Story of the War'', Vol. 5 p 127. ‘In the first fourteen days of April 548,173 German prisoners were taken〕 and in the last 16 days the average peaked at 59,000 soldiers captured each day.〔In the last sixteen days of April, (over) 951,827 Germans were captured to make a total of (over) 1,500,000 for the whole of April, see ''The Daily Telegraph Story of the War'', Vol. 5 p153〕 The number of prisoners taken in the west in March and April was over 1,800,000,〔The number of prisoners taken in March was approaching 350,000, ''SHAEF Weekly Summary No. 54'' w.e.April 1st. PART I LAND Section A, ENEMY OPERATIONS. Thus the total for March and April was well over 1,800,000. (over 300,000 plus 1,500,000.)〕 more than double the 800,000 German soldiers who surrendered to the Russians in the last three or four months of the war.〔''The Times'', May 1st 1945 p 4〕 The western allies also took 134,000 German soldiers prisoner in North Africa,〔''The Times'', Feb 23rd 1945 p 4〕 and at least 220,000 by the end of April 1945 in the Italian campaign.〔 The total haul of German POWs held by the western allies by April 30, 1945 in all theatres of war was over 3,150,000, rising in NW Europe to 7,614,790 after the end of the war.〔''The World War II Databook'', by John Ellis, 1993 p256.〕 It is worth noting that the allied armies which captured the 2.8 million German soldiers up to April 30, 1945, while Adolf Hitler was still alive and resisting as hard as he could, comprised at their peak 88 divisions,〔''The World War II Databook'', by John Ellis, p185.〕 which amounted to roughly 1.2 to 1.4 million men. The casualties suffered by the western allies in making this contribution to the defeat of the Wehrmacht were relatively light, 164,590 killed and 78,680 taken prisoner,〔''The World War II Databook'', by John Ellis, p256.〕 a total loss of 243,270 to inflict a loss of 2.8 million on the German army. ==Time-line of German surrenders in the west== After the D-Day landings German surrenders initially came quite slowly. By June 9 only 4,000 prisoners had been taken,〔''SHAEF Weekly Intelligence Summary, No.51'', w.e. March 11〕 increasing to 15,000 by June 18.〔''The Daily Telegraph'', Story of The War, Vol. 4, p104〕 The total for June was 47,000,〔''SHAEF Weekly Intelligence Summary, No.51'', w.e. March 11 PART I LAND Section H, Miscellaneous 3 Allied Achievements in the West.〕 dropping to 36,000 in July;〔 135,000 were taken in the month subsequent to July 25.〔Eisenhower ''Crusade in Europe'', p331.〕 August’s total was 150,000.〔 The total number of prisoners attributed to the Normandy campaign was 200,000.〔Antony Beevor, ''D-Day the Battle for Normandy'', Penguin 2012, p522.〕 With the successful invasion of the south of France on August 15 and the link-up of the US 7th Army from the south and the US 3rd Army from the north on September 11,〔Eisenhower, ''Crusade in Europe'', p324. 〕 all the German troops remaining in central and west France were cut off. As a result, and also including the German troops who surrendered in the hot pursuit to the northern border from Normandy, 344,000 German soldiers surrendered to the western allies in September.〔 This was one of the largest German losses in a single month of the war so far. To put it in perspective, 41,000 British troops surrendered after Dunkirk,〔''The World War II Databook'', by John Ellis, 1993 p255.〕 138,000 British and Indian soldiers surrendered at Singapore,〔''The World War II Databook'', by John Ellis, 1993 p255.〕 173,000 UK military became POWs in the entire course of the war,〔''The World War II Databook'', by John Ellis, 1993 p254.〕 in Europe and the Far East, while the corresponding figure for the US was 130,000 POWs.〔''The World War II Databook'', by John Ellis, 1993 p254.〕 Up to October 17, 1944, 610,541 German soldiers surrendered on the western front.〔''The Daily Telegraph, Story of the War'', Vol. 4, p183. 〕 Between October 17 and February 5, 1945, this total of German POWs taken in north-west Europe increased to 860,000.〔''The Times'', Feb 6th 1945, p4, under headline ‘GEN BRADLEY’S COMMAND’.〕 250,000 POWs were captured between October 17 and February 5 at a rate of 65,000 a month. By February 22, a further 40,000〔''The Times'', Feb 23rd 1945, p4 under headline ‘MORE THAN 1,000,000 GERMAN PRISONERS’ 〕 German soldiers had surrendered and the total number from D-Day until the end of February was over 940,000.〔 In March 1945, the numbers of German soldiers surrendering accelerated. Eisenhower said they were surrendering at a rate of ten thousand a day〔Eisenhower, ''Crusade in Europe'', p41. 〕 but actually approaching 350,000 surrendered in the whole month,〔 bringing the total between D-Day and the end of March 1945 up to 1,300,000.〔 The reason why so many surrendered in March was because Hitler did not allow a fluid response and orderly retreat before the western allies’ advance towards the Rhine, so that many German soldiers were trapped in indefensible positions to the west of the Rhine, where they were forced to surrender. Eisenhower referred to the Wehrmacht as a ‘whipped army’ on March 27.〔 In his book ''Crusade in Europe'', Eisenhower wrote ‘We owed much to Hitler’,〔Eisenhower, ''Crusade in Europe'', p431. 〕 because he prevented his generals from pulling back the defending forces to the east of the Rhine, probably no later than early January, thus handing the western allies 300,000 prisoners on a plate.〔 The loss of these battle-hardened soldiers irretrievably weakened the German armies left to defend the great natural barrier of the Rhine, and the disintegration of the German armies in the west is shown in their more and more rapid rate of surrender as April progressed. In the first five days of April, 146,000 German soldiers were taken prisoner〔''SHAEF Weekly Intelligence Summary No 55'', w.e. April 8th 1945. PART 1 LAND, Section D ENEMY CAPABILITIES. 〕 (a rate of 29,000 a day ). In the next nine days, 402,000〔The Daily Telegraph , Story of the War, Vol. 5, p127. 'In the first fourteen days of April 548,173 German prisoners were taken.' This means that between April 6 and 14 402,173 prisoners were taken. 〕 prisoners were taken (a day ). Between April 15 and 21, over 450,000 Germans surrendered〔Between 1st and 21st April 1945 over 1,000,000 German soldiers surrendered in the West, Eisenhower ''Crusade in Europe'', p452, which means that more than 450,000 surrendered between 15th and 21st April. 〕 (60,000 a day ); in the last ten days of the month over 500,000〔Between 1st and 20th April less than 1,000,000 German soldiers surrendered, ''SHAEF Weekly Intelligence Summary No 57'', w.e. April 22nd, which means between 21st and 30th April over 500,000 surrendered at a rate of over 50,000 a day.〕 waved the white flag (50,000 a day ). For the month as a whole the average rate of Germans surrendering was 50,000 a day.〔 From D-Day onwards the numbers of German soldiers who surrendered in north-west Europe were as follows: 200,000 in Normandy; 610,000 up to October 17, 1944; 1.3 million up to the end of March 1945 and 2.8 million up to the end of April 1945, when Hitler died. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「German prisoners of war in northwest Europe」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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