Talk:Disarmed Enemy Forces

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[edit] Legality of the DEF designation

  • 1 I'm going quietly crazy trying to re-find a reference I once read that stated that the Judge Advocate General (or very similar) strongly opposed Eisenhowers use of the DEF designation. Anyone have any clues on this?
  • 2 The Geneva conventions were aparently changed after the war to close the loophole that allowed the creation of DEF by the U.S. I've also read that the Geneva conventions were changed in responce to the German use of loopholes in them, for example witholding medical treatment to injured POW's until after interrogation. Anyone know of any Germans charged for violating the spirit of the conventions, although not the letter?
  • 3 The Hague convention that states that POWs are to be released and repatriated as soon as possible after peace has been achieved was circumvented by the Allies in a similar fashion, since the Allies claimed unconditional surrender and disolved the German government, and put-of the signing of a peace treaty indefinitely. As a consequence German POW's and DEF could be used as forced labor for several years by all the Allies (I think the number of forced labourers in 1947 were 1 million in the west and 3 million in Russia). All this taken together indicates to me that we need an article collecting these legal issues. There is the general article Debellatio but I think we need to create a main article dealing specifically with Germany, e.g. The legal status of Germany after World War II.
  • 4 Does anyone have any info on the legality of Eisenhowers handing over of several hundred thousand German soldiers (Dont know if they were DEF or POW at that time) to the Soviet Union, where many of them eventually died in the Soviet work camps?

--Stor stark7 Talk 19:03, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

There are a number of articles on the legal status of the Third Reich, see for example End of World War II in Europe, European Advisory Commission Allied Control Council, Occupation statute, Petersberg Agreement ...
Also see the citations in the articles. The most comprehensive citation is this online book -- Earl F. Ziemke "The U.S. Army in the occupation of Germany 1944-1946" Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington, D. C., 1990, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 75-619027 (CHAPTER XV: The Victory Sealed: Surrender at Reims and a chapter either side.) --Philip Baird Shearer 10:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


Any details on the fate of the WW2 German DEFs - I have heard that the US prisoners were starved etc after the war. 159.105.80.141 12:06, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Something which needs addressing

The purpose of the designation was to circumvent the 1929 Geneva Convention, Relative to the treatment of prisoners of war.

Well the thing which needs addressing is a simple - why?

What use is it to bring it up if you dont address the reason for said resignation?--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 21:13, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] There's virtually nothing about the controversy

--84.234.60.154 (talk) 14:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)