ABSTRACT
During the Second World War, some 3.7 million German soldiers were captured by the British forces, however only a small number were actually taken to Britain. The majority either never left Germany or the European continent, or were sent to camps around the world, including Canada, Australia, the Middle East and Africa. There was even a group of German POWs under British authority held in the USA, of whom 123,000 were shipped to Britain in 1946. These and transfers from other countries meant that the number of POWs in Britain actually peaked in September 1946 at 402,200, compared to only 180,000 in April 1945.1
German POWs were detained at some 390 locations throughout the country. Of these, over 80 per cent were in England, around 10 per cent in Scotland, 5 per cent in Wales, and 2 per cent in Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands.2 Their conditions of employment were governed by the Geneva Convention. However, the idea of compulsory employment of German labour had already been discussed by the allies during the war in the context of future German reparations. The origins of this idea can be found in the Morgenthau Plan, in the minutes of the Yalta Conference and in a British government memorandum dated late February 1945. At the Potsdam Conference, the idea was no longer pursued explicitly but, as Arthur L. Smith rightly pointed out, at this time ‘all of the occupying powers made use of the working potential of German POWs, be it in their own country, abroad or in Germany’.3
