I can understand why they did it in the first years of the war before everything went bad for them. But later in the war it seems (from what I have understood) that human rights meant less and less for the Germans, so why did they "just" not kill all their POW to save the manpower and recourses needed to keep them imprisoned?
This is a very valid question, I shall try and dissect this for you to help you understand the nature behind the policy of prisoners of war.
First, lets take a look at the apparatus of the "Final Solution"; the Nazi infrastructure that enabled them to carry out the mass executions of the Holocaust. While it was systematic and fairly efficiently organised, the effort was decidedly heavy in occupying resources of manpower and energy. Despite the fact that the death toll is in the area of ten millions "Between five and six million Jews More than three million Soviet prisoners of war More than two million Soviet civilians More than one million Polish civilians More than one million Yugoslav civilians About 70,000 men, women and children with mental and physical handicaps More than 200,000 gipsies Unknown numbers of political prisoners, resistance fighters, homosexuals and deportees" telegraph.co.uk there were millions more interred and in process of being moved from one classification to another (that of those able to work and those unable to work and scheduled for termination).
In order to systematically execute prisoners of war as well as all those held in the concentration system would have been an incredible strain on resources, particularly near the end of the war when Germany's resources were very stretched indeed.
Now, let us examine the nature of taking, holding and treating prisoners of war. The Geneva Convention stipulates the agrrement on how these matters should be handled by biligerent nations in a time of war. It is a case of "as ye sow, so shall ye reap," meaning that if one side treats PoW's poorly, their own men may be subject to that same poor treatment as a retaliatory measure. The Germans would not execute Prisoners in any overt fashion because that treatment would very likely be reciprocated.
Then, why hold and care for prisoners in the first place if they are going to tax resources, and you can't "get rid" of them? Aside from the mutual courtesy of (the appearance of) equitable treatment, a fighting man is a resource and keeping him locked up denies the use of that resource to the enemy. This, incidentally is why prisoners of war make such efforts at escaping- not just because they desire to get back to the war, but because escaped prisoners are a further strain on enemy resources.
In the 19th century, it was much more common to "parole" prisoners in an agreed exchange, man for man of individuals taken in battle. This meant that enemy prisoners wouldn't be taking up space, food and water and medical care that could be given to friendly combatants-and it was usual practice that these paroled men give their word that they wouldn't rejoin the fighting, so there is still the aspect of reducing one's enemy's ability to prosecute the war.
The shift in this practice began in the American Civil War, when the United States authorised Colored Regiments and the Confederate States issued a proclamation that these soldiers would be summarily executed if taken prisoner in uniform, under arms. the United States, in response, then refused to continue the practice of paroling Confederate prisoners; to which the COnfederates responded by the same refusal. What occurred as a result were some of the most horrendous conditions (on both sides) of treatment of these prisoners of war. The worst example of this is Andersonville
Today, the treatment of prisoners of war is still dictated by the Geneva COnvention, and any conduct by a belligerent not reflecting those statutes can be considered a war crime.
Well the simple answer is that in the large scale they did not try keep them alive. Western Allied Prisoners were treated more humanly but the largest pool of prisoners, those from the East were not. Out of approximately 6 million prisoners of war, 3.5 million were killed. While people boast about the high casualties the Weremacht inflicted few take into account that approximately 1/3rd of Russia's 10.5 million war dead died behind barbed wire.
I'm out the door now for work so I'll have to just leave you this to read for more in depth information. Please avoid the comment section on the article, its full of apologists on both sides arguing.
hi! you may find some additional information in these posts