I'm currently reading the Battle of Kursk by Anders Frankson and Niklas Zetterling, they mention that at Kursk circa 10% of all losses were due to surrender and compared this figure to the less than 1% typical of the rest of the Allies. Is this true? If so then why?
Some follow up/related questions:
Did the Soviets surrender more than the Allies?
The premise itself is somewhat flawed. The Germans captured millions of Allied soldiers when they conquered Europe.
The key thing to remember is that you typically capture lots of prisoners when you are on the attack. As the defender, you may capture soldiers but it is usually in small groups. Why? Simply because when attacking troops are demoralized, they typically run away. When defending troops are demoralized, they often try to do the same thing. But, successful attacks in WW2 did not attempt to batter your troops into the enemy strongpoints - you instead hoped to achieve breakthroughs and surround him, cutting off his chance of escape and opportunity to resupply. The soldiers who are surrounded basically have the option of attempting a breakout, waiting for relief, surrendering, or starving to death. Few of them would want to choose the 4th option.
The Germans captured millions of Soviets because Operation Barbarossa was a massive attack that caught the Soviets offguard and huge armies got encircled and wiped out. Soviet units would get cut off miles behind their own front lines and lack the supplies, morale, or even permission to execute a successful breakout or retreat.
Within the first 6 months of the USSR's entrance to the war they lost more soldiers than Germany did over the course of the entire war. These tremendous losses occurred in giant battles of encirclement - for example in Kiev alone the Soviets lost around half a million troops when they were encircled.
Why was this not happening to the Allies? Well, the Germans took over almost all of Europe in 1940-41 and had no more major offensives against the Allies. They didn't have the chance to surround millions of French and British troops anymore because all of them on the continent were already killed, captured, or withdrawn. The Axis was going on offensives in North Africa but the numbers of soldiers involved were still relatively small compared to the huge war going on in Russia.
That is not to say that the Allies didn't surrender. For example, in the Siege of Tobruk in 1942 the Axis lost about 3,000 men while the Allies lost over 50,000, with about 30,000 of those becoming prisoners. This is a far higher rate than the Soviets surrendered at Kursk. The reason is because the troops at Tobruk didn't have an opportunity to escape when the battle was lost and surrender was chosen instead of death.
For another example, the Battle of Kasserine was another victory for the Axis in Africa - around 10,000 Allied casualties. Among the American contingent there were almost 10x as many prisoners as men killed. They captured a lot of US equipment fully intact and used it to equip their own troops. Here is a photo of Rommel and his boys tooling around in an American halftrack:
Finally, the campaign in North Africa was really the last time that the Axis went on sustained offensives against the Allies with opportunities to capture lots of men in encirclements. After the Allies won in Africa, it was they who were on the offensive in Italy and Western Europe after D-Day and they had the opportunity to capture huge numbers of German and Italian troops when their attacks were successful. In 1943 the Germans were largely on the defensive against the Allies, while in Russia they still were capable of launching offensives like Kursk, as well as lots of smaller counter-offensives that could often catch the Soviets off-guard.
It must also be said that compared to the Western Allies, the Soviets had a more cavalier attitude about casualties. Units were more likely to be put in exposed positions and more likely to be denied authorization to withdraw when things went to shit. Training was also often hasty compared to the Western armies. All of this contributed to Soviet surrenders, though as the years went on the Germans found it increasingly difficult to encircle and capture huge numbers of Soviets like they did in the earlier years of the war - indeed, it was the Germans themselves who were surrendering in their millions in 1944-45.
