(for example episode week 56 in TGW it is noticed that central powers have captured a total of 1,5 million Russian POW but not as logistical disadvantage). Is it perhaps because on WW1 they didn’t care so much about POW and thus it was less of a trouble for them?
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In most cases in WW1, when someone was captured, the war was over for them. They were sent to the rear and they could just wait. When Nazis capture POWs they begin worrying about how to kill them and torturing them.
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Probably the speed of the advance and the total breakdown of logistics. Even horse bound infantry have to ‘digest’ POWs. They have to make sure to separate men from officers and officers from political officers and send them to the right interrogation units and arrange for rail transport to more secure facilities. This is without Nazi mass murder.
Other problem: army didn’t have full admin control of the land west of the front line because the not clean Wehrmacht refused to do the really awful stuff. That was the general SS. This is conjecture but I think the Wehrmacht could have done better if the Nazis weren’t bent on genocidal fuckery and therefore let the Wehrmacht control the the back end and there wouldn’t be two administrations, both of whom hated each other.
But that’s Fuehrerprinzip for you.
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Well it make sense but now I am thinking about it according to an TGW episode Red Cross visited the POWs camps all over Europe in 1915 and Germans were holding the Geneva human rights line while Russians didn’t. Which means extra logistical actions and then Hitler in ww2 had given his command for ruthless extermination which if followed vanquish the logistical problems… At the same time nazis are not known for their sensitivity on human rights so it is puzzler.
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