Inhumanly enough, the Soviet authorities saw German war prisoners as means to compensate for Soviet population losses. Stalin defined the number of prisoners USSR “needed” in 1943 at the. heless, the shooting of POWs did not stop completely. While the reports of German military intelligence henceforth show a more positive picture of the treatment of German POWs in Soviet captivity, they still include examples of executions. 75 Orders by the Chief of Staff of the Soviet 5th Tank Army of November 17, 1942, 76 and of the commander. During World War II, Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) held by Nazi Germany and primarily in the custody of the German Army were starved and subjected to deadly conditions. Of nearly six million who were captured, around three million died during their imprisonment. Approximately three million German prisoners of war were captured by the Soviet Union during World War II, most of them during the great advances of the Red Army in the last year of the war. The POWs were employed as forced labor in the Soviet wartime economy and post-war reconstruction. German forces targeted Soviet POWs with policies of deliberate neglect and mass murder—more than half of the Soviet POWs in German captivity did not survive. The sources gathered here give a glimpse into some of the experiences of Soviet POWs during World War II. Soviet leaders used the structure of the preexisting Gulag forced-labor camp system to shape the treatment of German POWs. After World War II, various nations again met in 1949 to refine the Geneva Conventions and shape international law based on their wartime experiences. Large numbers of Soviets citizens survived the War in various German POW and slave labor camps. Most POWs taken in 1941 perished in Whermacht POW camps that were giant killing machines. How did the Soviets treat German prisoners? Many were sent to logging camps in Siberia or mining in the Ural Mountains. Imprisonment was generally harsh. A young POW recalled being subjected to “brutal assaults on a daily basis, hunger, disease, and the cold.” Only by 1948 did their situation improve. Approximately three million German prisoners of war were captured by the Soviet Union during World War II, most of them during the great advances of the Red Army in the last year of the war. The POWs were employed as forced labor in the Soviet wartime economy and post-war reconstruction. The brutal treatment of Soviet POWs by the Germans violated every standard of warfare. Existing sources suggest that some 5.7 million Soviet army personnel fell into German hands during World War II.