Prisoner Taking and Prisoner Killing in the Age of Total War: Towards a Political Economy of Military Defeat

Compared with the First World War, which ended quite quickly once the position of Germany became strategically hopeless, the Second World War proved exceedingly difficult to end even after the overwhelming economic advantage of the Allied powers had turned the strategic tide decisively against the Axis. Both German and Japanese forces continued to fight tenaciously long after any realistic chance of victory had disappeared. Part of the explanation lies in the extremely violent battlefield culture that developed in two key theatres of the war, which deterred soldiers from surrendering, even when they found themselves in hopeless situations. This culture had its origins on the Western Front during the First World War. But in the Second World War it became official policy on both sides, not only on the Eastern Front but in the Pacific theatre as well. Only when the Allied authorities adopted techniques of psychological warfare designed to encourage rather than discourage surrender did German and Japanese resistance end.