Why did Nazi Germany honour the Generva Convention?

[Al B. Sure!]

when dealing with the Western Allies, the Germans treated prisoners according to the convention, didn't attack the Red Cross, didn't use poison gas or exploding bullets... yet didn't grant the same honours to the Russians, not to mention the whole issue of the holocaust.

So why? Why did the Germans follow the Convention when dealing with the Brits and Americans when they so obviously didn't care about human rights in regards to other groups?

[Ted Striker]

Well the Brits they regarded as a race (almost) equal to their own.

Hitler held the British in high regards.

Now can I get a hell yeah on that East Asian pootang Speer??!?!

[DaShi]

[Al B. Sure!]

GENEVA... my bad.

[Jon Shafer]

Yes, the Nazis looked down on the "eastern peoples" and Jews especially as inferior. They didn't have much love for the West, but they at least saw them as "more human."

[Al B. Sure!]

my question is why would a State that clearly didn't care about human rights go out of its way to follow the geneva convention when dealing with the Brits and Americans, especially as they didn't follow the convention when dealing with the Russians? Was it to ensure their POW's own protection in Allied hands? But then the Japanese didn't give a damn about the convention and Jap prisoners in American hands weren't butchered.

[Jon Miller]

Hitler was looking to get peace with the western powers at a possible later date

Jon Miller

[David Floyd]

Well, it wasn't so much that the Nazis didn't care about "human rights" - they didn't, as you or I would understand or define them, but they did according to their definitions. That CERTAINLY doesn't justify anything they did - let's be crystal clear about that. It does, I think, give some perspective on why they treated different groups differently.

[The Emperor Fabulous]

NAZI APOLOGIST!

[David Floyd]

[Al B. Sure!]

How did they deal with captured American soldiers who happened to be jewish? black? asian? hispanic?

[notyoueither]

That's actually a good question.

[Ted Striker]

Did you guys watch the Tuskegee Airmen?

In the US, they had captured German POW's on the train, but the black US airmen had to wait for them to board first and the Germans got better seats.

Kinda messed up!

[Al B. Sure!]

it's crazy how Spanish and Asians were integrated into the regular military (was there ever even a division to begin with?) while Blacks weren't.

[chequita guevara]

It's not like American POWs were so well treated in Germany. Many of them looked like they'd been in the death camps when they were liberated, and many were also used for slave labor.