The Allied “Passierschein” Safe Conduct Passes of WWII (2003)
psywarrior.com
psywarrior.com
Quoting https://lieber.westpoint.edu/release-prisoners-war/ :
> First, able-bodied POWs may be partially or wholly released on parole or promise if national law of the detaining power that of the State of origin of the POW permits this (art. 21, GCIII). As explained by the 2020 ICRC Commentary to GCIII, Article 21: “Such release typically occurs in exchange for a pledge not to take up arms again in the same conflict. The practice of paroling prisoners of war has declined considerably since 1949. In addition, many States today prohibit members of their armed forces from accepting release on parole” (para. 1920). Prisoners of war released on parole are compelled to keep their parole or promise.
I can't tell if this means parole for those interned in a foreign country, or if they were allowed to return home under parole so long as they didn't fight.
In looking around, I also found https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/handle/2123/7995/W... about the parole system in the US Civil War. It comments:
> The American Civil War was the last western conflict where paroles were regularly employed and honoured by both armies. 14
where 14 is:
> There were instances of parole in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), the Boer War (1899-1902) and the First World War, but in general terms, after the American Civil War, the practice began its demise. For the Franco-Prussian War, see: Michael Howard, The Franco-Prussian War: the German Invasion of France, 1870-1871 (New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 222. The Prussian army allowed French officers to leave on their parole after the Prussian victory at the Battle of Sedan. For the Boer War, see: Major Gary D. Brown, ‘Prisoner of War Parole: Ancient Concept, Modern Utility’, Military Law Review, vol. 156 (June 1998), p. 207. The Boer guerrillas tried to place British POWs on parole, but these were largely disregarded. For the First World War, see: Paul Robinson, Military Honour and the Conduct of War: From Ancient Greece to Iraq (London and New York, 2006), p. 156. The French placed some German officers on parole early in the conflict, but the practice was not reciprocated by the Germans
A comment at https://history.stackexchange.com/a/66023 says:
> In summer 1940, the German Wehrmacht had captured 2 million Dutch, Belgian and French soldiers. All of the Dutch and Flemish and about a third of the French POWs were released on parole because the Germans coulnd't supply them and already had half a million Polish POWs as workforce (de facto: slaves). Mark Mazower, Hitlers Imperium: Europa unter der Herrschaft des Nationalsozialismus. C.H.Beck, Munich 2009. Page 152
You'll likely have to ask in a more specialized forum to find the information and documentation you're wondering about.
Adding "Sicily" to my Google Scholar search ("POW italy sicily parole") lead me to https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07075332.1996.96... behind a paywall. Here are the relevant sections:
> However, after the conquest of Sicily, Eisenhower did parole thousands of Italian soldiers captured during the campaign to help the Sicilian farmers bring in the harvest. In July 1944, the parole scheme in Sicily was cancelled: all Italian prisoners on the island were released at the end of the month.
Granting parole was a morale issue in the UK.
> Harold Macmillan, the minister resident in Algiers, passed on the foreign office's fears to Eisenhower, who replied that a statement of the 'true' facts might soothe the British public. If they were told of the military advantages to be gained, and that the Sicilians, who were only out on parole, could be re-imprisoned at any time, they might be less offended by the 'soft' treatment of a defeated enemy who had yet to release any of its British prisoners.
Earlier I quoted an example of Germany paroling Dutch, Flemish and French POWs because of the large number of POWs. The same thing happened in Tunisia and Sicily:
> After the Tunisian and Sicilian campaigns, the numbers of Italians surrendering forced Eisenhower to parole them almost as soon as they were captured.
Another mention of "parole" shows "troops captured on the Italian mainland" were also paroled:
> These post-war comments merely serve to highlight both the confusion on both sides immediately following the surrender and the continued paradoxical position of Italian servicemen. Whereas troops recently captured in North Africa were being used for war work, soldiers in Britain employed on the land, and still others held in camps in the Dominions, many of the troops captured on the Italian mainland had already been paroled by Eisenhower and allowed to return home to work in liberated areas. If this was not complicated enough, some Italian army units which had not been captured were nominally fighting alongside the Allies against the Germans.
Lastly, it looks like your grandfather was a POW late in the war.
> In this unorthodox fashion was decided the fate of several hundred thousand Italian prisoners. The lucky ones, captured later in the war, were paroled soon after their capture. Many of them soon returned home and some even fought alongside the Allies to liberate their country from the Nazis. The rest, some of whom had been captured as early as 1940, remained prisoners until the end of die war in Europe in 1945. They worked on farms, on roads, and in factories as civilians, and in the rear of the Allied armies as ancillary troops. Their misfortune was to have been captured too early: to have become too useful to Allies short of manpower and willing to stretch to the limit the boundaries of international law.
The paper is by Kent Fedorowich and Bob Moore. It looks like Moore has written several papers on this topic. Try "Enforced Diaspora: The Fate of Italian Prisoners of War during the Second World War" (start from Google Scholar, search for that title, then follow the link to sagepub.com , as otherwise you'll hit the paywall).
That has details like "This embarrassment of riches led Eisenhower to disarm and parole 61,658 officers and men of Sicilian origin to help with the harvest".
What I found equally interesting were the videos where aggresor POWs phoned their families and told them about the war and to contact https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_the_Committees_of_S.... This was in the early days when aggresor still suppressed tho news, and this was a method to punch through the media censorship. Ukraine was criticised for this practice, because filming it allegedly violates dignity of POWs, so the videos don't appear anymore. But nonetheless I think it was very smart.
It wasn’t just about their dignity, but the fact that this was a likely breach of the Geneva convention.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/ukraine-s-videos-of-cryi...
Also, no match in quality or writing to the German one.
Russia broadcasted their agitation for the other side to surrender via FM radio, so the tech does improve, but the result seems very modest with any kind of tech.
Also, it’s easy for Russian soldiers to just take civilian clothes and disappear on either side of the front line. Much easier than for a German in France or Italy in 1944.
We don’t know precisely how the conflict will end, but we have excluded many possible endings that seemed plausible in the first days but now seem extremely improbably or practically impossible. In that way the possible space of outcomes had shrunk considerably. Russia isn’t going to capture Kyiv or depose the Ukrainian government by military force, for example. It seems increasingly unlikely that they are even going to take the entire Donbas region. It seems very unlikely that the conflict will be resolved this year. As winter bites, the situation may change though. As the months go on we will learn even more.
Any numbers?