Profile - Paying the Prisoners

As part of the Geneva Conventions of 1929, the signatory nations agreed that prisoners-of-war were to receive a stipend from the custodial nation depending upon rank and, in the case of enlisted men, duties performed, with the respective governments to settle accounts upon the conclusion of hostilities.  For officer prisoners, the stipend was to be the same as that the “host government” paid its own officers of comparable rank or their normal pay, whichever was lower.

During the Second World War, the U.S. government monthly stipend for Italian and German officer prisoners was $20 for lieutenants, $30 for captains, and $40 for majors and above, while the handful of Japanese officers captured initially received $5 less in each category, though this was later increased to about $5 more.  Enlisted prisoners were entitled to "room and board," and to pay if they performed work, and officers who volunteered to perform work could supplement their monthly stipend at the same rates.

Technically, prisoners could not be employed in "war work," but this was generally interpreted as meaning work in direct support of the war effort, including building fortifications, manufacturing weapons, and so forth, so prisoners in forward areas were often employed a cooks, maintenance workers, and laborers for American units, thus freeing military personnel for more specifically military duties.  In practice, there were two broad categories of work which prisoners could be perform:

Class I - Work related to the operation and maintenance of P/W camps, for which compensation was normally not paid

Class II - All other work, including that for agencies of the federal or state governments or for private enterprises, which was initially compensated at $0.80 a day (about what American privates made at the start of World War II), later increased to $1.20, and occasionally more for special duties.

Although most P/Ws held by American forces were overseas, by the end of the war more than 400,000 German and Italian prisoners-of-war were being held in the "Zone of the Interior" (i.e., the 48), some of whom were employed on civil engineering projects while others were working in agriculture or industry, and even assigned as individuals to small factories, bakeries, and the like; some of these men were later sponsored for immigration by their former employers, and there were even occasions when one actually married the boss's daughter.

Prisoners injured while performing work were entitled to $0.40 a day compensation until able to return to work.

Under the terms of the Geneva agreement, the custodial power was to bank these allotments, providing the prisoners with access to the funds for specific expenditures, usually luxury goods such as tobacco, or, since another clause permitted it, educational expenses, though net withdrawals could not exceed $30 a month.  At the close of hostilities accumulated deposits were to be returned to the prisoner upon release.  Since the U.S. considered itself obligated to provide for prisoners' basic needs -- food, clothing, medical care -- a frugal prisoner could accumulate a considerable sum; 3000 Italian prisoners-of-war who had been employed by American forces in and around Casablanca until repatriated in October of 1945 took home something like $2 million, an average of over $650 each, today equal to something like $7,750 to $14,000, depending upon how one calculates things.  Japanese prisoners were, however, restricted in the amounts they could return home with, officers to ¥500 and enlisted men to ¥200, trivial sums given the rampant inflation in Japan.

Unlike its attitude toward Soviet prisoners, with Western prisoners Germany generally adhered to the terms of the Geneva Convention, and also paid compensation to prisoners.  For officers this was actually on a more generous scale than that paid by the U.S.; second lieutenants only received $28.00 a month, but each rank above that got somewhat more, through colonels, who received $60.00.  However, German policy was to deduct the cost of rations and clothing, so the end result was not much different.  Enlisted personnel, were paid only 7 pfennigs a day, about $0.28, a lot less than the U.S. paid German enlisted men.  Japanese regulations on paper provided officer prisoners a monthly allotment that reached ¥466 for major generals, though with deductions for rations and clothing, while enlisted prisoners were to receive ¥0.30 a day, but in practice some prisoners received the modest compensation, and some none at all.

Following World War II, Americans who had been prisoners of the Axis were compensated with monies confiscated under the War Claims Act, nearly $110 million being paid for uncompensated labor, inadequate food, or harsh treatment.