One million five thousand German prisoners of war were housed in France between 1945 and 1947. Of them, 237,000 had been seized on French territory and 740,000 from American internment camps. The rest originated in North Africa, where they had been under British control.
Many, almost 40,000, lost their lives on minefields or in captivity after being dispatched to France devastated by war to aid in reconstruction.
Like many other nations, France suffered more deaths from the war long after it stopped. The French showed little pity for their former tormentors and were eager to settle past grievances. ICRC inspection records went so far as to compare the French camps with Buchenwald or Dachau, including hunger, terrible hygienic conditions, prisoners sleeping in ground holes. The primary goal in denouncing the conditions was to elicit a reaction from the French government, which at the time was understandably quite hostile to Germany. Over 80,000 men, mostly members of the Wehrmacht, managed to flee the French camps during their months-long captivity.