Germany’s treatment of its prisoners also gave Soviet soldiers, many of whom had little or no enthusiasm for Stalinism, the best of incentives not to change sides. After the initial German advance, numbers of deserters dropped sharply – ‘because’, as a Soviet officer explained, ‘most of the prisoners have been disappointed . . . days without food; only cursing and beating; shootings without reason, often only because the prisoner cannot understand what the Germans want from him .
