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Disarmed Enemy Forces
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== Number of surrenders in World War II == Approximately 35 million POWs were taken in World War II, 11 million of them Germans.<ref name="bischamb2">{{Harvnb|Bischoff|Ambrose|1992|p=2}}</ref><ref name="overmans144">{{Harvnb|Overmans|1992|p=144}}</ref> In addition to 20 million dislocated citizens, the U.S. Army had to cope with most of the surrendered German military forces.<ref name="bischamb5">{{Harvnb|Bischoff|Ambrose|1992|p=5}}</ref> While the Allies had anticipated 3 million surrendering Germans, the actual total was as many as 5 million in American hands by June 1945 out of 7.6 million in northwestern Europe alone, not counting the 1.4 million in Allied hands in Italy.<ref name="bischamb5"/> Approximately 1 million were [[Wehrmacht]] soldiers fleeing west to avoid capture by the [[Red Army]].<ref name="bischamb5"/> The number of Germans surrendering to U.S. forces shot up from 313,000 by the end of the first quarter of 1945, to 2.6 million by April 1945, and more than 5 million in May.<ref name="bischamb9">{{Harvnb|Bischoff|Ambrose|1992|p=9}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Ratza|1973|pp=54, 173β185}}</ref><ref name="overmans146">{{Harvnb|Overmans|1992|p=146}}</ref> By April 1945, entire German Army groups were surrendering, which overwhelmed Allied shipping such that German prisoners could no longer be sent to POW camps in America after March 1945.<ref name="bischoff217">{{Harvnb|Bischoff|1992|p=217}}</ref> According to a June 22, 1945, announcement by the Allies, a total of 7,614,914 prisoners (of all designations) were held in French, British and American camps.<ref name="overmans147">{{Harvnb|Overmans|1992|p=147}}</ref> Although the British and Americans agreed to split the western Germans who surrendered,<ref name="overmans147"/> the British recanted arguing that they "did not have places to keep them or men to guard them on the continent, and that moving them to England would arouse public resentment and adversely affect British morale."<ref name="bischamb6">{{Harvnb|Bischoff|Ambrose|1992|p=6}}</ref> By June 1, 1945, Eisenhower reported to the War Office that this refusal produced shortages in the 25 million prisoner-day rations which were growing at the rate of 900,000 prisoner-day rations.<ref name="bischamb6"/><ref>{{Harvnb|Ziemke|1990|p=291}}</ref> Feeding this number of people became a logistical nightmare for [[Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force|SHAEF]], which frequently had to resort to improvisation.<ref name="bischamb6"/>
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