Thirty thousand POWs were brought to work on the railway through Norland. The treatment of the POWs varied depending on their nationality, their status in regard to the Geneva Convention and their alignment. Russians who converted to support Andrey Vlasov were treated better and often sent to own camps. Similarly, only two of over 1,000 Polish POWs in Nordland died, and were treated better because Polish people were generally regarded as pro-Axis. "Wehrmacht" invested the equivalent of NOK 15 million in labour and other costs in the line. At the time of the German capitulation on 8 May 1945 there were an estimated 8,300 POWs living in camps on the segment between Fauske and Drag. About ten percent of those who had worked on the line had died.