Disarmed Enemy Forces Disarmed Enemy Forces ( DEF ) , less commonly , Surrendered Enemy Forces , was a US designation for soldiers who surrendered to an adversary after hostilities ended and for those who had already surrendered POW s and held in camps in occupied German territory at that time . It was Dwight D . Eisenhower ' s designation of German prisoners in post - World War II occupied Germany . Because of the logistical impossibility of feeding millions of surrendered German soldiers at the levels required by the Geneva Convention during the food crisis of 1945 , the purpose of the designation , along with the British designation of Surrendered Enemy Personnel ( SEP ) , was to prevent categorization of the prisoners as Prisoners of War ( POW ) under the 1929 Geneva Convention . Germany at the end of the war . German agriculture had suffered extreme productivity decreases in 1944 and 1945 , as Germany had mobilized for total war , and food for the troops and war workers was a part of that war . A shortage of synthetic fertilizers had developed after nitrogen and phosphate stocks were channeled into ammunition production . Consequently , crop levels had fallen by 20 % to 30 % at the end of the war . Allied bombing raids had destroyed thousands of farm buildings , and rendered food processing facilities inoperable . Lack of farm machinery , spare parts , and fertilizer caused an almost total disruption of agriculture when the war was over . After the release of Ostarbeiter s , slave laborers that were Russian POWs and Eastern Europeans , extreme agriculture labor shortages existed that could only be relieved by German DEFs and SEPs . Roving bands of displaced persons and returning soldiers and civilians decimated the hog herds and chicken flocks of German farmers . In addition , the destroyed German transportation infrastructure created additional logistical nightmares , with railroad lines , bridges , canals and terminals left in ruins . The turnaround time for railroad wagons was five times higher than the prewar average . Of the 15 , 600 German locomotives , 38 . 6 % were no longer operating and 31 % were damaged . Only 1 , 000 of the 13 , 000 kilometers of track in the British zone were operable . Urban centers often had to be supplied with horse - drawn carriages and wheeled carts . By May 8 , 1945 , the Allies were responsible for 7 million displaced persons in Germany and 1 . 6 million in Austria , including slave laborers from all over Europe . Soon thereafter , German populations had swollen by 12 to 14 . 5 million ethnic Germans expelled from Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union . Bavarian villages in the American zone faced 15 % to 25 % population increases from displaced persons , with Munich alone having to deal with 75 , 000 displaced persons . The worst dislocation of agriculture was caused by the German zonal partitions , which cut off Western Germany from its " breadbasket " of farm lands east of the Oder - Neisse line that had accounted for 35 % of Germany ' s prewar food production , and which the Yalta Conference had given to Poland to compensate for lands of Eastern Poland . The Soviet Union , with millions of its own starving citizens at home , was not willing to distribute this production to the population in western Germany . In January 1945 , the basic German ration was 1 , 625 calories / day , and that was further reduced to 1 , 100 calories by the end of the war in the British zone , and remained at that level into the summer , with levels varying from 840 calories / day in the Ruhr to 1 , 340 calories / day in Hamburg . The situation was no better in the American zones of Germany and Austria . These problems combined to create severe shortages across Germany . One summary report estimated that just prior to Victory in Europe ( V - E ) Day , German consumer daily caloric intake was only 1 , 050 , and that after V - E Day it dropped to 860 calories per day , though actual estimates are confusing because of the wide variation by location and because unofficial estimates were usually higher . It was clear by any measure that , by the spring of 1945 , the German population was existing on rations that would not sustain life in the long term . A July 1945 CCAC report stated that " the food situation in western Germany is perhaps the most serious problem of the occupation . Average consumption is now about one third below the general accepted subsistence level of 2000 calories per day . " In the spring of 1946 the International Red Cross was finally allowed to provide limited amounts of food aid to prisoners of war in the U . S . occupation zone . By June 1948 , DEF rations had been increased to 1990 calories and in December 1949 rationing was effectively discontinued and the food crisis was over . Number of surrenders in World War II . Approximately 35 million POWs were taken in World War II , 11 million of them Germans . In addition to 20 million dislocated citizens , the U . S . Army had to cope with most of the surrendered German army . 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 . Approximately 1 million were Wehrmacht soldiers fleeing west to avoid capture by the Red Army . 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 . 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 . According to a June 22 , 1945 announcement by the Allies , a total of 7 , 614 , 914 prisoners ( of all designations ) were held in British and American camps . Although the British and Americans agreed to split the western Germans who surrendered , 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 . " 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 . Feeding this number of people became a logistical nightmare for SHAEF , which frequently had to resort to improvisation . Early considerations of DEF designations . Regarding the adherence to the Geneva Convention for vanquished Germans , Churchill at the Casablanca Conference in 1943 summed up the Allies " unconditional surrender " policy with " If we are bound , we are bound by our consciences to civilization . " In prosecuting the war , SHAEF carried out the decisions of the Combined ( Anglo - American ) Chiefs of Staff ( CCS ) . They had to execute the directives of the European Advisory Commission ( EAC ) , which included the Soviet Union . The CCS and EAC directives implemented policies of the heads of government who decided the most important questions of Allied occupation policy . After the EAC was set up by the 1943 Moscow Conference , it drafted the instruments of unconditional surrender . During the EAC debates the Allies determined that they could strip the Germans of all government , including their protection by international law , and be free to punish them without restriction . The Geneva Convention ( GC ) required SHAEF to feed German POWs a ration equal to its own base soldiers . The original discussion of the Allies treating post Victory in Europe ( V - E ) Day prisoners of war as something other than those protected by the Geneva Convention had its vague origins in the Casablanca Conference , but it was given specific form by the EAC in the summer of 1944 in a " draft instrument of surrender " given to the American government . The instrument required the surrendering German commander to accept that his men " shall at the discretion of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Allied State concerned be declared to be Prisoners of War . " Several factors went into this consideration , including that the EAC member the Soviet Union refused to sign the Geneva Conventions , despite intense pressure from 1942 onward to sign the document . Behind the Soviets ' refusal were a number of considerations closely linked with the regime , but a major consideration that emerged at the Tehran Conference was that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin desired four million German laborers for an " indefinite period " , perhaps for life . The Soviets ' refusal to even consider signing the GC created great problems for the EAC , including the fact that a single surrender instrument could not be drafted if a Soviet commander taking the surrender could not possibly commit his government to accord GC rights to prisoners . As a result , the EAC instruments promised nothing in that regard , employed awkward and tortured language and made plain the premeditated Allied evasion of the Geneva Convention . In addition , other Allies also considered using Germans for prison labor , which the Germans themselves had already required of prisoners they had held during the war . Later EAC documents described the " Disabled Enemy Forces . " DEF and SEP designations . With regard to food requirements , regardless of the reasoning or GC legal requirements , SHAEF was simply not capable of feeding all of the millions of German prisoners at the level of Allied base soldiers because of the high numbers and lack of resources . This was not deliberate policy , but the result of wartime damage to the infrastructure , which created the difficult problem of feeding the defeated peoples without it . In a March 10 , 1945 cable to the CCS , Eisenhower requested permission for this designation per the earlier EAC documents , and was granted such permission . When the CCS approved Eisenhower ' s March 1945 request , it added that prisoners after Victory in Europe ( V - E Day ) should not be declared " Prisoners of War " under the Geneva Convention because of the lack of food . The CCS then cabled British Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander , supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean , suggesting that the same steps be taken regarding the German surrenders in Austria , and then approved Alexander ' s similar request for a DEF designation , stating " in view of the difficulties regarding food and accommodation , it was so decided . " Eisenhower ' s JCS superiors ordered him to change German POW ' s designation to " disarmed enemy forces " ( DEF ) , just as British chiefs had done , redesignating their prisoners " Surrendered Enemy Personnel " ( SEP ) . Alexander then requested that the CCS let British forces use such a designation for the surrender of German forces in Italy , the CCS granted his request and the conditions of such surrenders to British commander General Sir William D . Moran almost prevented the surrenders from occurring for worried German troops . The CCS submitted the DEF designations for study to the Combined Civilian Affairs Committee ( CCAC ) , which not only concurred with the designation , but went further , suggesting that the status of all German POWs be retroactively lifted after the German surrender . By June 22 , 1945 , of the 7 , 614 , 914 prisoners ( of all designations ) were held in British and American camps , 4 , 209 , 000 were soldiers captured before the German capitulation and considered " POWs " . This leaves approximately 3 . 4 million DEFs and SEPs , who according to Allied agreements , were supposed to be split between Britain and the United States . As of June 16 , 1945 , the U . S . , France , and the U . K . held a combined total of 7 , 500 , 000 German POW ' s and DEF ' s . By June 18 , the U . S . had discharged 1 , 200 , 000 of these . Aftermath . After the DEF designations were made in the early summer of 1945 , the International Red Cross was not permitted to fully involve itself in the situation in camps containing German prisoners ( POWs , DEFs or SEPs ) , some of which initially were Rheinwiesenlager transit camps , and even though conditions in them gradually improved , " even the most conservative estimates put the death toll in French camps alone at over 16 , 500 in 1945 " . The Geneva Convention was amended . Articles 6 and 7 of the Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War , Geneva July 27 , 1929 , had covered what may and may not be done to a prisoner on " capture " . The wording of the 1949 Third Geneva Convention was intentionally altered from that of the 1929 convention so that soldiers who " fall into the power " following surrender or mass capitulation of an enemy are now protected as well as those " captured " in the course of fighting . Most captives of the Americans and the British were released by the end of 1948 , and most of those in French and Soviet captivity were released by the end of 1949 , although the last big release occurred in 1956 . According to the section of the German Red Cross dealing with tracing the captives , the ultimate fate of 1 , 300 , 000 German POW ' s in Allied custody ( mostly Russian ) is still unknown ; they are still officially listed as missing . Controversy . In his 1989 book " Other Losses " , James Bacque claimed that Allied Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower deliberately caused the death of 790 , 000 German captives in internment camp s through disease , starvation and cold from 1944 to 1949 . Bacque charges that some of these deaths were DEF designated soldiers that could receive harsh treatment because they did not fall within the Geneva Convention protections . Stephen Ambrose , at the time director of the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans , also organized a conference of eight British , American , and German historians , which disputed Bacque ' s claims . Niall Ferguson wrote that Bacque ' s " calculations grossly exaggerate both the number of Germans the Americans captured and their mortality " . Ambrose did concede : " we as Americans can ' t duck the fact that terrible things happened . And they happened at the end of a war we fought for decency and freedom , and they are not excusable " . Historical precedents . After defeating Poland in 1939 , and also after the defeat of Yugoslavia two years later , many troops from those nations were " released " from POW status and turned into a " virtual conscript labor force " . Germany had either broken up or absorbed the countries in question , and the German argument was that neither country remained as a recognized state to which the POWs could still claim to belong , and that since belonging to a recognized nation was a formal prerequisite for POW status , " former Polish and Yugoslav military personnel were not legally prisoners of war " . The Allied argument for retracting Geneva convention protection from the German soldiers was similar to that of Nazi Germany " vis à vis " Polish and Yugoslav soldiers ; using the " disappearance of the Third Reich to argue that the convention no longer operated - that POW status did not apply to the vast majority who had passed into captivity on and after May 5 " . The motive was twofold : both an unwillingness to follow the Geneva convention now that the threat of German reprisals against Allied POWs was gone , and also they were " to an extent unable to meet the high standards of the Geneva code " for the large number of captured Germans . Following the surrender of Italy to the Allies in September 1943 , German forces took around one million Italian military personnel prisoner . These personnel were designated " Italian military internees " and not granted the rights of POWs under the Geneva Conventions , as the German government claimed that they were not POWs as the two countries had not been at war . Approximately 600 , 000 of the captured Italians were subsequently transported to Germany and required to work as forced labourers in generally harsh conditions .