Erich Hartmann
German pilot Erich Hartmann scored numerous aerial victories and was considered to be one of the best flying aces of the war. He was just 18 when he started his military training in October 1940. He was assigned to Jagdgeschwader 52 in 1942 and fought on the Eastern front. When his unit was surrounded by American and Soviet forces at the end of the war, he commanded his unit to surrender.
They were sent to an open-air compound to await transfer to the Soviet Union. The conditions at the camp gradually deteriorated as the number of prisoners grew to surpass 50,000. It was so bad that American guards would turn a blind eye to prisoner escapes. In some cases, the Americans would even provide maps or supplies to escaping prisoners.
After the open-air camp, he was transferred to a POW prison where the Soviets realized that Hartmann could be of use to them. His success as a pilot had made him something of a hero in Germany and the Soviets wanted him to as a spy and to spread propaganda in East Germany. Hartmann refused. As punishment, he was placed in 10 days confinement in a 4-by-9-by-6-foot chamber. The Soviets realized that there was little they could do to Hartmann to cause him to betray his men, so they threatened to kidnap and kill his wife. He still refused to convert to communism, and he went on a hunger strike. After four days, the Soviets began force-feeding him.
On December 24, 1949, he was officially arrested and three days later sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was charged with a number of false war crimes as the Soviets continued to try and break him. He refused to confess to any crimes, and his sentence was increased to 25 years of hard labor. He refused to work and was placed in solitary confinement. The other prisoners revolted at Hartmann’s treatment and he was transferred to another camp where he spent 5 years in solitary confinement. In 1955, after more than 10 years in Soviet prison camps, a trade agreement between West Germany and the Soviet Union was reached which secured the release of 16,000 German military personnel including Erich Hartmann. He died in 1993 at the age of 71.