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Unlike the United States Army, the German Wehrmacht had a long standing professional officer corps that had experience going back to the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. While many American career officers had seen action in World War I, the vast majority of Americans entered combat for the first time.

Hundreds of thousands of German soldiers were captured during the war. Their fate depended on whether the Red Army or the British or Americans took their armistice. Prisoners of the Western Allies had a much better chance of survival.