Post-war, thousands of Soviets POWs were shipped back to the USSR, along with many emigres who had never been Soviet citizens. This was done because of fears that the USSR would hang onto Anglo-American POWs who were in German POW camps now in Soviet hands: this is a good summary of what happened.

This exchange forms part of the plot in Anthony Burgess’ book Any Old Iron.

In the nothing is as simple as it seems category, how many of you heard of the Cap Arcona disaster?

The Cap Arcona was the largest of three ships the Nazis loaded with the inmates of a smaller concentration camp near Hamburg, intent on sailing out into the Baltic Sea and sinking them. But just when the ships left the harbour on 3 May, a British bombing raid commenced - believing Nazi soldiers are on board fleeing to Scandinavia, the ships were bombed and strafed with gunfire, sunk, killing 7,500 to 9,000 people, which is the second worst naval disaster ever (after the sinking of the refugee-filled but military-pained Wilhelm Gusloff by a Russian submarine a few months earlier).

While this incident is little known, even less known is the circumstance that connect it to the fire-bombing of Dresden: Churchill apparently thought that ‘Bomber Harris’ over-reached with that attack, and as a consequence, gave Fighter Command instead of Bomber Command the control over German skies. However, the latter had much worse aerial reconnaisance.