Hidden presences: the role of next-of-kin in shaping the context and experience of POW captivity

Abstract

This article explores the role next-of-kin played in framing discussion over the treatment of military prisoners during the era of the two world wars. Prisoners’ next-of-kin came to assume an influential position during the First World War, and this was reflected in the 1929 POW Convention, which deliberately anticipated their involvement in shaping public debate and government policy in future wars. These assumptions proved faulty; the Second World War saw a sharp decline in the influence of next-of-kin, and, as a consequence, the updated convention of 1949 looked to other mechanisms, notably the neutral inspection regime, to hold governments to their humanitarian obligations towards captured enemy combatants.