“How we treat their POWs was reflected in how they would treat ours.”
Hermann Goring had the same idea.
Captured allied airmen were kept in camps run by the Luftwaffe. Goring knew the English had more German pilots captivate than he had allied pilots.
He had the Luftwaffe camps run in accordance with the Hague and Geneva conventions.
If you had to be a prisoner of the Germans, you wanted to pull your time in a Luftwaffe prison.
Sometimes the Germans went to unusual lengths for downed allied pilots.
Douglas Bader was unusual in that he had lost both legs in a crash while doing aerobatics. He was discharged from the RAF in 1931 but when tensions started up in the late 30’s he was cleared to fly with prosthetic legs.
When he was shot down on August 9th, 1941 he lost one of his prosthetics bailing out.
The Germans got word to the British that Bader had been captured but was short one leg. Hermann Goring personally personally signed off on a plan to have the RAF drop a replacement leg for Bader. The RAF successfully performed Operation Leg on August 19, 1941.
If the Germans had known how much trouble Bader would be they might not have bothered. Bader was such a prolific escapee that he ended the war in Colditz Castle where the worst offenders were kept.
Especially Stalag 13. ;)