[Lonesome in Massachussets]

My best friend's father growing up was with Patton's Third Army during the Bulge. He claims that after Malmedy they never took any SS prisoners for the duration of the war. He also claims that when a German surrendered with an empty clip he was given a three step head start to run and shot in the back.

There is some independent corroboration. General Omar Bradley said, at one point, that he was sick and tired of reports of surrendering German snipers. This would seem to be an implicit order to shoot surrendering Germans, making him a war criminal. There is also the story of the American troops who shot a black uniformed railroad worker in Remagen who was trying to surrender himself and a bunch of other civilians holed up in a tunnel. When the Americans were asked why they shot him, they replied that they thought he was SS.

[Jonah Johansen]

“According to my very wise grandfather,The rules made by the Geneva Convention were for the lawyers and elites, not for those ACTUALLY fighting the war.”

Then, Please explain the 90%+ survival rate of Allied air crews shot down over Germany and German aircrews shot down over England.

Given the large number of civilians killed strategic bombing the either side could easily have justified not taking these air crews prisoner.

From what I have read, the Geneva convention was more or less followed on the Western Front in Europe and rarely followed on the Eastern Front or in the Pacific.
With large percentages of both allied and German POWs taken on the Western front,treated well and surviving the war.