Same thing with the US. German POW's were treated better, and given better living conditions than Japanese citizens in internment camps.

There was a horrible incident at the end of the war in Europe when the entire German army surrendered, and the ability to contain them as well as feed them became a clusterfuck, and many suffered and died as a result. During the height of the war, there were German soldiers who risked life and limb to go out of their way and find US, British, Canadian, etc. forces. There was such a bitter hatred between Russians and Germans, because not only of the brutality on the Eastern Front, but because Germans treated many Russian POWs like Jews, Gypsies, etc. So when Germans surrendered to the Russians, they were sent off to gulags to freeze and starve.

This is not to exonerate or condemn any side, because atrocities happened on all sides. The war was so brutal, people began to see the enemy as animals. Every fellow soldier that was killed or maimed by the enemy served as fuel to further dehumanize the enemy. For one example the war in the Pacific, while the battles did not have nearly as many deaths as say, Stalingrad, very few Japanese soldiers surrendered. They would often feign surrendering, and then detonate explosives when Marines/Army approached. To surrender was a worse fate than to die, because there was nothing more dishonorable (even if you were wounded) and it would bring great shame and disgrace to the Japanese soldier's family. The fighting was tooth and nail, often close quarters with Japanese doing suicide charges towards the enemy. Bayonets affixed, hand to hand combat, and then pull the pin on a grenade if you were wounded and try to kill as many of the enemy as possible. It should have been the war to end all wars.