During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
,
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
engaged in a policy of deliberate maltreatment of
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
prisoners of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold priso ...
(POWs), in contrast to their general treatment of British and American POWs. This policy, which amounted to deliberately starving and working to death Soviet POWs, the bulk of whom were
Slavs
Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
, was grounded in
Nazi racial theory, which depicted Slavs as sub-humans (''
Untermenschen
''Untermensch'' (, ; plural: ''Untermenschen'') is a Nazi term for non-Aryan "inferior people" who were often referred to as "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Serbs, and later also Russians). The ...
'').
The policy resulted in some 3.3 to 3.5 million deaths.
[Peter Calvocoressi, Guy Wint, ''Total War'' — "The total number of prisoners taken by the German armies in the USSR was in the region of 5.7 million. Of these, the astounding number of 3.5 million or more had been lost by the middle of 1944 and the assumption must be that they were either deliberately killed or done to death by criminal negligence. Nearly two million of them died in camps and close on another million disappeared while in military custody either in the USSR or in rear areas; a further quarter of a million disappeared or died in transit between the front and destinations in the rear; another 473,000 died or were killed in military custody in Germany or Poland."
They add, "This slaughter of prisoners cannot be accounted for by the peculiar chaos of the war in the east. ... The true cause was the inhuman policy of the Nazis towards the Russians as a people and the acquiescence of army commanders in attitudes and conditions which amounted to a sentence of death on their prisoners."][Christian Streit: Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die Sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen, 1941–1945, Bonn: Dietz (3. Aufl., 1. Aufl. 1978), — "Between 22 June 1941 and the end of the war, roughly 5.7 million members of the Red Army fell into German hands. In January 1945, 930,000 were still in German camps. A million at most had been released, most of whom were so-called ‘volunteers’ (Hilfswillige) for (often compulsory) auxiliary service in the Wehrmacht. Another 500,000, as estimated by the Army High Command, had either fled or been liberated. The remaining 3,300,000 (57.5 percent of the total) had perished."][Nazi persecution of Soviet Prisoners of War](_blank)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — Soviets Viewed as Subhuman Enemies. Yet for Nazi Germany this attack was not an "ordinary" military operation. The war against the Soviet Union was a war of annihilation between German fascism and Soviet communism; a racial war between German "Aryans" and subhuman Slavs and Jews. From the very beginning this war of annihilation against the Soviet Union included the killing of prisoners of war (POWs) on a massive scale. In part, German officials excused their ill treatment and murder of Soviet POWs by pointing out that the Soviet Union was not a signatory to the Geneva Convention and its soldiers did not warrant the protection that the convention extended to prisoners of war. In reality, their reasons were more complex. German authorities viewed Soviet POWs as a particular threat, regarding them not only as Slavic subhumans but as part of the "Bolshevik menace" linked in Nazi ideology to the concept of a “Jewish conspiracy.”
During
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
, the
Axis
An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis
* Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinat ...
invasion of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent
German–Soviet War
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Sout ...
, millions of
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
(and other Soviet Armed Forces) prisoners of war were taken. Many were executed arbitrarily in the field by the German forces or handed over to the
SS to be shot, under the
Commissar Order
The Commissar Order (german: Kommissarbefehl) was an order issued by the German High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, OKW) on 6 June 1941 before Operation Barbarossa. Its official name was Guidelines for the Treatment of Political Commissars ...
. Most, however, died during the
death march
A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinguished in this way from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Convent ...
es from the front lines or under inhumane conditions in German
prisoner-of-war camp
A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured by a belligerent power in time of war.
There are significant differences among POW camps, internment camps, and military prisons. P ...
s and
concentration camps
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
.
Death toll
It is estimated that at least 3.3 million Soviet POWs died in Nazi custody, out of 5.7 million. This figure represents a total of 57% of all Soviet POWs and it may be contrasted with 8,300 out of 231,000 British and U.S. prisoners, or 3.6%. About 5% of the Soviet prisoners who died were Jews. The most deaths took place between June 1941 and January 1942, when the Germans killed an estimated 2.8 million Soviet POWs primarily through deliberate starvation,
exposure, and
summary execution
A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial. Executions as the result of summary justice (such as a drumhead court-martial) are sometimes include ...
. A million at most had been released, most of whom were so-called
'volunteers' (Hilfswillige) for (often compulsory) auxiliary service in the Wehrmacht, 500,000 had fled or were liberated, the remaining 3.3 million had perished as POWs.
[Christian Streit: Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die Sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen, 1941–1945, Bonn: Dietz (3. Aufl., 1. Aufl. 1978), — "Between 22 June 1941 and the end of the war, roughly 5.7 million members of the Red Army fell into German hands. In January 1945, 930,000 were still in German camps. A million at most had been released, most of whom were so-called ‘volunteers’ (Hilfswillige) for (often compulsory) auxiliary service in the Wehrmacht. Another 500,000, as estimated by the Army High Command, had either fled or been liberated. The remaining 3,300,000 (57.5 percent of the total) had perished."]
The figure of 3.3 million POW dead is based on German figures and analysis. Data published in Russia presents a different view of Soviet POW dead.
Viktor Zemskov estimated Soviet POW deaths at 2.3 million; he published statistics that put Soviet POW losses at 2,471,000 (5,734,000 were captured, 821,000 were released for German military service, 72,000 escaped and 2,371,000 liberated ). Of the 823,000 POWS released for service in the German military forces 212,400 were killed or missing, 436,600 were returned to the USSR and imprisoned and 180,000 remained in western countries after the war. Russian military historian
Grigori F. Krivosheev
Grigoriy Fedotovich Krivosheyev (russian: Григорий Федотович Кривошеев, 15 September 1929 – 29 April 2019) was a Russian military historian and a Colonel General of the Russian military. He is mostly known in the West, ...
maintained POW and MIA losses of the combat forces were actually 1.783 million, according to Krivosheev the higher figures of dead includes reservists not on active strength, civilians and military personnel who were captured during the course of the war.
By September 1941, the mortality rate among Soviet POWs was in the order of 1% per day.
[War against subhumans: comparisons between the German War against the Soviet Union and the American war against Japan, 1941–1945](_blank)
James Weingartner, 22 March 1996. According to the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hi ...
(USHMM), by the winter of 1941, "starvation and disease resulted in mass death of unimaginable proportions".
This deliberate starvation, despite food being available, led many desperate prisoners to resort to acts of
cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, b ...
,
was
Nazi policy, and was all in accordance with the
Hunger Plan
The Hunger Plan (german: der Hungerplan; der Backe-Plan) was a partially implemented plan developed by Nazi bureaucrats during World War II to seize food from the Soviet Union and give it to German soldiers and civilians. The plan entailed the gen ...
developed by the
Reich
''Reich'' (; ) is a German language, German noun whose meaning is analogous to the meaning of the English word "realm"; this is not to be confused with the German adjective "reich" which means "rich". The terms ' (literally the "realm of an emp ...
Minister of Food
Herbert Backe
Herbert Friedrich Wilhelm Backe (1 May 1896 – 6 April 1947) was a German politician and SS Senior group leader (SS-''Obergruppenführer'') in Nazi Germany who served as State Secretary and Minister in the Reich Ministry of Food and Agricult ...
. For the Germans, Soviet POWs were expendable: they consumed
calories
The calorie is a unit of energy. For historical reasons, two main definitions of "calorie" are in wide use. The large calorie, food calorie, or kilogram calorie was originally defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of on ...
needed by others and, unlike Western POWs, were considered to be
subhuman
''SubHuman'' is the sixth studio album by Recoil. Alan Wilder stated in a YouTube greeting that there would be a new album coming in spring or early summer 2007. On 23 April 2007, he released information regarding the album via Myspace and hi ...
.
Commissar Order
The Commissar Order (
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
: ''Kommissarbefehl'') was a written order given by the German High Command (
OKW) on 6 June 1941, prior to the beginning of
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
(German invasion of the Soviet Union). It demanded that any Soviet
political commissar identified among captured troops be shot immediately. Those prisoners who could be identified as "thoroughly
bolshevized or as active representatives of the Bolshevist ideology" were also to be executed.
General internment system for Soviet prisoners of war
![Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-187-0203-06A, Russland, Russische Kriegsgefangene](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-187-0203-06A%2C_Russland%2C_Russische_Kriegsgefangene.jpg)
In the summer and autumn of 1941, vast numbers of Soviet prisoners were captured in about a dozen
large encirclements. Due to their rapid advance into the Soviet Union and an anticipated quick victory, the Germans did not want to ship these prisoners to Germany. Under the administration of the
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...
, the prisoners were processed, guarded, forced-marched, or transported in open rail cars to locations mostly in the occupied Soviet Union, Germany, and occupied Poland. Much like comparable events, such as the
Pacific War
The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...
's
Bataan Death March
The Bataan Death March (Filipino: ''Martsa ng Kamatayan sa Bataan''; Spanish: ''Marcha de la muerte de Bataán'' ; Kapampangan: ''Martsa ning Kematayan quing Bataan''; Japanese: バターン死の行進, Hepburn: ''Batān Shi no Kōshin'') was ...
in 1942, the treatment of prisoners was brutal, without much in the way of supporting logistics.
Soviet prisoners of war were stripped of their supplies and clothing by poorly-equipped German troops when the cold weather set in; this resulted in death for the prisoners.
Most of the camps for Soviet POWs were simply open areas fenced off with barbed wire and
watchtower
A watchtower or watch tower is a type of fortification used in many parts of the world. It differs from a regular tower in that its primary use is military and from a turret in that it is usually a freestanding structure. Its main purpose is to ...
s with no inmate housing.
These meager conditions forced the crowded prisoners to live in holes they had dug for themselves, which were exposed to the elements. Beatings and other
abuse
Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of a thing, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices, crimes, or other t ...
by the guards were common, and prisoners were malnourished, often consuming only a few hundred kilocalories or less per day. Medical treatment was non-existent and an
International Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...
offer to help in 1941 was rejected by Hitler.
The Soviet government ignored offers of help from the
International Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...
as well as prisoner exchanges from the Axis forces.
Some of the Soviet POWs were also
experimented on. In one such case, Dr. Heinrich Berning from
Hamburg University starved prisoners to death as "famine experiments". In another instance, a group of prisoners at
Zhitomir
Zhytomyr ( uk, Жито́мир, translit=Zhytomyr ; russian: Жито́мир, Zhitomir ; pl, Żytomierz ; yi, זשיטאָמיר, Zhitomir; german: Schytomyr ) is a city in the north of the western half of Ukraine. It is the administrative ...
were shot using
dum-dum bullets.
[ ''(See Streim reference below for original source).'']
Prisoner-of-war camps
The camps established especially for Soviet POWs were called ''Russenlager'' ("Russian camp").
["Das "Sterbelager" von Hemer "Bekannt und gefürchtet" bei sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen]
The
Allied
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
regulars kept by Germany were usually treated in accordance with the
1929 Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War. Although the Soviet Union was not a signatory, Germany was, and Article 82 of the Convention required signatories to treat all captured enemy soldiers "as between the belligerents who are parties thereto". ''Russenlager'' conditions were often even worse than those commonly experienced by prisoners in regular
concentration camps
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
. Such camps included:
*
Oflag IV-C
Oflag IV-C, often referred to by its location at Colditz Castle, overlooking Colditz, Saxony, was one of the most noted German Army prisoner-of-war camps for captured enemy officers during World War II; ''Oflag'' is a shortening of ''Offiziersl ...
: Allied officers from Western countries at
Colditz Castle
Castle Colditz (or ''Schloss Colditz'' in German) is a Renaissance castle in the town of Colditz near Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz in the state of Saxony in Germany. The castle is between the towns of Hartha and Grimma on a hill spur over the r ...
were forbidden to share Red Cross packages with starving Soviet prisoners.
[Soviet Prisoners of War: Forgotten Nazi Victims of World War II](_blank)
By Jonathan North, TheHistoryNet
*
Oflag XIII-D: In July 1941 a new compound was set up in Oflag XIII-A for higher ranking Soviet military officers captured during Operation Barbarossa. It was closed in April 1942 and the surviving officers (many had died during the winter due to an epidemic) were transferred to other camps.
*
Stalag 324: 28,444 Soviet POWs were held at this camp near
Grady
*
Stalag 328: 41,012 Soviet POWs were held at this camp near
Lviv
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...
*
Stalag 350/Z: According to a 1944 Soviet report, 43,000 captured Red Army personnel were either killed or died from diseases and starvation at this camp near
Riga
Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...
.
The prisoners were used for the construction of
Salaspils concentration camp
Salaspils camp was established at the end of 1941 at a point southeast of Riga (Latvia), in Salaspils. The Nazi bureaucracy drew distinctions between different types of camps. Officially, it was the Salaspils Police Prison and Re-Education Throu ...
in October 1941.
*
Stalag 359: An epidemic of
dysentery
Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications ...
led to the execution of some 6,000 Red Army prisoners between 21–28 September 1941 (3,261 of them on the first day), conducted by the
Police Battalion 306 of the
Ordnungspolizei
The ''Ordnungspolizei'' (), abbreviated ''Orpo'', meaning "Order Police", were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo organisation was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdiction w ...
.
By mid-1942, about 20,000 Soviet POWs had perished there from hunger, disease and executions. The camp was then redesignated as the
Poniatowa concentration camp
Poniatowa concentration camp in the town of Poniatowa in occupied Poland, west of Lublin, was established by the '' SS'' in the latter half of 1941, initially to hold Soviet prisoners of war following Operation Barbarossa. By , about 20,000 Sov ...
for Jews (the main site of the
Operation Harvest Festival
Operation Harvest Festival (german: Aktion Erntefest) was the murder of up to 43,000 Jews at the Majdanek, Poniatowa and Trawniki concentration camps by the SS, the Order Police battalions, and the Ukrainian ''Sonderdienst'' on 3–4 Nov ...
massacre in 1943).
*
Stalag I-B
Stalag I-B Hohenstein was a German World War II prisoner-of-war camp located west of Hohenstein, East Prussia (now Olsztynek, Poland).
The camp was partially located on the grounds of the Tannenberg Memorial and initially included a set of woode ...
: Tens of thousands of prisoners died in the camp, the vast majority of them Soviets.
*
Stalag II-B
Stalag II-B was a German World War II prisoner-of-war camp situated west of the town of Hammerstein, Pomerania (now Czarne, Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland) on the north side of the railway line. It housed Polish, French, Belgian, Serbian, Dutch ...
: The construction of the second camp, Lager-Ost, started in June 1941 to accommodate the huge numbers of Soviet prisoners taken in Operation Barbarossa. In November 1941 a
typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several ...
epidemic broke out in the Lager-Ost which went on until March 1942. A total of 38,383 Soviet POWs were held Stalag II B.
*
Stalag III-A
Stalag III-A was a German World War II prisoner-of-war camp at Luckenwalde, Brandenburg, south of Berlin.
Camp history
Planning for the camp commenced before the invasion of Poland. It was designed to hold 10,000 men, was the largest in the 3rd ...
: Mortality rates of Soviet prisoners were extremely high compared to the POWs of other nations, including around 2,000-2,500 Soviets who died in a
typhus
Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure.
...
outbreak during the winter of 1941-42. While non-Soviet prisoners were buried with military honours in individual graves at the camp cemetery, Soviet dead were buried anonymously in mass graves.
*
Stalag III-C
Stalag III-C was a German Army World War II prisoner-of-war camp for Allied soldiers. It was located on a plain near the village of Alt Drewitz bei Küstrin then located in the Neumark of the province of Brandenburg (now Drzewice, Kostrzyn nad O ...
: When Soviet prisoners captured during Operation Barbarossa arrived in July 1941 they were held in separate zones and suffered severe conditions and disease. The majority of these prisoners (up to 12,000) were killed, starved to death or died from disease.
*
Stalag IV-A
Stalag IV-A Elsterhorst was a World War II German Army prisoner-of-war camp located south of the village of Elsterhorst (now Nardt), near Hoyerswerda in Saxony, north-east of Dresden (this should not however be confused with Stalag IV-A Hohnstei ...
: In June–September 1941 Soviet prisoners from Operation Barbarossa were placed in another camp. Conditions were appalling, and starvation, epidemics and ill-treatment took a heavy toll of lives;
the dead Soviet prisoners were buried in mass graves.
*
Stalag IV-B
Stalag IV-B was one of the largest prisoner-of-war camps in Germany during World War II. Stalag is an abbreviation of the German ''Stammlager'' ("Main Camp"). It was located north-east of the town of Mühlberg in the Prussian Province of Sa ...
: In July 1941 about 11,000 Soviet soldiers, and some officers, arrived. By April 1942 only 3,279 remained; the rest had died from
malnutrition
Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is "a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients" which adversely affects the body's tissues a ...
and a typhus epidemic caused by the deplorable sanitary conditions. Their bodies were buried in mass graves. After April 1942 more Soviet prisoners arrived and died just as rapidly. At the end of 1942, 10,000 reasonably healthy Soviet prisoners were transferred to work in Belgian coal mines; the rest, suffering from
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
, continued to die at the rate of 10–20 per day.
*
Stalag IV-H (Stalag 304): In 1942 at least 1,000 prisoners were "weeded-out" by the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
and shot.
*
Stalag V-A: During 1941–1942 many Soviet POWs arrived but they were kept in separate enclosures and received much harsher treatment than the other prisoners. Thousands of them died of malnutrition and disease.
*
Stalag VI-C: Over 2,000 Soviet prisoners from Operation Barbarossa arrived in the summer of 1941. Conditions were appalling and starvation, epidemics and ill-treatment took a heavy toll of lives. The dead were buried in mass graves.
*
Stalag VI-K (Stalag 326): Between 40,000 and 60,000 prisoners died, mostly buried in three mass graves. A Soviet war cemetery is still in existence, containing about 200 named graves.
*
Stalag VII-A
Stalag VII-A (in full: ''Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschafts-Stammlager VII-A'') was the largest prisoner-of-war camp in Nazi Germany during World War II, located just north of the town of Moosburg in southern Bavaria. The camp covered an area of . It ser ...
: During five years about 1,000 prisoners died at the camp, over 800 of them Soviets (mostly officers). At the end of the war there were still 27 Soviet Army generals in the camp who had survived the mistreatment that they, like all Soviet prisoners, had been subjected to. The new prisoners were inspected upon arrival by local
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
Gestapo agents; some 484 were found to be "undesirable" and immediately sent to concentration camps and murdered.
*
Stalag VIII-C: 29,436 prisoners were held at this camp. Conditions were appalling and starvation, epidemics and ill-treatment took a heavy toll of lives. By early 1942 the survivors had been transferred to other camps.
*
Stalag VIII-E (Stalag VIII-C/Z): The first Soviets arrived in July 1941. A total of 57,545 Soviet POWs were held at the camp.
*
Stalag VIII-F (Stalag 318 / Stalag 344): 108,471 Soviet POWs were held at this camp near
Lamsdorf.
*
Stalag X-B
*
Stalag XI-D (Stalag 321): In July 1941, over 10,000 Soviet army officers were imprisoned in a new sub-camp of Stalag XI-B. Thousands of them died in the winter of 1941-42 as the result of a typhoid fever epidemic.
*
Stalag XI-C Stalag XI-C Bergen-Belsen, initially called Stalag 311, was a German Army prisoner-of-war camp located near the town of Bergen in Lower Saxony.
Timeline
* May 1940: The camp was built to house Belgian and French enlisted men captured in the Battle ...
: In July 1941, about 20,000 Soviet prisoners captured during Operation Barbarossa arrived; they were housed in the open while huts were being built. Some 14,000 POWs died during the winter of 1941–42. In late 1943 the POW camp was closed and the entire facility became
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concent ...
.
"Weeding-out" program
In the "weeding-out actions" (''Aussonderungsaktionen'') of 1941–42, the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
further identified
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
and state officials, commissars, academic
scholar
A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researche ...
s, Jews and other "undesirable" or "dangerous" individuals who had survived the Commissar Order selections, and transferred them to concentration camps, where they were summarily executed.
At
Stalag VII-A
Stalag VII-A (in full: ''Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschafts-Stammlager VII-A'') was the largest prisoner-of-war camp in Nazi Germany during World War II, located just north of the town of Moosburg in southern Bavaria. The camp covered an area of . It ser ...
at
Moosburg
Moosburg an der Isar (Central Bavarian: ''Mooschbuag on da Isa'') is a town in the ''Landkreis'' Freising of Bavaria, Germany.
The oldest town between Regensburg and Italy, it lies on the river Isar at an altitude of 421 m (1381 ft). ...
, Major Karl Meinel objected to these executions, but the SS (including
Karl von Eberstein
Friedrich Karl Freiherr von Eberstein (14 January 1894 – 10 February 1979) was a member of the German nobility, early member of the Nazi Party, the SA, and the SS (introducing Reinhard Heydrich to Heinrich Himmler in July 1931). He was electe ...
) intervened, Meinel was
demoted to reserve, and the killing continued.
In all, between June 1941 and May 1944 about 10% of all Soviet POWs were turned over to the
SS-Totenkopfverbände
''SS-Totenkopfverbände'' (SS-TV; ) was the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps for Nazi Germany, among similar duties. While the ''Totenkopf'' was the univer ...
concentration camp organization or the
Einsatzgruppen
(, ; also ' task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the im ...
death squads and murdered.
Einsatzgruppen killings included the
Babi Yar massacres where Soviet POWs were among 70,000–120,000 people executed between 1941 and 1943 and the
Ponary massacre
, location = Paneriai (Ponary), Vilnius (Wilno), Reichskommissariat Ostland
, coordinates =
, date = July 1941 – August 1944
, incident_type = Shootings by automatic and semi-automatic weapons,
genocide
, perpetrators ...
that included the execution of some 7,500 Soviet POWs in 1941 (among about 100,000 murdered there between 1941 and 1944).
Soviet prisoners of war in German concentration and extermination camps
![Bundesarchiv Bild 192-208, KZ Mauthausen, Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Bundesarchiv_Bild_192-208%2C_KZ_Mauthausen%2C_Sowjetische_Kriegsgefangene.jpg)
Between 140,000 and 500,000 Soviet prisoners of war died or were executed in Nazi concentration camps.
[The treatment of Soviet POWs: Starvation, disease, and shootings, June 1941 – January 1942](_blank)
USHMM. Most of those executed were killed by
shooting
Shooting is the act or process of discharging a projectile from a ranged weapon (such as a gun, bow, crossbow, slingshot, or blowpipe). Even the acts of launching flame, artillery, darts, harpoons, grenades, rockets, and guided missiles can ...
, though some were
gassed.
*
Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp: about 15,000 Soviet POWs who were brought to Auschwitz I for work, only 92 remained alive at the last
roll call
''Roll Call'' is a newspaper and website published in Washington, D.C., United States, when the United States Congress is in session, reporting news of legislative and political maneuverings on Capitol Hill, as well as political coverage of c ...
. About 3,000 more were killed by being shot or gassed immediately after arriving. Out of the first 10,000 brought to work in 1941, 9,000 died in the first five months. A group of about 600 Soviet prisoners were gassed in the first
Zyklon-B experiments on 3 September 1941; in December 1941, a further 900 Soviet POWs were murdered by means of gas. In March 1941, the SS chief
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
ordered the construction of a large camp for 100,000 Soviet POWs at
Birkenau
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
, in close proximity to the main camp. Most of the Soviet prisoners were dead by the time Birkenau was reclassified as the Auschwitz II concentration camp in March 1942.
*
Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...
: 8,483 Soviet POWs were selected in 1941–1942 by three
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...
Gestapo officers and sent to the camp for immediate murder by a gunshot to the back of the neck, the infamous ''Genickschuss'' using a
purpose-built facility.
*
Chełmno extermination camp
, known for =
, location = Near Chełmno nad Nerem, ''Reichsgau Wartheland'' (German-occupied Poland)
, built by =
, operated by =
, commandant = Herbert Lange, Christian Wirth
, original use =
, construction =
, in operation ...
: The victims murdered at the Chełmno killing centre included several hundred Poles and Soviet POWs.
*
Dachau concentration camp
,
, commandant = List of commandants
, known for =
, location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany
, built by = Germany
, operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS)
, original use = Political prison
, construction ...
: Over 4,000 Soviet POWs were executed by a
firing squad
Execution by firing squad, in the past sometimes called fusillading (from the French ''fusil'', rifle), is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war. Some reasons for its use are that firearms are us ...
at
Hebertshausen Shooting Range near Dachau. As of June 2020, only 816 names of those murdered in Dachau are known to public.
*
Flossenbürg concentration camp
Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Unlike other concentration camps, it was located in a remote area, in the Fichtel Mountains of Bavaria, adjacent to the town of F ...
: More than 1,000 Soviet POWs had been executed in Flossenbürg by the end of 1941; executions continued sporadically up to 1944. The POWs at one of the sub-camps staged a failed uprising and mass escape attempt on 1 May 1944. The SS also established a special camp for 2,000 Soviet POWs within Flossenbürg itself.
*
Gross-Rosen concentration camp
, known for =
, location =
, built by =
, operated by =
, commandant =
, original use =
, construction =
, in operation = Summer of 1940 – 14 February 1945
, gas cham ...
: 65,000 Soviet POWs were killed by feeding them only a thin soup of grass, water, and salt for six months.
In October 1941 the SS transferred about 3,000 Soviet POWs to Gross-Rosen for execution by shooting.
*
Hinzert concentration camp
Hinzert was a concentration camp in Nazi Germany, in what is now Rhineland-Palatinate, from the border with Luxembourg.
Between 1939 and 1945, 13,600 political prisoners between the ages of 13 and 80 were imprisoned at Hinzert. Many were in tr ...
: A group of 70 POWs were told that they would undergo a medical examination, but instead were injected with
potassium cyanide
Potassium cyanide is a compound with the formula KCN. This colorless crystalline salt, similar in appearance to sugar, is highly soluble in water. Most KCN is used in gold mining, organic synthesis, and electroplating. Smaller applications includ ...
, a deadly poison.
*
Majdanek concentration camp
Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, a ...
: The first transport directed toward Majdanek consisted of 5,000 Soviet POWs arriving in the latter half of 1941, they soon died of starvation and exposure. Executions were also conducted there by the shooting of prisoners in trenches.
A total of 86 of the few 127 prisoners still remaining the following year attempted a mass escape on 14 July 1942, 84 successfully rushed a lightly defended section of fence and escaped into the woods and evaded recapture. In retaliation the 41 Soviet POWs who did not participate were summarily executed.
*
Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp
Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 further ...
: Following the outbreak of the Soviet–German War the camps started to receive a large number of Soviet POWs; most of them were kept in huts separated from the rest of the camp. Soviet POWs were a major part of the first groups to be gassed in the newly built gas chamber in early 1942; at least 2,843 of them were murdered in the camp. According to the USHMM, "so many POWs were shot that the local population complained that their water supply had been contaminated. The rivers and streams near the camp ran red with blood."
*
Neuengamme concentration camp
Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in Northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, th ...
: According to the testimony of Wilhelm Bahr, an ex-medical orderly, during the trial against
Bruno Tesch
Bruno Emil Tesch (14 August 1890 – 16 May 1946) was a German chemist and entrepreneur. Together with Gerhard Peters and Walter Heerdt, he invented the insecticide Zyklon B. He was the owner of Tesch & Stabenow (called ''Testa''), a pest contro ...
, 200 Soviet POWs were gassed by
prussic acid
Hydrogen cyanide, sometimes called prussic acid, is a chemical compound with the formula HCN and structure . It is a colorless, extremely poisonous, and flammable liquid that boils slightly above room temperature, at . HCN is produced on an in ...
in 1942.
*
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners ...
: Soviet POWs were victims of the largest part of the executions that took place. Thousands of them were murdered immediately after arriving at the camp, including 9,090 executed between 31 August and 2 October 1941.
Among those who died there was Lt.
Yakov Dzhugashvili
Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili, ', russian:
Яков Иосифович Джугашвили, ' ( – 14 April 1943) was the eldest child of Joseph Stalin, the son of Stalin's first wife, Kato Svanidze, who died nine months after his birth. Hi ...
, the elder son of
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
(either by suicide or shot).
*
Sobibór extermination camp
Sobibor (, Polish: ) was an extermination camp built and operated by Nazi Germany as part of Operation Reinhard. It was located in the forest near the village of Żłobek Duży in the General Government region of German-occupied Poland.
As a ...
: Soviet POWs of Jewish ethnicity were among hundreds of thousands people gassed at Sobibór. A group of captive Soviet officers led by 2nd Lt.
Alexander Pechersky
Alexander 'Sasha' Pechersky (russian: Алекса́ндр Аро́нович Пече́рский; 22 February 1909 – 19 January 1990) was one of the organizers, and the leader, of the most successful uprising and mass-escape of Jews from a Naz ...
organized a successful mass breakout from Sobibor, after which the SS closed and dismantled the camp.
Soviet prisoners of war in German slave labour system
![Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-137-1010-21A, Weißrussland, Minsk, Aufräumungsarbeiten](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-137-1010-21A%2C_Wei%C3%9Frussland%2C_Minsk%2C_Aufr%C3%A4umungsarbeiten.jpg)
In January 1942, Hitler authorized better treatment of Soviet POWs because the war had bogged down, and German leaders decided to use prisoners for forced labour on a large scale.
[Forced labor: Soviet POWs January 1942 through May 1945](_blank)
USHMM
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hist ...
Their number increased from barely 150,000 in 1942, to the peak of 631,000 in the summer of 1944. Many were dispatched to the coal mines (between 1 July and 10 November 1943, 27,638 Soviet POWs died in the
Ruhr Area
The Ruhr ( ; german: Ruhrgebiet , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr area, sometimes Ruhr district, Ruhr region, or Ruhr valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km ...
alone), while others were sent to
Krupp
The Krupp family (see pronunciation), a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, is notable for its production of steel, artillery, ammunition and other armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG (Friedrich Krup ...
,
Daimler-Benz
The Mercedes-Benz Group Aktiengesellschaft, AG (previously named Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler and Daimler) is a German Multinational corporation, multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It ...
or other companies,
where they provided labour while often being slowly
worked to death. The largest "employers" of 1944 were mining (160,000), agriculture (138,000) and the metal industry (131,000). No less than 200,000 prisoners died during forced labour.
The
Organisation Todt
Organisation Todt (OT; ) was a civil and military engineering organisation in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, named for its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior Nazi. The organisation was responsible for a huge range of engineering projec ...
was a
civil
Civil may refer to:
*Civic virtue, or civility
*Civil action, or lawsuit
* Civil affairs
*Civil and political rights
*Civil disobedience
*Civil engineering
*Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism
*Civilian, someone not a membe ...
and
military engineer
Military engineering is loosely defined as the art, science, and practice of designing and building military works and maintaining lines of military transport and military communications. Military engineers are also responsible for logistics b ...
ing group in Germany eponymously named for its founder
Fritz Todt
Fritz Todt (; 4 September 1891 – 8 February 1942) was a German construction engineer and senior Nazi who rose from the position of Inspector General for German Roadways, in which he directed the construction of the German autobahns (''Reichsa ...
. The organisation was responsible for a wide range of engineering projects both in pre-World War II Germany, and in Germany itself and
occupied territories
Military occupation, also known as belligerent occupation or simply occupation, is the effective military control by a ruling power over a territory that is outside of that power's sovereign territory.Eyāl Benveniśtî. The international law ...
from France to the Soviet Union during the war, and became notorious for using
forced labour
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...
. Most of the so-called "volunteer" Soviet POW workers were consumed by the Organisation Todt.
The period from 1942 until the end of the war had approximately 1.4 million labourers in the service of the Organisation Todt. Overall, 1% were Germans rejected from military service and 1.5% were concentration camp prisoners; the rest were prisoners of war and compulsory labourers from occupied countries. All non-Germans were effectively treated as slaves and many did not survive the work or the war.
Repatriation and after the war
Even during the war, servicemen who had escaped from the encirclement and who crossed the front line from among the civilian population, after filtration, were sent mainly to replenish the rear units, in particular labor armies. These armies built military-industrial facilities, in particular the Kuibyshev Aviation Plant, etc.
To check "former Red Army servicemen who were in captivity and surrounded by the enemy," a network of testing and filtration camps was created by the decree of the State Defense Committee of 27 December 1941. In 1942, in addition to the previously existing Yuzhsky special camp, 22 more camps were created in the Vologda, Tambov, Ryazan, Kursk, Voronezh and other regions. In practice, these special camps were military high security prisons, and for prisoners, who in the overwhelming majority did not commit any crimes.
In 1944, the flow of prisoners of war and repatriated returning to the Soviet Union increased sharply. In the summer of this year, a new system of filtering and screening by the state security authorities of all returnees was developed and then introduced.
In the spring and summer of 1945, a large number of repatriates accumulated at check-filtration and collection-transfer points in Germany and other European countries, several times exceeding the throughput of these points.
The Soviet and Russian military historian G.F.Krivosheev indicates the following figures based on the data of the NKVD: out of 1,836,562 soldiers who returned home from captivity, 233,400 people were convicted in connection with the accusation of cooperation with the enemy and were serving sentences in the
GULAG
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
system. Most of them were released quickly after routine processing.
During the war, servicemen released from captivity in most cases, after a short check, were restored to military service, moreover, enlisted and non-commissioned personnel mainly in ordinary military units, and officers, as a rule, were deprived of their officer ranks, and from them officer assault (penalty) battalions were formed ... In the post-war period, the released officers were sent to the NKVD camps and spare parts of the Red Army Glavupraform for a more thorough check.
After the war, the privates and sergeants released from captivity, who did not serve in the German army or traitorous formations, were divided into two large groups according to age - demobilized and non-demobilized age. In 1945, after the dismissal from the army to the reserve of the Red Army men of those ages who were subject to the demobilization order, ordinary and non-commissioned prisoners of war of the corresponding ages were also released to their homes. Prisoners of war of the rank and file and non-demobilized ages, in accordance with a special decree of the State Defense Committee of 18 August 1945, were sent to workers' battalions to work in industry and restore facilities destroyed during the war.
By the directive of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR of 12 July 1946, the workers' battalions were disbanded, and the term "transferred to permanent cadres of industry" was applied to those enrolled in them. They had no right to change jobs and return to their homeland even after their peers were demobilized from the army.
В. Земсков. Репатриация перемещённых советских граждан
/ref>
In 1956, a massive review of the cases of convicted former prisoners of war took place. At the initiative of Georgy Zhukov
Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov ( rus, Георгий Константинович Жуков, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj kənstɐnʲˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ ˈʐukəf, a=Ru-Георгий_Константинович_Жуков.ogg; 1 December 1896 – ...
, Minister of Justice Konstantin Gorshenin and Attorney General Roman Rudenko
Roman Andreyevich Rudenko (russian: Рома́н Андре́евич Руде́нко, – January 23, 1981) was a Soviet lawyer and statesman.
Procurator-General of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1944 to 1953, Rudenko became ...
issued a joint decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the USSR Council of Ministers on 29 June 1956 "On elimination of the consequences of gross violations of the law in respect of former prisoners of war and their families". After that, prosecutorial protests began to be introduced against the sentences to Soviet prisoners of war. As a result of consideration of the protests of the military prosecutor's office made in the second half of 1956, the courts terminated cases with full rehabilitation against 253 convicts, and another 13 convicts changed their sentences with retraining.[''Асташкин Д., Епифанов А.'' Холодная осень пятьдесят пятого // Историк. — 2020. — № 9 (69). — С. 68.] For example, on 11 December 1956, the plenum of the USSR Supreme Court terminated the criminal case against the former prisoner of war P. Okhotin - for lack of corpus delicti. When the case was reconsidered, it turned out that Okhotin, who performed the duties of a cook in a German camp, became the victim of a slander in beating prisoners of war who disturbed the order in the kitchen (because of this slander, on 16 July 1948, he was sentenced by the tribunal of the Leningrad Military District to 25 years in forced labor camps). On 20 September 1956, a decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet extended the amnesty decree of 17 September 1955 to former Soviet servicemen convicted of aiding the enemy. For former prisoners of war, the punishment was reduced to actually served and they were subject to release. The cases of the deceased former prisoners of war were not checked.
See also
*Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of wa ...
*
*German war crimes
The governments of the German Empire and Nazi Germany (under Adolf Hitler) ordered, organized and condoned a substantial number of war crimes, first in the Herero and Namaqua genocide and then in the First and Second World Wars. The most notable ...
*War crimes of the Wehrmacht
During World War II, the German combined armed forces ( ''Heer'', ''Kriegsmarine'' and ''Luftwaffe'') committed systematic war crimes, including massacres, mass rape, looting, the exploitation of forced labor, the murder of three million Sov ...
*Myth of the clean Wehrmacht
The myth of the clean ''Wehrmacht'' is the negationist notion that the regular German armed forces (the ''Wehrmacht'') were not involved in the Holocaust or other war crimes during World War II. The myth, heavily promoted by German authors ...
*Commissar Order
The Commissar Order (german: Kommissarbefehl) was an order issued by the German High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, OKW) on 6 June 1941 before Operation Barbarossa. Its official name was Guidelines for the Treatment of Political Commissars ...
* Rusthof cemetery
*Severity Order
The Severity Order or Reichenau Order was the name given to an order promulgated within the German Sixth Army on the Eastern Front during World War II by ''Generalfeldmarschall'' Walter von Reichenau on 10 October 1941.
Text of the order
Th ...
*Operation Zeppelin (espionage plan) Operation Zeppelin (german: Unternehmen Zeppelin) was a top secret German plan to recruit Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) for espionage and sabotage operations behind the Russian front line during World War II. Active from mid-1942 to the end of th ...
References
Literature
*
*'' Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin'' by Timothy Snyder
Timothy David Snyder (born August 18, 1969) is an American historian specializing in the modern history of Central and Eastern Europe. He is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute f ...
*''Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die Sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen, 1941–1945'' by Christian Streit
*''The Policies of Genocide: Jews and Soviet Prisoners of War in Nazi Germany'' by Gerhard Hirschfeld
Gerhard Hirschfeld (born 19 September 1946 in Plettenberg, Germany) is a German historian and author. He was director (between 1989-2011) of the Stuttgart-based Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte / Library of Contemporary History, and has been a pr ...
and Wolfgang J. Mommsen
Wolfgang Justin Mommsen (; 5 November 1930 – 11 August 2004) was a German historian. He was the twin brother of historian Hans Mommsen.
Biography
Wolfgang Mommsen was born in Marburg, the son of the historian Wilhelm Mommsen and great-grands ...
*
External links
Nazi persecution of Soviet Prisoners of War
at the Holocaust Encyclopedia
The ''Holocaust Encyclopedia'' is an online encyclopedia, published by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, offering detailed information about The Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European ...
Images tagged with "Soviet POW"
from Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...
Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene
Testimonies concerning Soviet POWs in German captivity - 'Chronicles of Terror' collection
{{Army Group Rear Area (Wehrmacht)
POW
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of war ...
POW
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of war ...
The Holocaust
Anti-Russian sentiment
Soviet prisoners of war
Soviet casualties of World War II
*Soviet
Nazi war crimes in Russia