Stalag XIII-D Nürnberg Langwasser was a German Army

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 opposing ...

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. ...

built on what had been the

Nazi party rally grounds The Nazi party rally grounds (german: Reichsparteitagsgelände, literally: ''Reich Party Congress Grounds'') covered about 11 square kilometres in the southeast of Nuremberg, Germany. Six Nazi party rallies were held there between 1933 and 1938 ...

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

, northern

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

Camp history

In September 1939 an internment camp for enemy civilians was created within the buildings of the Sturmabteilung camp at the rally grounds. Within a couple of months, the civilians were moved out and prisoners from the

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

arrived. From May 1940, after the

invasion of Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

and the Battle of France, prisoners arrived in large numbers, until they totalled 150,000 from all occupied countries, except

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

. British prisoners were held in separate camps all over Germany. Part of the facilities were used as Oflag XIII-A for officers. In this camp during August 1940, prisoners of war celebrated a "special Olympics" called International Prisoner-of-War Olympic Games where prisoners of Belgium, France, Great Britain, Norway, Poland, Russia and Yugoslavia took part. In August 1940 most enlisted men were shipped to other camps: Stalag XIII-A,

Stalag XIII-B In Germany, stalag (; ) was a term used for prisoner-of-war camps. Stalag is a contraction of "Stammlager", itself short for ''Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschaftsstammlager'', a literal translation of which is "War-prisoner" (i.e. POW) "enlisted" "ma ...

and

Stalag XIII-C Stalag XIII-C was a German Army World War II prisoner-of-war camp ('' Stammlager'') built on what had been the training camp at Hammelburg, Lower Franconia, Bavaria, Germany. Camp history Hammelburg was a large German Army training camp, set up ...

. Only those remained who were already employed in local industry and were housed in individual

Arbeitskommando ''Arbeitslager'' () is a German language word which means labor camp. Under Nazism, the German government (and its private-sector, Axis, and collaborator partners) used forced labor extensively, starting in the 1930s but most especially duri ...

s. In June 1941 the massive influx of

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

prisoners from

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 ...

began. In August 1943 the camp was severely damaged during an Allied air-raid. 23 wooden huts were burnt down. Miraculously only two

prisoners were killed in the camp. However, in this and subsequent bombing attacks, many prisoners were killed in individual Arbeitskommandos. In late 1944/early 1945 the camp population grew enormously with the arrival of prisoners evacuated from camps in the east in front of the advance of the

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, afte ...

. These included many Americans and British airmen from Stalag Luft III. On 12 April 1945 large numbers were marched to

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 ...

, and on 16 April the camp was liberated by advance elements of the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

Post-War

After the war, former SS military personnel were held in Stalag XIII-D. It imprisoned 15,000 SS members. In 1946 there was an attempt to kill the SS prisoners, apparently by

Abba Kovner Abba Kovner ( he, אבא קובנר; 14 March 1918 – 25 September 1987) was a Polish Israeli poet, writer and partisan leader. In the Vilna Ghetto, his manifesto was the first time that a target of the Holocaust identified the German plan to ...

's Jewish revenge organisation

Nakam Nakam ( he, נקם, 'Revenge') was a paramilitary organization of about fifty Holocaust survivors who, after 1945, sought genocidal revenge for the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust. Led by Abba Kovner, the group sought to kill ...

. A member of the group got a job as a baker and poisoned the bread to be fed to the prisoners. Large numbers were taken ill, but the actual death toll is not known.Jonathan Freedland, "Revenge", ''The Guardian'', Saturday 26 July 2008
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References

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Stalag XIII-D Stalag XIII-D Nürnberg Langwasser was a German Army World War II prisoner-of-war camp built on what had been the Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg, northern Bavaria. Camp history In September 1939 an internment camp for enemy civilians was ...

Nakam