Typical of one side of the coin RR
German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The SS chief Heinrich Himmler inspects a camp for Soviet prisoners of war. 1941
During World War II, Nazi Germany engaged in a policy of deliberate
maltreatment of Soviet prisoners of war (POWs), in contrast to their treatment
of British and American POWs. This resulted in some 3.3 to 3.5 million deaths,
or 57% of all Soviet POWs.[1][2][3][4][5] During Operation Barbarossa, the Axis
invasion of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent German–Soviet War, millions of
Red Army 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; most died during the death marches from the front lines or
under inhumane conditions in German prisoner-of-war camps and concentration
camps.
Contents [hide]
1
Death toll
2
The Commissar Order
3
General internment system for Soviet prisoners of war
3.1
Prisoner-of-war camps
3.2
The "weeding-out" program
4
Soviet prisoners of war in German concentration and extermination camps
5
Soviet prisoners of war in German forced labour system
6
See also
7
References
8
Literature
9
External links
Death toll[edit]
An improvised camp for Soviet prisoners of war. August 1942
See also: World War II casualties of the Soviet Union
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
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 of Jewish ethnicity.[6]
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,[7] exposure, and summary execution, in what has been called, along
with the Rwandan Genocide, an instance of "the most concentrated mass killing
in human history (...) eclipsing the most exterminatory months of the Jewish
Holocaust".[8] By September 1941, the mortality rate among Soviet POWs was in
the order of 1% per day.[9] According to the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum (USHMM), by the winter of 1941, "starvation and disease resulted in mass
death of unimaginable proportions".[10] This deliberate starvation, leading
many desperate prisoners to resort to acts of cannibalism,[8] was Nazi policy
in spite of food being available,[11] in accordance to the Hunger Plan
developed by the Reich Minister of Food Herbert Backe. For the Germans, Soviet
POWs were expendable: they consumed calories needed by others and, unlike
Western POWs, were considered to be subhuman.[12]
The Commissar Order[edit]
Main article: Commissar Order
The Commissar Order (German: Kommissarbefehl) was a written order given by the
German High Command (OKW) on 6 June 1941, prior to the beginning of Operation
Barbarossa (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[edit]
Red Army soldiers, captured between Lutsk and Volodymyr-Volynskyi. June 1941
Distribution of food in a POW camp near Vinnytsia, Ukraine. July 1941
Overcrowded transit camp near Smolensk, Russia. August 1941
Soviet POWs transported in an open wagon train. September 1941
Soviet POWs of Asian ethnicity near Stalingrad, Russia. June 1942
See also: German High Command orders for the treatment of Soviet prisoners of
war
In the summer and fall/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 expected quick victory, the Germans did not want to
ship these prisoners back to Germany. Under the administration of the
Wehrmacht, the prisoners were processed, guarded, force marched, or transported
in open rail cars to locations mostly in the occupied Soviet Union, Germany,
and occupied Poland.[13] Much like comparative occasions such as the Pacific
War's Bataan Death March 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
ill-equipped German troops when the cold weather set in. This resulted in fatal
consequences for the prisoners.[9] In the case of the Soviet POWs, most of the
camps were simply open areas fenced off with barbed wire and watchtowers with
no inmate housing.[8] 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 by the guards were common, and prisoners were
malnourished, often consuming only a few hundred calories per day. Medical
treatment was nonexistent and an International Red Cross offer to help in 1941
was rejected by Hitler.[10][14]
Some of Soviet POWs were also experimented on. In one such case, Dr. Heinrich
Berning from Hamburg University starved prisoners to death while performing
"famine experiments".[15][16] In another instance, a group of prisoners at
Zhitomir were shot using dum-dum bullets.[17][18][19]
Prisoner-of-war camps[edit]
The camps established specially for Soviet prisoner-of-war were called
Russenlager ("Russian camp").[20] The Allied 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. Such camps included:
Oflag IV-C: Allied officers at Colditz Castle were barred from sharing Red
Cross packages with starving Soviet prisoners.[14]
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; 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[21]
Stalag 328: 41,012 Soviet POWs were held at this camp near Lwów[21]
Stalag 350/Z: According to the 1944 Soviet report, 43,000 captured Red Army
personnel were either killed or died from diseases and starvation at this camp
near Riga.[22] The prisoners were used for the construction of Salaspils
concentration camp in October 1941.
Stalag 359: An epidemic of dysentery led to the murder of some 6,000 Red Army
prisoners between September 21–28, 1941 (3,261 of them on the first day),
conducted by the Police Battalion 306 of the Ordnungspolizei.[14] 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
for Jews (the main site of the Operation Harvest Festival massacre in 1943).
Stalag I-B: Tens of thousands of prisoners died in the camp, the vast majority
of them Soviets.
Stalag II-B: The construction of the second camp, Lager-Ost, started in June
1941 to accommodate the large numbers of Soviet prisoners taken in Operation
Barbarossa. In November 1941 a typhoid fever epidemic broke out in the
Lager-Ost; it lasted until March 1942. A total of 38,383 Soviet POWs were held
Stalag II B.[23]
Stalag III-A: Mortality rates of Soviet prisoners was extremely high compared
to the POWs of other nations, including around 2,000-2,500 Soviets who died in
a typhus outbreak during the winter of 1941/1942. Non-Soviet prisoners were
buried with military honours in individual graves at the camp cemetery, while
the Soviet dead were buried anonymously in mass graves.
Stalag III-C: In July 1941 Soviet prisoners captured during Operation
Barbarossa arrived. They were held in separated facilities and suffered severe
conditions and disease. The majority of the prisoners (up to 12,000) were
killed, starved to death or died due to disease.[24]
Stalag IV-A: 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;[20] the dead Soviet
prisoners were buried in mass graves.
Stalag IV-B: In July about 11,000 Soviet soldiers, and some officers, arrived.
By April 1942 only 3,279 remained; the rest had died from malnutrition 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, 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 and shot.[25]
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, 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: During the 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 Gestapo agents; some 484 were found
to be "undesirable" and immediately sent to concentration camps and
murdered.[14]
Stalag VIII-C: 29,436 prisoners were held at this camp. Conditions were
appalling, 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.[26]
Stalag VIII-F (Stalag 318 / Stalag 344): 108,471 Soviet POWs were held at this
camp near Lamsdorf.[26]
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 1941/2 as the result of a typhoid fever epidemic.
Stalag XI-C: 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.[27]
Jewish-Soviet POWs marked with yellow badges. August 1941
The "weeding-out" program[edit]
In the "weeding-out actions" (Aussonderungsaktionen) in 1941–42, the Gestapo
political police further identified Communist Party and state officials,
commissars, academic scholars, Jews and other "undesirable" or "dangerous"
individuals who survived the Commissar Order selections, and transferred them
to concentration camps, where they were immediately summarily executed.[28] At
Stalag VII-A at Moosburg, Major Karl Meinel objected to these executions, but
the SS (including Karl von Eberstein) intervened with military leadership,
Meinel was demoted to reserve, and the killing continued.[29][30][31]
In all, between June 1941 and May 1944 about 10% of all Soviet POWs were turned
over to the SS-Totenkopfverbände concentration camp organization or the
Einsatzgruppen death squads and murdered.[9]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 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[edit]
Soviet prisoners of war in Mauthausen concentration camp. October 1941
Naked Soviet prisoners of war in Mauthausen concentration camp. Unknown date
Between 140,000 and 500,000 Soviet prisoners of war died or were executed in
Nazi concentration camps.[10] Most of those executed were killed by shooting
but some were gassed.
Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp: From about 15,000 Soviet POWs who were
brought to Auschwitz I for work, only 92 remained alive at the last roll call.
About 3,000 more were killed by being shot or gassed immediately after
arriving.[32] Out of the first 10,000 brought to work in 1941, 9,000 died in
the first five months.[33] A group of about 600 Soviet prisoners were gassed in
the first Zyklon-B experiments on September 3, 1941; in December 1941, a
further 900 Soviet POWs were murdered by means of gas.[34] In March 1941, the
SS chief Heinrich Himmler ordered the construction of a large camp for 100,000
Soviet POWs at Birkenau, 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.[35]
Buchenwald concentration camp: 8,483 Soviet POWs were selected in 1941–1942 by
three Dresden Gestapo officers and sent to the camp for immediate liquidation
by a gunshot to the back of the neck, the infamous Genickschuss using a
purpose-built facility.
Chełmno extermination camp: The victims murdered at the Chełmno killing center
included several hundred Poles and Soviet POWs.
Dachau concentration camp: Some 500 Soviet POWs were executed by a firing squad
in Dachau.
Flossenbürg concentration camp: More than 1,000 Soviet POWs were 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 May 1, 1944. The SS also established a special camp for 2,000 Soviet
POWs within Flossenbürg itself.
Gross-Rosen concentration camp: 65,000 Soviet POWs were killed by feeding them
only a thin soup of grass, water, and salt for six months.[10] In October 1941
the SS transferred about 3,000 Soviet POWs to Gross-Rosen for execution by
shooting.[36]
Hinzert concentration camp: A group of 70 POWs were told that they would
undergo a medical examination, but instead were injected with potassium
cyanide, a deadly poison.
Majdanek concentration camp: 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.[37] Executions were also conducted there by
the shooting of prisoners in trenches.[10]
Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp: 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."[10]
Neuengamme concentration camp: According to the testimony of Wilhelm Bahr, an
ex-medical orderly, during the trial against Bruno Tesch, 200 Soviet POWs were
gassed by prussic acid in 1942.[38]
Sachsenhausen concentration camp: 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 August 31 and
October 2, 1941.[14] Among those who died there was Lt. Yakov Dzhugashvili, the
elder son of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (either by suicide or shot).
Sobibór extermination camp: 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 organized a successful mass breakout from
Sobibor, after which the SS closed and dismantled the camp.
Soviet prisoners of war in German forced labour system[edit]
Soviet POWs at work in Minsk, Belarus. July 1941
Main article: Ost-Arbeiter
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 (see forced labour under German rule during World War
II).[39] 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
July 1 and November 10, 1943, 27,638 Soviet POWs died in the Ruhr Area alone),
while others were sent to Krupp, Daimler-Benz or countless other companies,[14]
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 was a civil and military engineering group in Germany
eponymously named for its founder Fritz Todt. 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 from France to the Soviet Union
during the war, and became notorious for using forced labour. Most of the
so-called "volunteer" Soviet POW workers were consumed by the Organisation
Todt.[3] 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.
See also[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Soviet prisoners of war of World War II.
German war crimes
Myth of the Clean Wehrmacht
Severity Order
Soviet repressions against former prisoners of war
Georgian uprising on Texel
German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union
Trawniki men
References[edit]
Jump up
^ Peter Calvocoressi, Guy Wint, Total War — "The total number of prisoners
taken by the German armies in the USSR was in the region of 5.5 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."
Jump up
^ "Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century", Greenhill
Books, London, 1997, G. F. Krivosheev
^
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a b Christian Streit: Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die Sowjetischen
Kriegsgefangenen, 1941–1945, Bonn: Dietz (3. Aufl., 1. Aufl. 1978), ISBN
3-8012-5016-4 — "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."
Jump up
^ Nazi persecution of Soviet Prisoners of War United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum — "Existing sources suggest that some 5.7 million Soviet army personnel
fell into German hands during World War II. As of January 1945, the German army
reported that only about 930,000 Soviet POWs remained in German custody. The
German army released about one million Soviet POWs as auxiliaries of the German
army and the SS. About half a million Soviet POWs had escaped German custody or
had been liberated by the Soviet army as it advanced westward through eastern
Europe into Germany. The remaining 3.3 million, or about 57 percent of those
taken prisoner, were dead by the end of the war."
Jump up
^ Jonathan North, Soviet Prisoners of War: Forgotten Nazi Victims of World War
II — "Statistics show that out of 5.7 million Soviet soldiers captured between
1941 and 1945, more than 3.5 million died in captivity."
Jump up
^ British Imperial War Museum — Invasion of the Soviet Union display (Holocaust
Exhibition) Berkeleyinternetsystems.com
Jump up
^ Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners (p. 290) — "2.8 million
young, healthy Soviet POWs" killed by the Germans, "mainly by starvation ... in
less than eight months" of 1941–42, before "the decimation of Soviet POWs ...
was stopped" and the Germans "began to use them as laborers" (emphasis added).
^
Jump up to:
a b c "Case Study: Soviet Prisoners-of-War (POWs), 1941–42". Gendercide Watch.
Retrieved 2007-07-22.
^
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a b c War against subhumans: comparisons between the German War against the
Soviet Union and the American war against Japan, 1941–1945., James Weingartner,
3/22/1996
^
Jump up to:
a b c d e f The treatment of Soviet POWs: Starvation, disease, and shootings,
June 1941 – January 1942 USHMM.
Jump up
^ Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi RuleCanadian
Slavonic Papers
Jump up
^ Applebaum, Anne (November 11, 2010). "The Worst of the Madness". The New York
Review of Books.
Jump up
^ "The Treatment of Soviet POWs: Starvation, Disease, and Shootings, June
1941–January 1942". Ushmm.org. Retrieved 2015-05-19.
^
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a b c d e f Soviet Prisoners of War: Forgotten Nazi Victims of World War II By
Jonathan North, TheHistoryNet
Jump up
^ "Nazi Doctors & Other Perpetrators of Nazi Crimes". Webster.edu. Retrieved
2014-03-01.
Jump up
^ "Using Science For The Greater Evil". Newsweek.com. Retrieved 2015-05-19.
Jump up
^ Michael Burleigh (1997). Ethics and extermination: reflections on Nazi
genocide. Cambridge University Press. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-521-58816-4. Retrieved
20 March 2011. Other uses for Soviet prisoners included an incident at Shitomir
in August 1941 when a group of them were shot with captured Red Army dum-dum
bullets so that German military doctors could accurately observe, and write up,
the effects of these munitions on the human body.95 (See Streim reference below
for original source).
Jump up
^ Alfred Streim (1982). Sowjetische Gefangene in Hitlers Vernichtungskrieg:
Berichte und Dokumente, 1941–1945 (in German). Müller. pp. 87–91. ISBN
978-3-8114-2482-1. Retrieved 20 March 2011.
Jump up
^ Andrew Rothstein (1946). Soviet foreign policy during the patriotic war:
documents and materials. Hutchinson & co., ltd. p. 155. Retrieved 20 March
2011. Six kilometres from Pogostie Station (Leningrad region) the Germans, when
retreating under pressure from Red Army units, shot over 150 Soviet war
prisoners with dum-dum bullets, after terrible floggings and bestial tortures.
^
Jump up to:
a b (German) "Das "Sterbelager" von Hemer "Bekannt und gefürchtet" bei
sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen
^
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a b Otto 2008, p. 585.
Jump up
^ Strods, Heinrihs (2000). "Salaspils koncentrācijas nometne (1944. gada
oktobris – 1944. gada septembris)". Yearbook of the Occupation Museum of Latvia
(in Latvian). 2000: 87–153. ISSN 1407-6330.
Jump up
^ Otto 2008, p. 576.
Jump up
^ "Stalag and Oflag POW Prisoner of War Camps". Stalagoflagpow.com. 1944-03-24.
Retrieved 2014-03-01.
Jump up
^https://web.archive.org/web/20080103124742/http://www.stsg.de/main/zeithain/geschichte/russenlager/index_en.php.
Archived from the original on January 3, 2008. Retrieved February 24, 2008.
Missing or empty |title= (help)
^
Jump up to:
a b Otto 2008, p. 572.
Jump up
^ [1] Archived March 13, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
Jump up
^https://web.archive.org/web/20080106201847/http://www.stsg.de/main/zeithain/geschichte/sowjpow/index_en.php.
Archived from the original on January 6, 2008. Retrieved February 24, 2008.
Missing or empty |title= (help)
Jump up
^ "Moosburg Online: Stalag VII A (Zeitzeugen: Meinel)". Moosburg.org. Retrieved
2014-03-01.
Jump up
^ International Military Tribunal at Nurnberg (circa 1947). Nazi Conspiracy and
Aggression. USGPO.
Jump up
^ Otto, Reinhard (1998). Wehrmacht, Gestapo und sowjetische Kriegsgefangene im
deutschen Reichsgebiet 1941/42. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag
Jump up
^ Auschwitz — deportees, camp topography, SS garrison Auschwitz-Birkenau
memorial and museum
Jump up
^ Work Camp for Russian POWs Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial and museum
Jump up
^ The Systematic Character of the National Socialist Policy for the
Extermination of the Jews: Electronic Edition, by Heinz Peter Longerich
Jump up
^ "UNC Press - People in Auschwitz, by Hermann Langbein. Foreword".
Uncpress.unc.edu. Retrieved 2015-05-19.
Jump up
^ "Gross-Rosen Timeline 1940-1945". Internet Wayback Machine. United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. 15 January 2009. Archived from the
original on January 15, 2009. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
Jump up
^ [2] Archived November 23, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
Jump up
^ "The Zyklon B Case: Trial of Bruno Tesch and Two Others". United Nations War
Crimes Commission. 1947.
Jump up
^ Forced labor: Soviet POWs January 1942 through May 1945USHMM
Literature[edit]
Otto, Reinhard; Keller, Rolf; Nagel, Jens (2008). "Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene
in deutschem Gewahrsam 1941–1945: Zahlen und Dimensionen" (PDF).
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (in German) (4): 557–602.
Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder
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 and Wolfgang J. Mommsen
External links[edit]
Nazi persecution of Soviet Prisoners of War at the Holocaust Encyclopedia
Images tagged with "Soviet POW" from Yad Vashem
Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene (German)
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World War II prisoners of war held by Germany
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-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Ristad <ristad@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Mon, Dec 26, 2016 12:14 pm
Subject: Re: [sparkscoffee] US POW
JJ,
I don't know where you get your information from.
Approximately three million German prisoners of war were captured by the Soviet
Union during World War II, most of them during the great advances of the Red
Army in the last year of the war. The POWs were employed as forced labor in the
Soviet gulags. It wasn't until 1956 that the last surviving German POW returned
home from the USSR. That's 11 years later.
According to Soviet records 381,067 German Wehrmacht POWs died in Soviet forced
later camps, but another 700,000 were reported as "missing", bringing the total
to over one million German POW's who died in Soviet forced labor camps AFTER
THE WAR WAS OVER.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_prisoners_of_war_in_the_Soviet_Union
-RR
-----Original Message-----
From: "John J. Miller" <seaspark@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Dec 26, 2016 10:56 AM
To: sparkscoffee@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [sparkscoffee] US POW
Greetings
May be of interest to some.
German POWs in the US had it pretty good, also in Britain and later in
France.
In the USA they had good rations, treatment, etc., because we did not
want any mis treatment of our men captive in Germany.
When the war ended and all prisoners of the Germans were accounted for,
things rapidly changed and conditions grew a lot harder for German POWs.
Three prisoners convicted of murdering one of their own were hanged at
Leavenworth, (Still buried there). This caused quite a stir because
hostilities were ended and then they were executed. This is all detailed
in a book but I don't recall the name. I believe there was a TV movie
about it. You can probably research on Google.
POW in U.K. were able to work on farms, etc. and they were better off
than the poor guys fighting a losing war.
Some German soldiers had to serve after the war as Pows as a form of
punishment, they were better off then returning to Germany '46-'47. I
knew a fellow who served his time in France working on a flax farm, he
also agreed that it was better than returning home immediately.
73
JJ Miller
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