German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union
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Approximately two million German prisoners of war were held in the Soviet Union during World War II and in the years that followed. Most of them were captured during the great advances of the Red Army in the last year of the war. In the first months of the Soviet-German war, only about 26,000 Germans were captured by Soviet forces. After the Battle of Moscow and the retreat of the German forces the number of prisoners in the Soviet prisoner of war camps rose to 120,000. When the German 6th Army surrendered in the Battle of Stalingrad in February 1943, more than 91,000 survivors became prisoners of war. Weakened by malnutrition and ill-equipped for the Russian winter many froze to death in the months following capture; only approximately 6,000 of them lived to be repatriated after the war.[1][2] As the desperate economic situation in the Soviet Union eased in 1943, the mortality rate in the POW camps sank drastically. At the same time POWs became a important source of labor for the Soviet economy deprived of manpower. With the formation of the “National Committee Free Germany” and the “League of German Officers”, pro-communist POWs got more privileges and better rations. As a result of Operation Bagration and the collapse on the southern part of the Eastern front, the number of German POWs nearly doubled in the second half of 1944. Subsequently the mortality rate rose, especially during the winter months. In the first months of 1945 the Red Army advanced to the Oder river and on the Balkans. Again the number of POWs rose - to 1.1 million. At the end of the war in Europe, a total of two million Germans were held as POWs in the Soviet Union. A large number of German POWs had been released by the end of 1946, when the Soviet Union held fewer POWs than the United Kingdom and France between them. With the creation of a pro-soviet German state in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany - the German Democratic Republic - in October 1949, all but 85,000 POWs had been released and repatriated. Most of those still held in captivities had been labeled “war criminals” and many sentenced to long terms in forced labor camps - usually 25 years. It was not until 1956 that the last of these Kriegsverurteilte were repatriated, following the intervention of West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer in Moscow.[3][4]
British historian Richard Overy estimated that 374,000 out of 3.3 million German prisoners of war died in Soviet labor camps [5] The official Soviet number was 356.700 deaths (mortality rate is between 14% and 30%, depending on low and high estimates of deaths and total POW numbers)[6] An estimate by a special commission[1] says that almost a million of German prisoners died in the Soviet camps between 1941 and 1952.[7], German Army historian Rüdiger Overmans estimated that 1.094.250 German POWs died in the soviet captivity [8]
According to Edward Peterson the U.S. chose to hand over several hundred thousand German prisoners to the Soviet Union in May 1945 as a "gesture of friendship".[9] U.S. forces also refused to accept the surrender of German troops attempting to surrender to them in Saxony and Bohemia, and instead handed them over to the Soviet Union.[10] Thousands of prisoners were transferred to Soviet Authorities from POW camps in the West, e.g. it is known that 6000 German officers were sent from the West to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp which at the time was one of the NKVD special camp and from which it is known that there were transfers further east to Siberia.[11]
According to the section of the German Red Cross dealing with tracing the captives, the ultimate fate of 1,300,000 German POW's in Allied custody is still unknown; they are still officially listed as missing.[12]
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[edit] German estimates
| Year | Quarter | Number of German POWs | Deaths in captivity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1941 | IV | 26,000 | 222 |
| 1942 | I | 120,000 | 10,525 (whole year) |
| II | 120,000 | ||
| III | 110,000 | ||
| IV | 100,000 | ||
| 1943 | I | 170,000 | 77,737 |
| II | 160,000 | 34,876 | |
| III | 190,000 | 4,309 | |
| IV | 200,000 | 2,764 | |
| 1944 | I | 240,000 | 3,220 |
| II | 370,000 | 3,014 | |
| III | 560,000 | 7,241 | |
| IV | 560,000 | 58,359 | |
| 1945 | I | 1,100,000 | 83,422 |
| II | 2,000,000 | 37,765 | |
| III | 1,900,000 | 26,924 | |
| IV | 1,400,000 | 37,111 | |
| 1946 | I | 1,300,000 | 47,664 (whole year) |
| II | 1,300,000 | ||
| III | 1,300,000 | ||
| IV | 1,100,000 | ||
| 1947 | I | 1,000,000 | 17,484 (whole year) |
| II | 970,000 | ||
| III | 900,000 | ||
| IV | 840,000 | ||
| 1948 | I | 760,000 | 3,547 (whole year) |
| II | 620,000 | ||
| III | 550,000 | ||
| IV | 500,000 | ||
| 1949 | I | 460,000 | 907 (whole year) |
| II | 380,000 | ||
| III | 280,000 | ||
| IV | 85,000 | ||
| 1950 | I | 47,000 | 114 (whole year) |
| II | 31,000 | ||
| III | 29,000 | ||
| IV | 29,000 | ||
| Total | 456,841 | ||
[edit] NKVD statistics
Below is the total number of German and Axis prisoners of war reported by NKVD as of 22 April 1956 (excluding former USSR citizens who were serving in Wermacht).[13]
| Nationality | Total accounted prisoners of war | Released and repatriated | Died in captivity |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | 2 388 443 | 2 031 743 | 356 700 |
| Austrian | 156 681 | 145 790 | 10 891 |
| Czech and Slovak | 69 977 | 65 954 | 4 023 |
| French | 23 136 | 21 811 | 1325 |
| Yugoslav | 21 830 | 20 354 | 1476 |
| Polish | 60 277 | 57 149 | 3128 |
| Dutch | 4730 | 4530 | 200 |
| Belgian | 2014 | 1833 | 181 |
| Luxembourger | 1653 | 1560 | 93 |
| Spanish | 452 | 382 | 70 |
| Dane | 456 | 421 | 35 |
| Norwegian | 101 | 83 | 18 |
| others | 3989 | 1062 | 2927 |
| Wehrmacht totals | 2 733 739 | 2 352 671 | 381 067 |
| % | 100 % | 86,1 % | 13,9 % |
| Hungarian | 513 766 | 459 011 | 54 755 |
| Romanian | 187 367 | 132 755 | 54 612 |
| Italian | 48 957 | 21 274 | 27 683 |
| Finnish | 2377 | 1974 | 403 |
| Axis totals | 752 467 | 615 014 | 137 753 |
| % | 100 % | 81,7 % | 18,3 % |
| Total prisoners of war | 3 486 206 | 2 967 686 | 518 520 |
| % | 100 % | 85,1 % | 14,9 % |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b The Black Book of Communism Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Harvard University Press, 1999, hardcover, 858 pages, ISBN 0-674-07608-7, page 322
- ^ The Great Patriotic War: 55 years on
- ^ a b Rüdiger Overmans: Soldaten hinter Stacheldraht. Deutsche Kriegsgefangene des Zweiten Weltkriegs.Ullstein, München 2002, ISBN 3-548-36328-8, p.322
- ^ a b Andreas Hilger: Deutsche Kriegsgefangene in der Sowjetunion 1941-1956. Kriegsgefangenschaft, Lageralltag und Erinnerung. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2000, ISBN 3884748572, p. 137 (Tabelle 3 and Tabelle 10)
- ^ Richard Overy The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia (2004), ISBN 0-7139-9309-X
- ^ . According to Anne Applebaum, "In the few months of 1943, death rates among captured [German] POWs hovered to 60 percent ... Similar death rates prevailed among Soviet soldiers in German captivity: the Nazi-Soviet war was truly a fight to the death" (cited from Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History, Doubleday, April, 2003, ISBN 0-7679-0056-1; page 431.Introduction online)
- ^ German POWs and the Art of Survival
- ^ Rüdiger Overmans, Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Oldenbourg 2000. ISBN 3-486-56531-1,
- ^ Edward N. Peterson, The American Occupation of Germany, pp 42, 116, "Some hundreds of thousands who had fled to the Americans to avoid being taken prisoner by the Russians were turned over in May to the Red Army in a gesture of friendship."
- ^ Niall Ferguson, "Prisoner Taking and Prisoner Killing in the Age of Total War: Towards a Political Economy of Military Defeat" War in History 2004 11 (2) 148–192 pg. 189, (footnote, referenced to: Heinz Nawratil, Die deutschen Nachkriegsverluste unter Vertriebenen, Gefangenen und Verschleppter: mit einer übersicht über die europäischen Nachkriegsverluste (Munich and Berlin, 1988), pp. 36f.)
- ^ "Ex-Death Camp Tells Story Of Nazi and Soviet Horrors" NYT, December 17, 2001
- ^ stern-Serie: Besiegt, befreit, besetzt - Deutschland 1945-48 "Die Schätzungen über die Zahl der in Haft gestorbenen Männer schwanken zwischen 600 000 und einer Million. Nach Angaben des Suchdienstes des Deutschen Roten Kreuzes ist bis heute das Schicksal von 1,3 Millionen Kriegsgefangenen ungeklärt - sie gelten offiziell als vermisst."
- ^ RGVA/TsKhIDK. Fund 1п, inventory 32-6, case 2, list 8-9. (ЦХИДК. Ф.1п, оп. 32-6, д.2, л.8-9.)
