Introduction
To begin with, I would like to explain why I have chosen the concept “Kriegsgefangene” [Prisoners of War]. It was in October 1999, when visiting an exhibition on the Holocaust that one particular photo very much affected me: it depicted an execution during the Second World War. The caption also indicated the place at which the execution had taken place: Winniza, Ukraine. Winniza? I had heard about this place before. My grandfather was said to have been there, during the war. This was my grandfather Ernst who died too early. My grandfather Ernst after whom I myself was named. He was a member of the NSDAP, but he was engaged in office work, far behind the front lines. Apparently, he did not notice much of the war. So my grandmother was telling me. From this point on, I developed an ardent interest in the events at Winniza and the activities and whereabouts of my grandfathers during the Second World War. I could no longer let go of this topic and began my research. Very much to my and my family’s surprise, I learnt that my grandfather had been working in the commander’s office in the prisoner of war camp at Winniza. Every single document I could get hold of was subsequently devoured by me. I found out that shocking crimes had been committed in these kinds of camps. Even more surprisingly, I noted that, although there was a considerable German secondary literature on German prisoners of war in Siberia, very little existed on the lives of Soviet prisoners of war, despite the fact that 3.3 million of them had died in German extermination camps. The biggest surprise was yet to come. In the course of my investigations, I learnt that my other grandfather, certainly no friend of the Nazis, had to spend several years in the camp at Winniza well after the withdrawal of German troops – as a German prisoner of the Russians. I wanted to know more about what had happened in Winniza. To my all-largest astonishment I experienced with my investigations that my other grandfather, who was not a Nazi friend several years - when prisoners in Russian hand - in evenly this camp in Winniza to spend had, after the Germans had taken off . I wanted to now know still more exactly, what had happened in Winniza. Several inquiries sent to prestigious historians and archivists remained without result. Usually it was worth the responding not even an answer. The concept I elaborated as well as the private photo archive that I had placed at the disposal of the German-Russian Museum in Berlin disappeared. However, I continued to try to gather further material, visiting all relevant German archives. Indeed, my research eventually did yield something. The results were limited, but numerous original files helped to clarify the picture. It was a picture of two ordinary soldiers at the Eastern Front; it was an image of unspeakable, mostly unpunished crimes. Particularly thereby the terrible fate of the Soviet affected me very much. Therefore I wrote a book to this topic. Propaganda After the initial success of the German armed forces, the German Propaganda Ministry developed an interest in the countless prisoners of war. Attempts were made to use them as a means to confirm and verify the world view the Ministry wanted to propagate. Goebbels organized therefore in August 1941 a travel of the members of the conference of ministers into a camp. Purpose of this trip should be. I quote, “to show in real life the brutes only known from the Wochenschau [official news reel] to the participants of the conference and the representatives of the Gau [administrative unity] of Berlin and to prove thereby the danger from which the Führer and the German army have saved us.” Quotation end Goebbels wanted to parade the “brutes” as they really existed. This attempt, however, failed miserably, because the participants of the staff were rather disappointed by these “brutes” which did not correspond to expectations. The reporter of the Propaganda Ministry noticed disappointed in his report I quote „The journey did not yield the desired results, because all prisoners were Byelorussians: that's why their appearance was relatively human, at least on average. […] Furthermore, they all agreed that they were hungry and willing to work. […] Nor did the other participants […] leave the camp filled by hatred. Instead, they were rather surprised just how many human-looking Russians there are.” He continued as follows: “I assume that preventive precautions are to be taken for future visits so as to correspond with the Wochenschau news.” Quotation end This conclusion seems logical enough. He was the reporter of the Propaganda Ministry after all. It was part of his job to tailor realities to the preconceived “ideas”. In his reflections, the reporter equally provided a prime example of the “humanitarianism” which was widespread among higher party circles and elsewhere: I quote: „At the end of the guided tour we were shown the prisoners that had attempted to escape. We didn’t understand why they were still alive. […] Behind barbed wire, three of them seeking shelter from the heavy rain fall under a single jacket, they were a pitiable sight. One of the prisoners […] kept saying the same thing over and over again: they would like to work. Then he asked for some bread or anything else to eat for they had been starving for quite some time. […] In my opinion, these prisoners are definitely going to kick the bucket behind these barbed wires. It is not out of a feeling of pity, but for completely rational reasons that I would take the view that the food they will be provided with during the remaining time as well as the guards necessary to watch over them should be saved on. In case they attempt to escape, they should be put to death immediately." Quotation end Cannibalism The wretched conditions of life in the camps in the Soviet Union apparently even led to frequent cases of cannibalism. There was never much debate as to why these incidents occurred. In the opinion of many, it was not malnutrition that was at the root of these practices, but, …..I quote….. the “sub humanity of trapped beasts”. A district commander even insinuated that the cannibalistic prisoners were driven by purely propagandistic interests. According to him, they ate each other to cast a damning light on the Germans (!). Feldpost – Military Postal Service To illustrate the situation behind the front lines, I would like to read a letter that I found during my research. This is unpublished material dating from 1942 which vividly illustrates the self-image underlying German misdeeds in the Soviet Union. The letter from a front worker does away with the self-serving and widespread narrative, according to which nobody in Germany knew about the activities in the East. I quote “Dear father, You’d have to see for yourself how the chosen people is doing over here. Everyone who is able to do so kicks and hits them. And if someone needs to vent his anger, he’ll pick on a Jew. They certainly won’t grow too fat over here. In the morning, someone gets them to be overseen during the day. He’ll also guide them back to their home in the evening they live together in a camp fenced in by barbed wire that is three metres high. Whoever is seen without a guard on the streets will be shot dead immediately. We’ve got Russian prisoners of war, too. They’re put to work. Every day, several of them broak or get shot. When we fetch them in the morning, the corporal insists their numbers must be the same upon their return in the evening, But if you have shot down one and I can see the corpses that doesn’t matter. One of them disappeared into the woods, but we managed to send him to the happy hunting grounds. In our rooms, we’ve got Jewish girls to do the washing-up and the laundry, they darn the socks and they clean the shoes. We chose them in the labour exchange. My room is kept clean and tidy by a capable Jewish lady. Recently, more than 40.000 Jews have been shot dead. We didn’t need these chaps anymore. The others, of course, fear for their lives, knowing it will be their turn soon. What I have written to you must not be passed on; this would be illegal. The Easter celebrations approach and I wish you a happy Easter. Kindest regards, Your son and brother Oscar.” Quotation end The casual tone of the following letter written by the same author only a couple of months later, relating terrible crimes, underlines the shocking normalcy of the inhumane activities of those years: I quote Everything would be alright if only the grub were slightly better: nothing but potatos and potatos again. You produce piles of shit the size of a bread basket, yet you’re still ravenously hungry. There have been no such things as cabbage or vegetables. We’ve got to wait until the cabbage we’ve sown is ready. It won’t be before Christmas. Occasionally, I buy some radishes. There’s butter, too. Recently, we had some beer, which made for a good snack. We dug a trench to lay some water supply pipes, in the process of which we found a Jewish mass grave, which was probably about one and half years old. Jews had to transfer the corpses to another grave. As soon as they were finished, they, too, lost their lives in the same grave. Please remain silent on this issue for, of our entire commando, I was the person on guard. Quotation end This letters were written from a simple front worker in Belorussia. Ernst’s Development Now I will come to Winniza in the Ukraine and to Ernst’s Development. There were three camps in Winniza, where my grandfather was stationed as a sergeant. There was a ghetto for the Jewish civilian population that existed from July to September 1941. About 7.000 people lived there, 2.000 of whom were executed. This ghetto was under civil administration. The second camp was put in place as a forced labour camp for Jewish men. The Jewish detainees of the camp were brought in for track laying work. This camp existed from December 1941 to April 1944 and was administered directly by the SS. The moment the workers were no longer needed, they are said to have been shot dead. The third camp, a prisoner of war camp in the narrow sense of the term – Stalag 329 – existed from October 1941 to September 1943. It was run by the Wehrmacht. According to statistics, there were no more than 20.000 Soviet prisoners at any one time. Ernst worked in the office, which was 15km away from the actual camp. Stalag 329 was far from the worst camp in the East. Yet even there, segregations, “special treatments”, and outright murder were a reality. Ernst had to know at least something about the crimes committed in Stalag 329, even though he was not directly involved in them. Outside these three camps, there were mass executions in September 1941 and in the spring of 1942. It is estimated that, in each of these, between 15.000 and 30.000 citizens of the town of Winniza have been killed. In 1942, Ernst came home for Christmas. On his return journey to Winniza, he fell ill because of the freezing cold in the trains. Even though his heart condition that had become chronic, he witnessed the end of Stalag 329. In November 1943, the camp had been relocated first to East Prussia, then to the Luneburg Heath in Central Germany. No one knows what happened to the remaining detainees after the withdrawal from Winniza. If one takes the behaviour of the German troops as anything to go by, one can only fear the worst. Later, Ernst worked in Croatia. He was seriously ill, spending most of his time in hospitals, where he was taken prisoner by the English in Lienz. One year later, he was set free. However, due to his increasingly severe heart condition, his newly found freedom could not be put to much use during the following years. He died in 1950 aged 42, succumbing to the illness contracted during the war. No German soldier was ever held responsible for either the “special treatment” or the deaths occurring in Stalag 329. Lorenz’s Development My other grandfather Lorenz was conscripted as late as January 1942. Only a couple of weeks later, he was sent to the Eastern Front near the river Kuban. He was an ordinary Lance-Corporal. These soldiers who received but the briefest of military trainings for their deployment at the Eastern Front were called Kanonenfutter, cannon fodder. Since they had no combat experience whatsoever, their life expectancy was not particularly high. Consequently, very few soldiers from my grandfaters regiment survived. In early July 1943, Lorenz sustained serious injuries from shell attacks at Noworossisk. For him it was great fortune, a blessing in disguise. After his restoration, he was again called upon to defend the capital of the Reich: Berlin. On 2 February 1945, he wrote his last letter from Bavaria: I quote “It is for the third time that I have to do a difficult thing. If I succeed in sustaining minor injuries, I will soon be back home with you, which is my all and my innermost desire. For us, the situation is beyond hope, as I had indicated before. The Volkssturm [Home Guard] won’t keep the Russian outside the gates of Berlin. I am not scared of the Russians and am able to put myself to good use anywhere. But all these criminals must be wiped out. I don’t know yet where we are going to be deployed, […] Hopefully I’ll lucky, but I am not scared at all. My dear wife, please don’t cause me any concern for destiny will faithfully stand by our side. There’s only one thing I’d like to tell you. Eat your meat now, rather than giving it to the occupying forces. Following the latest news, our mood has sunk to new lows. There have been no promotions either. They certainly won’t have a surprise one for me. My convictions and my eagerness to this swindle are not suitable for promotions. […] Thinking about these nasty times is enough to drive one up the wall. Twelve years of hatred and misery – how much longer will it last? Let us hope for the best, dear wife, so as to be able to complete our modest married life after the war. And that God may take our cheerful child under the umbrella of his protection.” Quotation end Any of these letters could have been Lorenz’s last, not only because of his potentially fatal deployment at the front, but even more so because some of the statements he made were punishable by death for defeatism and Wehrkraftzersetzung, what means undermining military strength. Particularly towards the end of the War, German law courts, the juridical instruments of Hitler, punished these offences mercilessly. As he had been before during the front-line action in the Kuban area, Lorenz was incredibly lucky. He survived and on 16 April 1945, shortly after the last offensive had begun, he was taken prisoner near Berlin. On 10 May 1945, Lorenz arrived as a prisoner of war at the camp in Winniza, Ukraine. He was to remain there until the end of July 1947. The Red Army thus used the same camp in which the future father-in-law of Lorenz’s daughter had worked. But Ernst and Lorenz were never to meet. On 1 August 1947 Lorenz was transferred to a camp in Kiev. It was not before May 1949 that his captivity ended. According to his own statements, he worked as hairdresser and was not treated badly there. However, Lorenz suffered throughout his life from the injuries sustained during the war. The growth in one of his legs was stunted, from which serious hip trouble resulted. The shrapnel working its way through his body caused constant pain. The continuation of the “modest married life,” mentioned in his letter as his innermost desire, did not prove to be long-lasting. Three and half years after his release from capitivity, his wife Anna died. He himself died in 1981. Conclusion Of the 3.1 million German prisoners of war, only about two million are said to have returned to their native country. Accordingly, more than a third of them died in the camps. However, one ought to insist on the fundamental difference between the German treatment of Soviet prisoners of war and the Soviet treatment of German prisoners of war. Compared to the systematic extermination of Soviet prisoners, the high mortality rates among German prisoners, concentrated particularly immediately after the Battle of Stalingrad, could be explained mostly with the general state of exhaustion among German soldiers and the ensuing bad health. Another reason can be found in the awful food and health provision in the Soviet Union, which at that point was on the verge of collapse. On these grounds alone, a simple comparison of the death toll on both sides would be more than questionable. While Germans prisoners in the Soviet Union have largely been treated within the confines of the Geneva Convention, the German occupying forces were not interested in the slightest in the humane treatment of Soviet prisoners. To be sure, the German Reich had ratified the Geneva Convention in 1934. Yet its regulations were not to apply to Soviet prisoners of war. The German government was of the opinion that the convention was based on the principle of mutuality and the Soviet government had not signed it. Even that would not have been so problematic, because Russia had previously signed The Hague Convention of 1907. But the German government refused to comply with the minimum standards fixed in this document when it came to dealing with Soviet prisoners. Indeed, conventions for “Slav subhumans” were a sentimental humanitarianism the racially fuelled ideology of the Nazis didn´t need. In Hitler’s Germany, they thought that the Soviets had renounced all treaties signed by Tsarist Russia, including The Hague Convention. At last, a pretext was found for abandoning any prior contractual obligations toward Bolshevik Russia. The population of the Soviet Union had to be decimated, the “Jewry” and Bolshevism had to be exterminated. One short comment After the war, prisoners taken by the Western allies did not obtain the legal status of “prisoner of war”, but that of “internee”. They were thus not subject to the regulations laid down by the Geneva and The Hague Conventions. The argument ran as follows: since many a state, and particularly Hitler’s Germany, had ceased to exist, there would no longer be soldiers bound to a state. The US troops termed them “Disarmed Enemy Forces”. The British army settled for “Surrendered Enemy Personnel.” Both terms bear a striking resemblance to the “enemy combatants” associated with Guantanamo Bay. None of these terms has any validity in international law. It appears to be, that only when dealing with their own soldiers that states insist on the Geneva Convention. 174. Letter of Friday But let us return once more to the Soviet prisoners of war. Since Stalin’s order No. 270 of 16 August 1940 equated captivity with treason, many Soviet prisoners justifiably feared for their lifes when having to return to his native country. Little did it matter that the actual number of collaborators among Soviet soldiers was relatively low. Of the prisoners of war repatriated by force only one fifth were actually given permission to return home. The remainder was convicted or deported to the most remote and destitute areas as forced labourers. It was in 1957, after the Twentieth Party Congress, that the former prisoners of war were granted an amnesty. They continued, however, to feel like outcasts among the Soviet population. At the end, therefore, I would like to cite a relatively recent letter written by a former Soviet prisoner of war. “I was born in 1921. I was conscripted in November 1940. I served as an ordinary soldier in the 12th Rifleman’s Brigade. The war began on 22 June 1941. I was sent to the front lines. In July 1941, I sustained serious injuries in the Ukraine. I lay there all alone and I lost a lot of blood. At last, I was picked up and, together with several other wounded, taken to the city by train, where I was treated for nine months. After my convalescence I was again sent to the front lines. I got to Kerch on the Crimean peninsula where we were encircled. I was taken prisoner by the Germans who transported me to Germany. I ended up in a prisoner of war camp. It was in this camp that the true horrors began. The people there were thin and emaciated their faces white. On top of everything else, we were forced to work. Many people died every day. I survived thanks to a miracle. The food was low in nutritional value and extremely plain: they chopped beets and added some water. That was it. They called it soup. We were also given 200 g of lousy bread. That was all the food we got every day. […] It’s hard to remember all these things. I’ve forgotten a lot of it. I stayed in Germany until 1945, when I was set free by the American forces. Together with other prisoners, I was taken to Budapest in train carriages. We, weak, sick and unable to work, were sent to Siberia. […] I was to remain a forced laborer there for two years and I was not allowed to return home. […] We were considered to be traitors to our fatherland for the only reason that we had been prisoners of war. We crushed pieces of clay and piled them up, so they could be picked up by a wagon. […] I still wonder how I survived at the time, that I am still alive. I am gravely ill now. My legs, my hands and my stomach ache. Everything aches. Even my soul aches. My pension is too modest to cover my bills. I am living with my wife Sofia. We’ve got two children as well as two grand-children. I don’t know what else to write. When I throw myself into memories, I get a headache. Often, I get very nervous. It’s hard to even visualize of the fact that I survived all this. I am hard of hearing. In my right hand, I’ve still got a piece of shrapnel. I cannot find any documents or evidence for all this. With this I close my letter.” And I want to close my short lecture. Ernst Reuß Kommentare sind geschlossen.
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AutorErnst Reuß, geboren 1962 in Franken. Studium der Rechtswissenschaften in Erlangen und Wien. Promotion an der Humboldt - Universität zu Berlin. Danach als wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter an der Freien Universität Berlin und im Bundestag beschäftigt. Archiv
Juni 2024
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