NKVD special camps in Germany 1945–49

NKVD special camps (German: Speziallager) were NKVD-run late and post–World War II internment camps in the Soviet-occupied parts of Germany from May 1945 to January 6, 1950. They were set up by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) and run by the Soviet secret service (NKVD).[1] On 8 August 1948, the camps were made subordinate to the Gulag.[2] Because no contacts of the camp inmates to the outside world were permitted, the special camps were also known as Silence camps (German: Schweigelager).[3]

The very existence of the camps was kept secret, until massive Western press led the Soviet Union to respond with a moderate propaganda campaign of their own admitting and defending the camps' existence.[4] No inmates were released before 1948.[2] On January 6, 1950 the camps were handed over to the East German government,[2] who tried the remaining detainees.[2] About 123,000 Germans and 35,000 citizens of other nations were detained, at least 43,000 of whom did not survive.[2]

Inmates

Charges

People were arrested because of alleged ties to the Nazis, because they were hindering the establishment of Stalinism, or at random.[5] The legal basis for the arrests was the Beria-order No. 00315 of 18 April 1945, ordering the internment without prior investigation by the Soviet military advocacy of "active" NSDAP members, heads of Nazi organizations, people maintaining "illegal" print and broadcasting devices or weapon deposits, members of the civil administration, and journalists.[6]

Inmates were classified "sentenced" or "interned" depending on whether they were tried by a Soviet military tribunal (SMT) or not.[7] A decree[8] issued by the Allied Control Council on 30 October 1946 made a trial prior to internment obligatory, yet in November 1946 only 10% of the inmates were "sentenced", this proportion rose to 55% in early 1950.[7]

Of the "interned", 80% were members of the Nazi party in early 1945, two thirds in late 1945, and less than half after February 1946.[5] Of the "sentenced", 25% were members of the Nazi party in 1945, 20% in 1946, 15% in 1947, just above 10% in 1948, and less than 10% since 1949.[5] A significant actual prosecution of Nazi war crimes by the SMT did not take place.[5] Among the alleged Nazis were also boys suspected to be Werwolf members:[9] About 10,000 internees were youths and children, half of whom did not return.[10]

Among the inmates were many supporters or members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which especially since 1946 was in the focus of the Soviet authorities.[11] When the Social Democratic Party was merged into the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), renamed Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), Social Democrats were interned to ensure Stalinist dominance in the party.[11] Also, people were interned as "spies" for suspected opposition to the authoritarian regime, e.g. for contacts to organizations based in the Western occupation zones, on the basis of Article 58 of the Soviet penal code dealing with "anti-Soviet activities".[11] In the special camp Bautzen, 66% of the inmates fell into this category.[11]

Isolation policy

Total isolation of the inmates was policy from the beginning. A decree of 27 July 1945 reads: "'The primary purpose of the special camp is the total isolation of the contingent therein and the prevention of flights," and prohibits all mail and visitors.[12] Another decree of 25 July 1946 confirmed the "total isolation from the outside world" as primary purpose, and further reads:

"[Inmates of special camps] are to be isolated from the society by special measures, they are not to be legally charged, and in contrast to the usual procedure in legal cases, their cases are not to be documented."[13]

Neither could an inmate contact a relative nor the other way around, with some exceptions in the early stage of the camps.[13] Relatives were not able to retrieve any information and were not even informed of inmate deaths.[14] Exceptions were not made. In one case, the chief of special camp No. 8 asked the supreme chief of the special camps, Swiridow, if people who were arrested in summer clothes were allowed to request winter clothes from their relatives, and pointed out that the situation was very urgent and that some of the inmates did not even have shoes. Sirikow's answer was negative.[14]

In late 1947, the inmates were allowed limited access to Communist newspapers, which was their first contact to the outside world since their arrests.[15]

First releases

A first 27,749 were released mid-1948 after a revision of 43,853 cases by a joint commission of SMAD, MGB and MVD (the successor of the NKVD).[2] Among the released were primarily people whose arrest was based on a suspected Nazi background, which was found to be of low significance by the commission.[2]

Numbers and casualties

The total number of detainees and deaths is uncertain. The Soviet Ministry for the Interior released numbers in 1990, according to which 122,671 [2] Germans were detained, 42,889[2] of whom died primarily due to starvation and diseases, 756[2] were sentenced to death and executed; 45,262 [16] were released, 12,770[16] were deported to the Soviet Union, the status of 6,680[16] was changed to prisoner of war; 14,202[16] were handed over to the Communist authorities of East Germany in 1950 after their establishment and 112[16] escaped. The Soviet occupation authorities also held in the camps 34,706 Soviet citizens and 460 foreign nationals bringing the total detainees to 157,837, most of these non-Germans were transferred to the Soviet Union.[17] Historians v. Plato, Mirenko, Niethammer, Jeske, and Finn give estimates of about 154,000 detainees, and say the number of deaths given by the Soviets is realistic.[2]
Figures published in German sources report from 160,000 to 260,000 persons interned of whom 65,000 to 130,000 died.[18] According to a 1997 report on the camps by the German state of Brandenburg the Soviet Ministry for the Interior figures are disputed by German sources that put the death toll at between 50,000 to 80,000 persons.[19] Among the dead were an estimated 12,000 discovered in 1990 in mass graves near the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Six thousand of the captives in Sachsenhausen were German officers sent there from Western Allied camps.[20]

Camps in Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD)

A total of ten camps existed, set up in former Nazi concentration camps, former stalags, barracks, or prisons.

In addition, numerous prisons were either directly assigned to or seized by the NKVD.[7]

Prisons and camps in East Central Europe prior to May 1945

Numerous prisons and filtration camps were set prior to May 1945, in an area that is today Poland and Russia, Slovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia. The Soviet forces detained German civilians in the regions they conquered in early 1945. Some were sent for Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union and others transferred to the NKVD special camps in occupied Germany after May 1945. These temporary prisons and camps were set up according to the same Beria-doctrine as their counterparts west of the Oder-Neisse line.[21] Almost the complete male German population remaining east of Oder and Neisse, numbering several tens of thousands, was arrested as "Hitlerites" by the NKVD.[22] Only very few actual Nazis were among them.[22]

According to records from the Soviet archives by early May 1945 215,540 persons were interned by the Red Army on the territory of present day Poland: 138,200 Germans, 36,660 Poles,27,880 USSR citizens and 10,800 from other countries. Amongst the 215,540 detained 148,540 were sent to the USSR, 62,000 were held in prisons in the battle area and 5,000 died [23]

As of 10 May 1945, there were NKVD camps in what is today Poland

NKVD prisons in

and NKVD camps as well as NKVD prisons in

An additional NKVD prison was in Slovak Ružomberok.[24][25]

A couple of weeks after the war had come to an end, the prisoners were subsequently transferred to the Soviet Occupation Zone.[26] While immediately after the Soviet occupation of that zone some people detained west of the Oder-Neisse line were transferred to Landsberg east of that line, inmates from camps east of the line who had not been deported to the Soviet Union for forced labor were transferred to camps west of the line following the Potsdam agreement.[27]

While the abovementioned camps and prisons were all listed in attachment 1 to the Beria-doctrine 00461, signed by Beria's substitute Tshernyshow, there were other camps not included in this list.[25] Already on 15 December 1944, Beria had reported to Stalin and Molotov that

These were all the people holding German citizenship remaining in these countries.[28]

Additional NKVD camps in Poland, which were likewise not listed in the Beria-doctrine 00461, are known from Polish sources.[29] These camps included

and others.[29]

Handover to East Germany

The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union decided on 28 September 1949 to hand the camps over to the authorities of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), that was about to be established from the Soviet occupation zone in Germany.[2] The East German republic was founded on 7 October 1949. On 6 January 1950, Soviet Minister of Internal Affairs Kruglov ordered[30] the handing over to the East German Ministry of Internal Affairs of 10,513 inmates for further detention and of 3,500 for trial.[2]

These trials were the so-called Waldheim trials (German: Waldheimer Prozesse), show-trials ending with previously prepared and overly long sentences.[2] Many of these sentences were revised in 1952.[2]

Before the hand-over, a number of inmates were deported to Siberia - their fate remains unknown as of 2015.[10]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, p.126, ISBN 3-8305-1165-5
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, p.131, ISBN 3-8305-1165-5
  3. ↑ Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, pp.126,133-134, ISBN 3-8305-1165-5
  4. ↑ Petra Haustein, Instrumentalisierung, Verdrängung, Aufarbeitung: die sowjetischen Speziallager in der gesellschaftlichen Wahrnehmung 1945 bis heute, Wallstein Verlag, 2006, p.12, ISBN 3-8353-0051-2
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, p.128, ISBN 3-8305-1165-5
  6. ↑ Petra Weber, Justiz und Diktatur: Justizverwaltung und politische Strafjustiz in Thüringen 1945-1961 : Veröffentlichungen zur SBZ-/DDR -Forschung im Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2000, p.98, ISBN 3-486-56463-3
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, p.127, ISBN 3-8305-1165-5
  8. ↑ Kontrollratsdirektive Nr.38
  9. ↑ Petra Weber, Justiz und Diktatur: Justizverwaltung und politische Strafjustiz in Thüringen 1945-1961 : Veröffentlichungen zur SBZ-/DDR -Forschung im Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2000, p.99, ISBN 3-486-56463-3
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Fruth, Pia (7 May 2010). "Die Lüge vom Werwolf. Warum Tausende Jugendliche in sowjetischen Lagern landeten" (PDF). Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk 2 (in German). Retrieved 16 May 2010.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, p.129, ISBN 3-8305-1165-5
  12. ↑ Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, pp.133-134, ISBN 3-8305-1165-5
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, p.134, ISBN 3-8305-1165-5: "... werden nach Sonderregelungen von der Gesellschaft isoliert, sie werden nicht angeklagt, und über sie werden keine Gerichtsakten, wie in der Strafprozeßordnung vorgesehen, angelegt."
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, p.135, ISBN 3-8305-1165-5
  15. ↑ Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, p.136, ISBN 3-8305-1165-5
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 Michael Klonovsky ; Jan von Flocken Stalins Lager in Deutschland : 1945 - 1950 ; Dokumentation, Zeugenberichte. ISBN 9783550074882 P. 18
  17. ↑ von Plato, Alexander (1999). "Sowjetische Speziallager in Deutschland 1945 bis 1950: Ergebnisse eines deutsch-russischen Kooperationsprojektes". In Reif-Spirek, Peter et al. (in German). Speziallager in der SBZ. Ch. Links Verlag. p. 44. ISBN 3-86153-193-3.
  18. ↑ von Plato, Alexander (1999). "Sowjetische Speziallager in Deutschland 1945 bis 1950: Ergebnisse eines deutsch-russischen Kooperationsprojektes". In Reif-Spirek, Peter et al. (in German). Speziallager in der SBZ. Ch. Links Verlag. p.20. ISBN 3-86153-193-3.
  19. ↑ Speziallager des NKWD. Sowjetische Internierungslager in Brandenburg 1945-1950. Brandenburgische. Landeszentrale für politische Bildung 1997 Page 9
  20. ↑ "Ex-Death Camp Tells Story Of Nazi and Soviet Horrors" NYT, December 17, 2001
  21. ↑ Kirsten, Holm (2005). Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora, ed. Das sowjetische Speziallager Nr. 4 Landsberg/Warthe. Wallstein Verlag. p. 9. ISBN 3-89244-952-X.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Urban, Thomas (2006). Der Verlust: Die Vertreibung der Deutschen und Polen im 20. Jahrhundert (in German). C.H.Beck. p. 116. ISBN 3-406-54156-9. Retrieved 2009-09-01.
  23. ↑ Pavel Polian-Against Their Will: The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR Central European University Press 2003 ISBN 963-9241-68-7 Page 263
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 24.3 24.4 24.5 24.6 24.7 24.8 24.9 24.10 24.11 24.12 24.13 24.14 24.15 24.16 24.17 24.18 24.19 24.20 24.21 24.22 24.23 24.24 24.25 Kirsten, Holm (2005). Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora, ed. Das sowjetische Speziallager Nr. 4 Landsberg/Warthe. Wallstein Verlag. pp. 9–11. ISBN 3-89244-952-X.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 25.3 25.4 25.5 25.6 25.7 25.8 25.9 25.10 25.11 25.12 25.13 25.14 25.15 25.16 25.17 25.18 25.19 25.20 25.21 25.22 25.23 25.24 25.25 25.26 von Plato, Alexander (1999). "Sowjetische Speziallager in Deutschland 1945 bis 1950: Ergebnisse eines deutsch-russischen Kooperationsprojektes". In Reif-Spirek, Peter et al. Speziallager in der SBZ (in German). Ch. Links Verlag. pp. 129–130. ISBN 3-86153-193-3.
  26. ↑ Kirsten, Holm (2005). Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora, ed. Das sowjetische Speziallager Nr. 4 Landsberg/Warthe. Wallstein Verlag. p. 11. ISBN 3-89244-952-X.
  27. ↑ von Plato, Alexander (1999). "Sowjetische Speziallager in Deutschland 1945 bis 1950: Ergebnisse eines deutsch-russischen Kooperationsprojektes". In Reif-Spirek, Peter et al. Speziallager in der SBZ (in German). Ch. Links Verlag. p. 131. ISBN 3-86153-193-3.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 28.2 von Plato, Alexander (1999). "Sowjetische Speziallager in Deutschland 1945 bis 1950: Ergebnisse eines deutsch-russischen Kooperationsprojektes". In Reif-Spirek, Peter et al. Speziallager in der SBZ (in German). Ch. Links Verlag. p. 129. ISBN 3-86153-193-3.
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 29.2 29.3 29.4 29.5 29.6 29.7 29.8 29.9 29.10 29.11 29.12 29.13 29.14 von Plato, Alexander (1999). "Sowjetische Speziallager in Deutschland 1945 bis 1950: Ergebnisse eines deutsch-russischen Kooperationsprojektes". In Reif-Spirek, Peter et al. Speziallager in der SBZ (in German). Ch. Links Verlag. p. 130, fn 20. ISBN 3-86153-193-3.
  30. ↑ "order 0022"

Further reading

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