After the defeat in World War II, millions of ethnic Germans were deported from Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Prussia, Hungary, Yugoslavia. Historians say that this was the largest deportation of the population in the 20th century.
The Germans wore special patches
The Germans were required to wear a white patch on their arm with a special “N” sign, meaning “German”. They were not allowed to ride bicycles and cars, public transport. Stores were only allowed to enter at certain times. It was also forbidden to walk on the sidewalks, let alone speak German - even more so. It was necessary to register with the local police and regularly go there to mark their whereabouts. Then the Germans were deprived of their land and property.
Brune death march in Czechoslovakia
The President of Czechoslovakia, on the basis of Clause 11 of the Potdstam Agreement, signed a law on the deprivation of citizenship of all Germans living in the Sudetenland.
According to official figures, three million people were expelled from Czechoslovakia within two years.
According to official figures, three million people were deported from Czechoslovakia within two years. At the same time, 18 816 people died: 5596 people were killed, 3411 committed suicide, 6615 died in concentration camps, 1481 people died during transportation, 705 people died immediately after transportation, 629 during the escape, 379 for unknown reasons.
Often, law enforcement agencies reported cases of rape of women in a sophisticated manner.
The Brune death march entered the history of the deportation of the Germans: on May 29, the local national committee decided to evict all women, children and the elderly. About 20 thousand people were gathered in one formation and driven towards Austria. The Germans could take with them from their property only what they could carry. Only able-bodied men were spared, who were left in the city so that they could restore the economy destroyed by the war.
Prerovsky execution
Czechoslovak counterintelligence officers stopped a train with German refugees, which followed through the city of Přerov. The night of June 18-19 will be the last for 265 people. All the property of the internally displaced persons was plundered. Lieutenant Pazur, under whose leadership this action took place, was arrested and convicted.
Ustycka massacre
In the town of Usti nad Laboy, an explosion took place in one of the military warehouses in the middle of summer, as a result of which 27 people died. Without waiting for the end of the investigation, the main winners were named - the members of the German underground ("Werewolf"). The hunt for the Germans immediately began - it was easy to recognize them by the white band with the letter "N". Those who were caught were thrown into the river, beaten, and shot. The number of those killed, according to various estimates, ranged from 43 to 220 people.
In the two years after World War II, more than two million people were deported from Czechoslovakia. But it took this country three more years to completely get rid of the Germans: in 1950, the "German question" was finally resolved. About three million people were deported.
NKVD in alarm for the Germans
“Every day up to 5,000 Germans arrive in Germany from Czechoslovakia, most of whom are women, old people and children. Ruined and without a prospect for life, some of them commit suicide by opening the veins in their arms with a razor. For example, on June 8, the district commandant recorded 71 corpses with open veins. In some cases, Czechoslovak officers and soldiers in settlements where the Germans live, in the evening they put up reinforced patrols in full combat readiness and open fire at the city at night. The German population, frightened, runs out of their homes, abandoning property, and scatters. After that, the soldiers enter the houses, take the valuables and return to their units. "
Poland - the largest exile
In 1945, Poland was transferred to three German territories - Silesia, Pomerania and East Brandenburg, where more than four million Germans lived. Also on the territory of Poland there were about 400 thousand Germans, historically living here since the First World War. In addition, the territory of East Prussia, which came under the control of the Soviet Union, was also inhabited by the Germans: there were more than two million of them.
All of them were evicted as soon as possible.
According to historians, this was the largest deportation of the population in the 20th century.
Hungarians paid the price for becoming Germans
In Hungary, which was also an ally of Germany, in 1945 a decree was adopted "on the deportation of traitors to the people", according to which property was subject to complete confiscation, and persons subject to the law were deported to Germany. Almost half a million people left their homeland. Indeed, many of them preferred to indicate in their questionnaires during the years of occupation that they were Germans, although in reality these people were Hungarians. Many of them during the war were the "fifth column" of the fascist regime.
There was devastation and famine in Germany
After the forced deportation, the surviving Germans began to live in Germany. The country was destroyed. Women, children and old people are the main share of the repatriates. In some regions of the country, it reached 45 percent. They united in different societies to tell the world about the Germans expelled from many countries. According to the German public organization"Union of the Exiled", after the end of the Second World War, between 12 and 14 million Germans were deported.
The attitude of the German soldiers who fought on the eastern front was unambiguous: "Russians do not take prisoners," they believed. This fear of captivity was the result of Nazi propaganda constantly exposed to soldiers - mostly young people. But perhaps it was not only this?
The facts are as follows: of the Wehrmacht soldiers captured by Soviet captivity - their number is estimated at a minimum of 108 thousand and a maximum of 130 thousand people - only 5 thousand or 6 thousand returned to Germany or Austria alive. Many of them succeeded only in the mid-50s. Thus, the losses of the total number of prisoners amounted to approximately 95%, which is significantly more than in any other battle.
Does this mean that the Red Army did not really take the Germans prisoner? Rüdiger Overmans, a military historian and the best specialist in both the narrow field of study of losses in World War II and this topic in general, writes: tinkering with the transportation of the wounded or out of the desire to save the seriously wounded from unnecessary suffering, who could no longer be helped in one way or another.
In addition, there were also executions of healthy German prisoners, in some cases junior and middle-level officers documented the existence of an order "not to take prisoners", which clearly contradicts military law. Nevertheless, Overmans argues that "there is no doubt that the killing of prisoners of war was not the principal policy of the USSR."
But if there was no direct instruction to kill prisoners of war, then why did the losses among the Germans taken prisoner at Stalingrad amount to an incredible 95 percent? This circumstance requires at least an explanation.
It is quite well established that after the end of the fighting, surrounded by approximately 91,000 Wehrmacht soldiers, they began to be listed as prisoners of war. Thus, from 17 thousand to 40 thousand servicemen were not even included in the official statistics.
There were many reasons for this: after being surrounded for eight weeks without a normal food supply, all German soldiers suffered from exhaustion. The first deaths from starvation were recorded before Christmas, and there were even several cases of cannibalism. Nevertheless, many soldiers kept themselves alive with the illusory hope that they would be rescued from the "cauldron". However, when they realized that these hopes were in vain, their desire to survive faded.
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The Telegraph UK 02.02.2018Of course, among the soldiers there were also the wounded, who held out in makeshift shelters until the end of January 1943, but who no longer had the strength to go prisoner. It is not possible to determine their exact number, especially since it is generally unknown when and how many Wehrmacht soldiers surrendered exactly. Beginning on January 22, 1943, when Soviet troops broke through the last German lines of defense, waves of advancing troops simply rolled over a huge number of German soldiers. Disarmed and, at best, only formally guarded, they awaited the end of the battle for several days.
But why, after all, of the 91,000 servicemen who were actually captured by the Soviet Union, less than 10 percent survived? The main reason was that there were no prepared camps for prisoners of war, in any of them there were no places in which at least some conditions for life would be created. In fact, the command Red Army in January 1943, only two transfer camps were set up near the city engulfed in battles - in Beketovka and Krasnoarmeysk.
The first camp was just a village with resettled residents, surrounded by a fence, the second consisted of several buildings, some of which did not even have roofs and absolutely all were devoid of windows and doors. Sanitary conditions for tens of thousands of people were practically absent, the basic necessities were not available in the first-aid posts, and it was not possible to heat these premises.
At least six cases of cannibalism
The supplies in both camps were disastrous. At least six acts of cannibalism have been reported in Beketovka, but it is likely that this actually happened much more often.
Since the supply of the Soviet soldiers guarding the prisoners was also poor, some of the already meager supplies of food for the prisoners went "to the left." They say that military doctors worked in Krasnoarmeysk, treating patients only for remuneration, although this contradicted their official, professional and human duty. However, there is no reliable and documented evidence of such reports.
The consequences of all of the above in both camps were disastrous: by June 1943, more than 27,000 people had died in Beketovka, that is, more than half of all prisoners. According to other data, the death toll was at least 42,000. It is likely that the picture in Krasnoarmeisk was no better, since the total number of prisoners of war taken prisoner at Stalingrad and killed in the next four months was two-thirds of the total number of prisoners of war.
Not only ordinary soldiers suffered: out of 1,800 German military officers imprisoned in one of the former monasteries in Yelabuga, almost three quarters died during the same period.
A different situation was observed with 22 captured German generals. Of these, four or five died in Soviet captivity (data vary), the rest survived and were released between 1948 and 1955.
In the spring of 1943, the Office for Prisoners of War and Internees of the NKVD of the USSR began to transfer Germans from the transfer camps of Stalingrad to other places of detention. The Germans ended up in special zones on the edge of the Gulag complex - as a rule, in Siberia or in other areas not suitable for life. Only a small number of prisoners were left near Stalingrad, where they were used to dismantle the ruins.
The transportation of prisoners was carried out, as a rule, in unheated wagons, meals were provided irregularly. This caused another wave of deaths: of the 30,000 displaced prisoners of war in the new - now stationary - camps, only half arrived.
According to Rudiger Overman, a noticeable improvement in the situation of prisoners of war took place only in the summer of 1943, when food and other aid from the United States began to flow to the Soviet Union, some of which was distributed among German prisoners of war. However, by this time, of the 91,000 people who were captured at Stalingrad, only 20,000 survived. In the second half of 1943, the Prisoners of War Office received an order to provide 50,000 people for work - but in reality it was possible to collect only 5,200 able-bodied men.
Many of the German soldiers captured at Stalingrad were not considered normal prisoners of war in the USSR. After an inter-allied conference in Moscow, they were released to their homeland between 1947 and the end of 1948. By this time, about 1.1 million German soldiers had been released from the USSR, about 900,000 remained in various camps, from 1.2 to 1.3 million people died in prison.
However, some of the survivors of the Battle of Stalingrad were classified as war criminals, these people continued to be held captive, many of them were convicted by Soviet military courts. Both real war criminals and completely innocent people could fall into this group. Several thousand representatives of this category of prisoners, including a number of generals, were able to return home in 1955-1956 thanks to the agreements reached by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer during his visit to Moscow in 1955.
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In the USSR, the topic of the captivity of German soldiers and officers was actually banned from research. While Soviet historians with might and main condemned the Nazis for their attitude towards Soviet prisoners of war, they did not even mention that during the war, crimes against humanity were on both sides of the front.
In fairness, it should be noted that it is little known only in our country (by “us” the author means not only Ukraine, but all “ post-Soviet space"). In Germany itself, the study of this issue was approached with a purely German thoroughness and pedantry. Back in 1957, a scientific commission for the study of the history of German prisoners of war was created in Germany, which published, starting from 1959, 15 (!) Plump volumes of the series "On the history of German prisoners of war in World War II", seven of which were devoted to stories of German prisoners of war in Soviet camps.
But the topic of the captivity of German soldiers and officers was actually banned from research. While Soviet historians with might and main condemned the Nazis for their attitude towards Soviet prisoners of war, they did not even mention that during the war, crimes against humanity were on both sides of the front.
Moreover, the only Soviet study on this topic (though published in Germany) was the work of Alexander Blank, a former translator of Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus during the latter's being in Soviet captivity - Die Deutschen Kriegsgefangenen in der UdSSR (published in Cologne in 1979. ). Her theses were later included in the book "The Second Life of Field Marshal Paulus", published in Moscow in 1990.
Some statistics: how many were there?
To try to understand the history of German prisoners of war, one should, first of all, answer the question about their number in. According to German sources, approximately 3.15 million Germans were held captive in the Soviet Union, of which approximately 1.1-1.3 million did not survive captivity. Soviet sources cite a significantly lower figure. According to the official statistics of the Office for Prisoners of War and Internees (September 19, 1939, it was organized as the Office for Prisoners of War and Internees (UPVI); from January 11
1945 - Main Directorate for Prisoners of War and Internees (GUPVI) of the USSR; from March 18, 1946 - the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs; from June 20, 1951 - again UPVI; On March 14, 1953, the UPVI was disbanded, and its functions were transferred to the Prison Administration of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs) Soviet troops from June 22, 1941 to May 17, 1945, only 2,389,560 servicemen of German nationality were taken prisoner, of which 376 were generals and admirals, 69,469 officers and 2,319,715 non-commissioned officers and soldiers. To this number should be added another 14.1 thousand people who were immediately placed (as war criminals) in special camps of the NKVD that are not part of the UPVI / GUPVI system, from 57 to 93.9 thousand (there are different numbers) German prisoners of war, who died even before they got into the UPVI / GUPVI system, and 600 thousand - liberated right at the front, without being transferred to the camps, is an important reservation, since they are usually not included in the general statistics on the number of prisoners of war in the USSR.
The problem, however, is that these figures do not indicate the number of Wehrmacht and SS soldiers captured by the Soviet side. UPVI / GUPVI kept a record of prisoners of war not by their citizenship or belonging to the armed forces of any country, but by their nationality, in some cases, and ethnicity in others (see table). As a first approximation, the number of Wehrmacht and SS troops captured by Soviet captivity is 2,638,679 people, and together with 14.1 thousand war criminals, 93.9 thousand who did not live to be placed in a camp, and 600 thousand. liberated, past the camp, gives a figure of 3 346 679 people. - which is even slightly higher than the assessment of German historians.
It should also be noted that German prisoners of war actively tried to "disguise" among other nationalities - as of May 1950, such "camouflaged captured Germans", according to official Soviet data, were identified among prisoners of war of other nationalities, 58,103 people.
At the same time, it should be noted that the summation of the “national lines” does not provide an accurate picture. The reason is simple: the statistics (even those intended purely for internal needs) of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs itself are lame. Some of the certificates of this department contradict others: for example, in the certificate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of 1956, the number of captured German prisoners was 1,117 people. less than was recorded "on fresh tracks" in 1945. Where these people disappeared is not clear.
But this is a minor discrepancy. The archives also contain other documents showing both the manipulation of the data on the number of prisoners of war that took place at the government level, and a much larger inconsistency in reporting.
Example: USSR Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov wrote in a letter to Stalin dated March 12, 1947 that “there are 988,500 German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union in total, 785,975 people have been released from captivity to date. (that is, in total at that time there were 1,774,475 living prisoners of war of German nationality, including those already released - out of 2,389,560 people; how does this compare with the fact that out of the number of German prisoners of war in the UPVI / GUPVI system, only 356 seem to have died 768 people, - again it is not clear. - S.G.). We consider it possible to announce the number of German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, with a reduction of about 10%, given their increased mortality. "
But ... in the TASS statement of March 15, 1947, it was said that “890,532 German prisoners of war remain on the territory of the Soviet Union at the present time; since the surrender of Germany, 1,003,974 German prisoners of war have been released from captivity and returned from the USSR to Germany "(that is, the release of 218 thousand prisoners of war was declared more than they were released according to Molotov's note; where did this figure come from and what was it called to hide - also unclear. - S.G.). And in November 1948, the leadership of the GUPVI proposed to the First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Colonel-General Ivan Serov, "to write off 100,025 released German prisoners of war from the general operational statistical record," allegedly ... registered twice.
In general, historians believe that the repatriation of at least 200,000 Germans "was not properly documented by the Soviet side." That is, this may mean that these prisoners did not exist, and that (this is more likely) that they died in captivity, and that (this is even more likely) that there is a combination of these options. And this brief overview, most likely, only testifies to the fact that the statistical aspects of the history of German prisoners of war in the USSR not only have not yet been closed, but will probably never be completely closed.
"The Hague-Geneva question"
A little about the international legal status of prisoners of war. One of the debatable issues in the history of Soviet prisoners of war in Germany and German prisoners in the USSR is the question of the obligation / non-obligation to fulfill in relation to them the Hague Convention "On the Laws and Customs of War on Land" of October 18, 1907 and the Geneva Convention "On the Maintenance of Prisoners of War" from June 27, 1929
It comes to the point that, deliberately or unknowingly, they confuse the already mentioned Geneva Convention "On the Maintenance of Prisoners of War" of 06/27/1929 with the Geneva Convention - also of 06/27/1929 - "On the improvement of the condition of the wounded, sick and victims shipwreck, from the armed forces at sea. " Moreover, if the USSR did not sign the first of the mentioned Geneva Conventions, then it joined the second in 1931. Therefore, the author will try to clarify this issue.
The prerequisites for the mandatory implementation of the Hague Convention "On the Laws and Customs of War on Land" are:
1) signature and ratification by the contracting parties of this convention;
2) participation in a land war only of the parties that are contracting parties ("clause clausula si omnes" - "on universal participation").
The prerequisites for the mandatory implementation of the 1929 Geneva Convention "On the Maintenance of Prisoners of War" were already only the signing and ratification of this convention by the contracting parties. Her Art. 82 reads: “The provisions of this Convention shall be respected by the High Contracting Parties in all circumstances. If, in case of war, one of the belligerent parties turns out to be not a party to the convention, nevertheless, the provisions of such remain binding between all belligerents who have signed the convention. "
Thus, the articles of this Convention not only do not contain clausula si omnes, but also specifically stipulate the situation when the belligerent powers C1 and C2 are parties to the Convention, and then Power C3, which is not a party to the Convention, enters the war. In such a situation, there is no longer a formal opportunity not to comply with this Convention on the part of the C1 and C2 powers between them. Should Powers C1 and C2 comply with the Convention in relation to Power C3 - directly from Art. 82 shouldn't.
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The results of this "legal vacuum" were not slow to show. The conditions established first by Germany for Soviet prisoners, and then by the USSR in relation to prisoners of war from among the Wehrmacht and SS troops, as well as the armed forces of the allied states of Germany, could not be called human even in the first approximation.
For example, the Germans initially considered it sufficient that the prisoners lived in dugouts and ate mainly "Russian bread" made according to the recipe invented by the Germans: half from sugar beet peelings, half from cellulose flour, flour from leaves or straw. It is not surprising that in the winter of 1941-42. these conditions led to the mass mortality of Soviet prisoners of war, aggravated by the epidemic of typhus.
According to the Office for Prisoners of War of the Main Command of the German Armed Forces (OKW), by May 1, 1944, the total number of exterminated Soviet prisoners of war reached 3.291 million people, of which: 1,981 million people died in the camps, were shot and killed while trying to escape - 1.03 million people, died on the way - 280 thousand people. (most of the victims fell on June 1941 - January 1942 - then more than 2.4 million prisoners died). For comparison: in just 1941-1945. the Germans captured (there are different data, but here is the figure considered by the author to be the most reliable) 6.206 million Soviet prisoners of war.
Initially, the conditions of detention of German prisoners of war in the USSR were just as difficult. Although, of course, there were fewer victims among them. But only for one reason - there were fewer of them. For example, as of May 1, 1943, only 292,630 servicemen of the German and allied armies fell into Soviet captivity. Of these, 196,944 people died by the same time.
In conclusion of this chapter, I would like to note that as early as July 1, 1941, the government of the USSR approved the "Regulations on prisoners of war." Prisoners of war were guaranteed treatment in accordance with their status, the provision of medical care on an equal basis with Soviet servicemen, the possibility of correspondence with relatives and receiving parcels.
Even money transfers were formally allowed. However, Moscow, widely using the "Regulations on prisoners of war" for propaganda aimed at the Wehrmacht, was in no hurry to implement it. In particular, the USSR refused to exchange lists of prisoners of war through the International Red Cross, which was a fundamental condition for them to receive assistance from their homeland. And in December 1943, the Soviet Union broke off all contacts with this organization altogether.
Long Russian captivity: stages of liberation
German prisoners of war returning home, April 1, 1949. Ethat photo was provided to Wikimedia Commons German Federal Archives (Deutsches Bundesarchiv)
On August 13, 1945, the State Defense Committee (GKO) of the USSR issued a decree "On the release and return to their homeland of 708 thousand private and non-commissioned prisoners of war." The number of prisoners of war to be sent back to their homeland included only the disabled and other incapacitated prisoners.
Romanians were the first to be sent home. On September 11, 1945, in pursuance of the GKO decree, it was ordered to release from the camps of the GUPVI NKVD of the USSR 40 thousand Romanian prisoners of war, private and non-commissioned officers, "according to the attached allocation for regions and camps", "to start sending the released prisoners of war Romanians from September 15, 1945 . and finish no later than October 10, 1945. " But two days later, a second document appears, according to which soldiers and non-commissioned officers of a number of nationalities are to be sent home:
a) all prisoners of war, regardless of their physical condition, of the following nationalities: Poles, French, Czechoslovakians, Yugoslavs, Italians, Swedes, Norwegians, Swiss, Luxembourgers, Americans, British, Belgians, Dutch, Danes, Bulgarians and Greeks;
b) sick prisoners of war, regardless of nationality, except for acutely infectious patients, except for the Spaniards and Turks, as well as except for the participants in the atrocities and persons who served in the SS, SD, SA and Gestapo troops;
c) prisoners of war Germans, Austrians, Hungarians and Romanians - only disabled and weakened.
At the same time, "... participants in atrocities and persons who served in the SS, SD, SA and Gestapo troops, regardless of their physical condition, are not subject to release."
The directive was not fully implemented. In any case, such a conclusion can be drawn from the fact that prisoners of war of many nationalities mentioned in it were ordered to be released by order of the NKVD on January 8, 1946. According to it, Czechoslovakians, Yugoslavs, Italians, Dutch, Belgians, Danes, Swiss, Luxembourgers were released, Bulgarians, Turks, Norwegians, Swedes, Greeks, French, Americans and British.
At the same time, "persons who served in the troops of the SS, SA, SD, Gestapo, officers and members of other punitive bodies are not subject to dispatch," but with one exception - "all French prisoners of war, including officers, are subject to dispatch."
Finally, on October 18, 1946, an order appeared to repatriate officers and servicemen of the SS, SD and SA of the nationalities listed in the order of January 8, 1946, as well as all Finns, Brazilians, Canadians, Portuguese, Abyssinians, Albanians, Argentines and Syrians. In addition, on November 28, 1946, it was ordered to release 5 thousand Austrian prisoners.
But let's return from the foreign prisoners from among the soldiers of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS to the Germans themselves. As of October 1946, 1,354,759 German prisoners of war remained in the GUPVI camps, special hospitals of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and workers' battalions of the USSR Ministry of Armed Forces, including: generals - 352, officers - 74,506 people, non-commissioned officers and privates - 1,279 901 people
This number declined rather slowly. For example, in pursuance of the decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of May 16, 1947, "On the dispatch of disabled prisoners of war of the former German army and interned Germans to Germany", it was ordered (May 20): "To release in 1947 from the camps of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, special hospitals, working battalions of the Ministry Armed Forces and battalions for internees and send to Germany 100 thousand disabled prisoners of war of the former German army (Germans) and 13 thousand disabled German internees ”. At the same time, some of the officers were also subject to release - with the rank up to captain inclusive. The following were not subject to release:
a) prisoners of war - participants in atrocities who served in units of the SS, SA, SD and Gestapo, and others, on which there are relevant incriminating materials, regardless of their physical condition;
b) interned and arrested groups "B" (this group included the Germans arrested by the Soviet authorities on German territory during and after the war, in relation to whom there was reason to believe that they were involved in crimes against the USSR or Soviet citizens in the occupied territories);
c) non-transportable patients.
A little earlier, the captured Germans were required to remove shoulder straps, cockades, awards and emblems, and the captured junior officers were equated with soldiers (although they left the officer's ration), forcing them to work on an equal basis with the latter.
Nine days later, a directive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was issued, ordering in May-September 1947 to send home a thousand anti-fascist Germans who had established themselves as excellent production workers. This dispatch was of a propaganda nature: it was ordered to widely inform the prisoners of all camps about it, especially emphasizing the labor achievements of the released. In June 1947, a new directive from the Ministry of Internal Affairs followed to send 500 German prisoners of anti-fascist sentiments to Germany on personal lists. And by order from
On August 11, 1947, an order was given to release all Austrian prisoners from August to December, with the exception of generals, senior officers and SS men, members of the SA, employees of the SD and Gestapo, as well as persons under criminal investigation. Non-transportable patients were not subject to dispatch. By order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of October 15, another 100 thousand captured Germans are repatriated - mostly transportable sick and disabled servicemen from private to captain inclusive.
By the end of 1947, it is possible with sufficient clarity to determine the policy of the USSR in the matter of the release of prisoners - to return the prisoners to their homeland gradually and precisely of the categories that can least affect the development political life in Germany and other countries that fought against the USSR in an undesirable direction for the Soviet Union.
The sick will be more preoccupied with their health than with politics; and soldiers, non-commissioned officers and junior officers can influence events at home much less than generals and senior officers. As the pro-Soviet government formed and strengthened in the eastern part of Germany, the flow of returning prisoners increased.
The order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of February 27, 1948 determined the procedure and the deadline for sending the next 300 thousand German prisoners to their homeland. First of all, all weakened soldiers, non-commissioned officers and junior officers, sick and disabled senior officers were subject to release. Also released were captured soldiers, non-commissioned officers and junior officers over 50 years old and senior officers over 60 years old.
Further, healthy (fit for heavy and average physical labor) soldiers, non-commissioned officers and junior officers under 50, healthy senior officers under 60, generals and admirals are held captive. In addition, SS servicemen, members of the SA, Gestapo officers, as well as German prisoners of war sentenced to punishment for military or ordinary crimes for which criminal cases were conducted, and non-transportable patients remained in captivity.
In total, by the end of 1949, 430,670 German servicemen remained in Soviet captivity (but German prisoners of war brought from the USSR to Eastern European countries for restoration work were detained). This was a clear violation by the USSR of its obligations: in 1947, the fourth session of the Conference of Foreign Ministers of Great Britain, France, the USSR and the United States decided to complete by the end of 1948 the repatriation of prisoners of war in the territory of the Allied Powers and other countries.
In the meantime, they began to free the German generals. By order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of June 22, 1948, five Wehrmacht generals - Austrians by nationality - were released from captivity. The next order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (from September 3 of the same year) - six "correct" German generals (members of the National Committee "Free Germany" and "Union of German officers"). On February 23, 1949, the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs issued order No. 00176, which determined the terms and procedure for sending all German prisoners to their homeland during 1949. Military and criminals, persons under investigation, generals and admirals, and non-transportable patients were excluded from this list.
In the summer of 1949, the armed guards were removed from the POW camps and self-protection was organized from the prisoners (no weapons, only whistles and flags). A very curious document appears on November 28, 1949. This is the order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs No. 744, in which the Minister of Internal Affairs, Colonel-General Sergei Kruglov, demands to put things in order in the registration of prisoners of war, since it was revealed that there is no proper registration and search for those who fled, many prisoners of war are treated in solitary civilian hospitals, they independently arrange and work at various enterprises, in institutions, including regime ones, state farms and collective farms, they marry Soviet citizens, they evade registration in various ways as prisoners of war.
On May 5, 1950, TASS reported on the completion of the repatriation of non-German prisoners of war: according to official data, 13,546 people remained in the USSR. - 9,717 convicts, 3,815 persons under investigation and 14 sick prisoners of war.
The resolution of the issue with them dragged on for more than five years. Only on September 10, 1955, negotiations began in Moscow between a delegation of the FRG government, headed by Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, and representatives of the USSR government. The West German side asked for the release of 9,626 German citizens. The Soviet side called the convicted prisoners of war “war criminals”.
Then the German delegation reported that without a solution to this issue, it is impossible to establish diplomatic relations between the USSR and the FRG. When discussing the issue of prisoners of war, the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Nikolai Bulganin, made claims regarding the repatriation of Soviet citizens in West Germany. Aden Auer recalled that these people settled in West Germany by the decision of the occupation authorities - the former allies of the USSR, and the German representatives did not yet have power. However, the federal government is ready to check their cases if the relevant documents are provided at its disposal. On September 12, 1955, negotiations on the issue of prisoners of war ended with a positive decision.
However, the USSR's concession in these negotiations was not spontaneous. Foreseeing the possibility of Adenauer's raising the question of prisoners of war, the Soviet government in the summer of 1955 created a commission to review the cases of convicted foreign citizens. On July 4, 1955, the commission decided to agree with the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany on the expediency of repatriation to the GDR and FRG (in accordance with the place of residence before the capture) of all convicted German citizens in the USSR, and it was proposed to release most of them. from further serving the sentence, and transfer those who committed grave crimes on the territory of the USSR, as war criminals, to the authorities of the GDR and FRG.
First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev in a secret letter to the First Secretary of the SED Central Committee Walter Ulbricht and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the GDR Otto Grotewohl said that “the question of prisoners of war will undoubtedly be raised during negotiations with Adenauer on the establishment of diplomatic relations ... ”, and in case of successful completion of negotiations with the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, the authorities of the USSR intend to release 5,794 people from further serving their sentences. (that is, somewhat less than was eventually released).
On September 28, 1955 (in connection with the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and the FRG), the Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces "On the early release of German citizens convicted by the USSR judicial authorities for crimes committed against the peoples of the Soviet Union during the war" was signed. In 1955-1956. 3,104 people were released from prison in the USSR ahead of schedule and repatriated to the GDR, and 6,432 to the Federal Republic of Germany; 28 Germans were detained at the request of the KGB (their further fate is not traced in the sources), four people were detained in connection with their initiation of applications for Soviet citizenship. The release of prisoners of war was one of the first successes of the FRG government in the international arena.
The next, 1957, the last of the Japanese prisoners returned to their homeland. On this page, entitled "captivity" for the soldiers of the Second World War, finally ended.
GERMAN PRISONERS
During war, the most inhuman atrocities usually take place not during the battle, but after it. The soldier could avenge his fallen comrades, fighting fiercely, but he has more opportunities for this after the defeat of the enemy, when he is disarmed and in his power. It is when the soldier is responsible for the prisoners of war that he has the highest power over them with the greatest powerlessness of the enemy.
To avoid abuse of power, the international community in 1929 signed the 3rd Geneva Convention. This convention not only prohibited the use of violence or humiliation of prisoners of war, but also stipulated the conditions for their accommodation, food and medical care. However, during World War II, these rules were not followed with such regularity by all parties that they became empty words. The German army executed, humiliated and starved its prisoners of war, especially on the Eastern Front, and, when fortune changed, the desire to treat captured Germans in this way was not surprising.
In his multivolume history of the war, Winston Churchill told a story that demonstrates the attitude towards prisoners of war that prevailed at that time - a tendency to revenge even at the highest level. This episode took place at the first conference of the Big Three in Tehran at the end of 1943. Churchill dined with Stalin and Roosevelt on the second day of the conference, when Stalin offered a toast to the destruction of “at least 50,000, and possibly 100,000, German officers. command ". Churchill, who knew about the mass executions of Polish officers in Katyn at the beginning of the war, was outraged at these words and bluntly said that the British people would not allow mass executions. When Stalin insisted that “50 thousand should be shot,” Churchill could no longer tolerate this. “Let them take me out into the garden right now and shoot me,” he said, “than to stain my honor and the honor of my country with such a shame.”
Trying to hastily defuse the situation, Roosevelt remarked in passing that they would compromise: they would shoot fewer, say, 49 thousand people. He wanted to turn everything into a joke, but, given his knowledge of Stalin's past, the joke gave off a bad taste. Churchill could not say anything before Roosevelt's son Elliott, who was also present at the dinner, put in his line. “Listen,” he said to Stalin, “when our armies start attacking from the West and yours from the East, we will settle this issue, won't we? Russian, American and British soldiers will decide the question of these fifty thousand on the battlefield, and I hope we will take care of not only these fifty thousand war criminals, but also many hundreds of thousands of other Nazis. "
At these words, Stalin got up, hugged Eliott and clinked glasses with him. Churchill was dismayed. “As much as I love you, Eliott,” he said, “I cannot forgive you for making such a lowly statement. How dare you say such things! " He jumped up and swiftly left the room, leaving Stalin and his Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov to hurriedly follow him with assurances that he was taking everything too seriously - they were just "joking."
This story has been repeated by many historians and interpreted as proof of Stalin's ruthlessness, a demonstration of Roosevelt's naivety, and an illustration of Churchill's growing helplessness in the shadow of these two. Of course, it is precisely the comments of President Roosevelt that are most revealing, for they are the most unexpected. He seemed to be really impressed by the idea of executing 50,000 German prisoners, since that was, in fact, the first thing he said when all three met again at the second conference in Yalta over a year later.
If Roosevelt’s comments are taken for granted as the driving force behind the president’s well-known anti-German bias, he begins to look in all respects as brutal as Stalin. This approach was adopted by controversial Canadian author James Bake in a book about the post-World War II American attitude towards German prisoners of war. According to Bake, Roosevelt's remarks indicate widespread hatred of the Germans throughout the leadership of the United States and its army. He pointed to the dire conditions in American POW camps and argued that this was part of a carefully planned policy of vengeance against German soldiers.
Before weighing the validity of such claims, it is worth considering in detail the ordeals that German prisoners of war were forced to endure in both halves of Europe. Fortunately, there are extremely informative and reliable sources on this topic, both in German and English... No matter who their jailers were, the conditions in the camps for German prisoners of war were undeniably harsh.
PRISONERS CAPTURED BY THE AMERICANS
During the war, the Allies captured more than 11 million German soldiers. Given the enormous scale of the battles on the Russian front, one might expect that most of the prisoners would be taken by the Russians, but in reality the Red Army captured only less than a third of the total - about 3,115,000 people. More prisoners were taken by the Americans (3.8 million) and the British (3.7 million). Even the French managed to capture almost a quarter of a million people, despite the fact that they had less than a year, and their army was relatively small.
This inequality of numbers indicates, rather, not about the valor of the Russians, but more about the fear of the Germans before them. V last days During the war, German soldiers did everything possible to avoid being captured by the Red Army. Many units continued to fight long after it was wiser to surrender, simply for fear of what might happen to them if they fell into the hands of the Soviets. Others did their best to free themselves from service on the Eastern Front and be able to surrender to the British or Americans. On the eve of surrender, this has become a top priority at all levels. German army... When the chief of the German staff, General Alfred August Jodl, arrived at Eisenhower's headquarters to sign the surrender treaty, he deliberately dragged out two days to give the German troops as much time as possible to fight their way to the west. In Yugoslavia, the Germans and Croats, disregarding the order to surrender on May 8, fought for a week, making their way to the Austrian border. Thus, while at the very end of the war the number of soldiers who surrendered to the Western Allies (the Americans took about 1.8 million prisoners in April and May 1945 alone) skyrocketed, the same increase was not observed on the Eastern Front.
The number of German soldiers surrendering to the Western Allies appears to have come as a surprise to the British and Americans. As a temporary measure, these prisoners of war were concentrated in sixteen huge enclosed areas in West Germany, collectively known as the Rheinwiesenlager ("Camps in the Rhine Valley"). Most of the camps could accommodate up to 100 thousand people, but by the time of the surrender, many of them accepted much more. For example, more than 118 thousand people were squeezed into the camp in Zinzig, and the number of prisoners of war in Remagen quickly exceeded 134 thousand people. Some of the smaller camps were even more overcrowded. For example, the camp in Bela, designed for 10 thousand, accommodated three times more. It soon became obvious that the allies were trying to deal with the problem; there was a stormy correspondence between the commanders of the allied forces, in which they urgently requested additional resources.
Photographs of that time and eyewitness reports collected by scientists and government departments in Germany after the war give an idea of the conditions in which prisoners of war had to live. The camps were not “camps” in the usual sense, they consisted of several tents or barracks (if there were any), ordinary sections of the countryside surrounded by barbed wire. The prisoners had no shelter, and every day they were at the mercy of all the elements. “I usually lie on the ground,” wrote one prisoner who kept a toilet paper diary while at the huge camp in Rheinberg.
“In the heat, I crawl into a depression in the ground. I wear an overcoat and boots, and I pull my cap over my ears. My duffel bag, in which I have a silver spoon and fork, serves as a pillow for me. During a thunderstorm, one wall of my pit fell on me. My coats and socks are soaked through ... How much longer will we have to go without shelter, blankets or tents? Every German soldier once had a shelter from the weather. Even the dog has a booth into which it can crawl when it's raining... Our only desire after six weeks of being here is to finally get a roof over our heads. Even a savage has better housing. "
The lack of shelter was compounded by the lack of blankets or suitable clothing. The prisoners had with them only what they were wearing at the time of surrender, in most cases different from the standard army equipment, “often more than primitive. No greatcoats, no hats, no tunics; in many cases, only civilian clothes and outdoor footwear. " Heidesheim held fourteen-year-olds who only had pajamas of their clothes. They were arrested at night as potential Werewolves (“Werewolves” are the names of members of terrorist Nazi groups that operated after the defeat of Nazi Germany. - Per.) and brought to the camp, respectively, in what they slept in.
In addition to the lack of clothing and shelter, the lack of hygiene was equally acute. The inmates had nowhere to wash themselves, and there were not enough holes in the ground on the territory fenced off for them, which could be used for toilets. According to the prisoners, the Rheinberg camp was "nothing more than a giant sewer pipe, where every person shit right where he stood." Parts of the camp in Bad Kreuznach were "literally a sea of urine" in which the soldiers were forced to sleep. Toilet paper had become such a shortage that prisoners often used German banknotes instead - which scared few of them, as there were already rumors that German currency would be withdrawn from circulation anyway.
One of the issues of greatest concern was the lack of food. In view of the huge crowd of prisoners, the daily ration was a loaf of bread for twenty-five people. Later, a loaf for ten people, but this was still not enough to sustain life. There was no bread in Bad Kreuznach for six weeks, so when it finally showed up, it caused a stir. Up to this point, the daily diet consisted of "three tablespoons of vegetables, one spoonful of fish, one or two prunes, a spoonful of jam and four to six cookies." In Bad Hersfeld, prisoners lived on 800 calories a day until a fifth of them became "skeletons." To replenish their meager food, the prisoners were forced to look for any edible herbs in the camp; nettle and dandelion soup, which people cooked on tiny campfires, became commonplace. Many people dug in tin cans in search of turnips, which they ate raw, which led to outbreaks of dysentery.
Water scarcity was an even more serious problem. “For three and a half days we had no water at all,” said George Weiss, a tank repairman.
“We drank our own urine, which tasted awful. But what were we to do? Some lay down on the ground and licked it to get some moisture. I was so weak that I could only kneel when they finally gave us some water to drink. I think I would have died without that water. And the Rhine was just behind the barbed wire. "
Bad Kreuznach had only one tap for more than 56,000 people, and the water had to be transported by truck to the perimeter of the camp. In Büderich, five water taps, which served over 75,000 prisoners, were turned on for only one hour every evening. When the American camp commander was asked why the prisoners suffer from such inhuman conditions, he allegedly said: "So that they lose their taste for serving in the army once and for all."
It is not surprising that such camps had a high mortality rate, especially among people who were injured and exhausted in the battles. But the question is how much he was tall and is a topic of debate to this day. In his controversial book Other Losses, James Buck claimed that 800,000 people died in American captivity. This figure would put American revenge on a par with the worst atrocities of the Nazis during the war. This ridiculously high figure has been completely refuted by researchers in several countries, as well as many other claims of the author. The official figure is more than 160 times less than Buck's: according to the findings of the German government commission chaired by Erich Maschke, 4,537 people were believed to have died in the Rheinwiesenlager - although the commission did admit that the death toll was possibly slightly higher. Other researchers take into account the likelihood that the true number of deaths could be significantly higher, especially if we take into account the confusion of the time, which did not contribute to accurate statistics. But in general, everyone agrees on a figure that does not exceed at most 50-60 thousand people.
This does not mean that losses on the scale Buck suggests did not take place, Buck only attributes them to the wrong place. The real horror was happening not in the West, but in the East.
PRISONERS CAPTURED BY THE RUSSIANS
If the conditions for prisoners of war in the camps of the Western Allies were bad, then in the East they are simply terrifying, hardly worth a comparison. Everything that the prisoners of war had to endure in the Rheinwiesenlager took place in the Soviet camps, but on a larger scale and for a longer time. In addition to this, German prisoners of war were usually forced to walk to places of detention. These "death marches" often lasted a week or more, during which the prisoners were constantly denied food and water.
Of the 3 million prisoners of war captured by the Russians during the war, more than a third died in captivity. In Yugoslavia, the situation was even worse: about 80 thousand prisoners of war were executed, starved to death, deprived of medical care or died during the "death marches" - that's about two out of five prisoners of war. Such numbers would be unthinkable in the West. Prisoners taken in the East were much more likely to die than in the West.
There are many reasons for such a high mortality rate among prisoners of war in the East. First, resources are much more scarce. The Russians and their allies relied heavily on the Western powers for food and other supplies throughout the war, and it was expected that they would use these scarce supplies in the interests of their own people, especially the army, before remembering the need to feed the POWs. what's left. Transport and infrastructure in the East were much more damaged than in the West, and the distances covered by prisoners of war were much greater. Tens of thousands of prisoners of war from the Axis countries died while on foot across the expanses of the Soviet Union and of Eastern Europe... If we remember the harsh Russian winters, it becomes clear why mortality in Soviet camps is higher than in western camps. The reason for this is the weather conditions. However, the main reason why so many German prisoners of war died in Soviet captivity revolves around the main question: none of those who were supposed to take care of the prisoners did not care whether they lived or died.
Absolute hatred of Germany and the Germans was characteristic of Soviet society during the war. Until the spring of 1945, Soviet soldiers were the targets of the most ardent propaganda of hatred, which vilified the Germans and Germany by all possible ways... (And it is not surprising, taking into account what the German occupiers were doing on the territory of the USSR. - Ed.) The newspaper "Krasnaya Zvezda" published poems by Alexei Surkov with titles like "I hate!" On the day Voroshilovgrad fell (currently Luhansk. - Per.), the newspaper "Pravda" published a poem by Konstantin Simonov "Kill him!", which convinced Soviet soldiers:
So kill at least one!
So kill him soon!
How many times will you see him
Kill him so many times!
Other writers - Mikhail Sholokhov and Vasily Grossman - also wrote tough stories and reports, which were intended to strengthen the Soviet people hatred of everything German. But it was Ilya Ehrenburg who held a special place in the hearts of Soviet soldiers. Ehrenburg's fiery texts were printed in Krasnaya Zvezda and repeated so often that most of the soldiers knew them by heart.
“Germans are not people. From that moment on, the word "German" is for us the worst curse imaginable. From that moment on, the word "German" hits us to the bone. We will not worry. We will kill. If you have not killed at least one German a day, you have wasted him ... If you cannot kill a German with a bullet, kill him with a bayonet. If there is a calm on your part of the front, or if you are in anticipation of a battle, in the meantime, kill a German ... If you kill one German, kill another - there is no more joyful sight than a pile of German corpses. "
The dehumanization of the Germans became a constant theme in Ehrenburg's works. Back in the summer of 1942, he argued:
“You can endure everything: epidemic, hunger and death. But the Germans cannot be tolerated ... We cannot live while these gray-green slugs live in the world. Today there are no books, today there are no stars in the sky, today there is only one thought: to kill the Germans. Kill them all and bury them in the ground. "
In other cases, he calls "gray-green slugs" scorpions, plague rats, rabid dogs, and even microbes. Just as Nazi propaganda made Slavs second-class citizens, Soviet propaganda reduced all Germans to the level of microbes.
The bloodthirsty tone of such texts did not differ much from some works circulated in other countries, such as Philippe Vianney's call to kill Germans, collaborators and policemen in occupied France. But unlike most French people, the Russians had the ability to put their words into action on a grand scale. It was often emphasized that such propaganda was the main reason for the "bacchanalia of extermination", which began as soon as the Red Army set foot on German soil. And she played a significant role in the treatment of German soldiers taken prisoner in battle. Since the Germans did not show humanity towards Russian prisoners of war, many Russians believed that they had the right to repay them in kind. Countless Germans who were shot during or after surrender, despite orders forbidding them to do so, even more were killed by drunken Red Army men, who considered revenge part of the celebration of victory. From time to time it happened that Soviet soldiers fired at random at a column of German prisoners of war for fun - just as the Germans did with Soviet prisoners of war in 1941. In Yugoslavia, German prisoners of war were also shot for the slightest offenses, for the sake of clothing and equipment, out of revenge or just entertainment.
It should be remembered that not only German soldiers paid this price, although German prisoners of war were the most. The Red Army also captured 70,000 Italians, many of whom never returned. More than 309,000 Romanian soldiers have gone missing on the Eastern Front, although it is still unknown how many survived before they were captured. Not all prisoners were military personnel - official statistics often did not distinguish between civilians and soldiers. After the war, at least 600,000 Hungarians - civilians and soldiers - were taken prisoner by the Red Army and sent to labor camps in the Soviet Union for the simple reason that they are of a different nationality.
The prisoners endured unbearable humiliations, similar to those that went to forced laborers in Nazi Germany... The first thing they did with them was robbed. Watches, wedding rings and other personal belongings were highly valued by Soviet soldiers, but one after another groups of looters took away their military equipment and even uniforms. “And woe to the one who was wearing boots,” wrote Zoltan Toph, a Hungarian doctor who was taken prisoner after the fall of Budapest in February 1945. “If the Russians noticed a prisoner in wearable boots, they incapacitated him, shot him in the head and pulled off his boots. "
The loss of what little they owned warned of the beginning of a period of hardship that would kill a third of them. Moreover, the hardships were often deliberate. If prisoners in American camps did not receive adequate food, this was usually due to a supply failure. The prisoners in Soviet camps, on the contrary, were often deliberately deprived of food and water, first by the troops who captured them, then by the guards who transported them, and, finally, by the camp employees. An excellent example of this is given by Hans Schuetz, a soldier captured in East Germany by Soviet forces at the very end of the war. During a long march to the east, captive, many local residents went out with boxes of sandwiches or jugs of milk. “But the convoy gave strict instructions not to touch anything. They shot pots, cans, and stacks of sandwiches. Milk and water spilled onto the ground, sandwiches scattered in the air and fell into the mud. We didn't dare to touch anything. "
If prisoners in American camps had to stand in line for water, then prisoners captured by the Russians had to steal it from time to time, and in winter they had to be content with snow. While the Americans could not supply enough medicines to cope with outbreaks of disease, Soviet doctors sometimes denied the prisoners and the medicines they had, using them as a pressure tool for further extortion. No one in American camps went so far as to eat stray dogs and cats or use their bread as bait to catch rats to eat. The diet on the verge of starvation in the Soviet camps was much poorer than that which the prisoners of war captured by the Americans were content with. This went on for months. Zoltan Tof, who worked in the camp's temporary medical center in 1946, regularly saw open bodies in the morgue with their internal organs removed - apparently for food - when the medical center was in Bergen-Belsen. When he reported this to the head physician, he dispelled his concern: "If you could see what was happening here a year ago ..."
Some lucky POWs were sent home as early as 1947, but most remained in Soviet camps until 1950, when Stalin announced an "amnesty" for those Germans who were considered "good workers." Some of those who did not manage to escape trouble were called political prisoners and released after the death of Stalin and the amnesty announced by Khrushchev in 1953. The last Germans returned to Germany in 1957, about twelve years after the end of the war. After so many years of work in remote Soviet mines, forests, on railways, tanneries, collective farms and factories, many of them were broken. Count Heinrich von Einsiedel later described the people with whom he returned home in one of the first echelons. “What a load these trains were carrying! Frozen with hunger, emaciated skeletons, human skeletons shaken by dysentery, due to lack of food, bony figures with trembling hands and feet, expressionless gray faces and dull eyes that lit up only at the sight of bread or a cigarette. " Vera of Einsiedel, who was once an ardent communist, was greatly shattered by this sight. Each of the prisoners, he said, "was a living accusation against the Soviet Union, a death sentence to communism."
THE PRICE OF A BAD STORY
The treatment of German prisoners of war by the Russians was much worse than that of the Americans - this fact is confirmed not only by the figures of losses accepted by the international community, but also by the testimonies of hundreds former prisoners... However, this did not prevent some authors from arguing otherwise. James Buck, in his book Other Losses (1989), tried to convince the world that it was the Americans, not the Russians, who caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of German prisoners. He blamed the alleged deaths on the American leadership, accusing it of pursuing a targeted policy of vengeance and then hiding the "truth" behind layers of official reporting. Buck's claims not only challenged the strong American belief that they were waging a moral war, but, in fact, accused the American leadership of crimes against humanity.
A classic conspiracy theory that would not have been worth mentioning here had it not been for controversy after the book was published. Scholars from all over the world lined up to criticize Buck's historical methods, his misinterpretation of documents, his refusal to take into account the vast body of methodological research, and most of all, a complete lack of understanding of statistics. On the other hand, some American veterans who served as camp guards after the war defended Buck and stressed that conditions in their camps were abhorrent, and that neglect of prisoners and even passive revenge did take place. Buck's detractors also had to admit it.
The spirit of controversy still hovers around this topic, although after decades it should have migrated to the category of historical footnotes, since there was always a small grain of truth in Buck's statements. Perhaps most of all Baku should be ashamed not of distortion of facts, but of the fact that it distracted attention from what was happening in reality. It may not be as sensational as the story he wanted to find, but it is shocking nonetheless.
From the official figures collected by the Maschke Commission, established by the German government in 1962 to investigate the fate of German prisoners of war, it follows that the American military administration, as well as the French, really has something to answer for. The casualties in the American camps, though not as high as in the Soviet camps, were more than four times higher than the casualties in the British-run camps (see Table 1). The situation was worse in the camps run by the French military administration, despite the fact that they housed three times fewer prisoners of war than the English camps. In them, deaths were recorded almost twenty times more (24,178 people). These are only preliminary figures, even official historians admit that thousands of deaths were probably not recorded.
Table 1
The number of deaths among prisoners of war
NOTE: Figures include camps located on mainland Europe.
The high losses in the French camps can at least be explained by the then food crisis in France. By the fall of 1945, the supply situation was so bad that the International Committee of the Red Cross warned of the possible death of 200,000 prisoners if the situation did not change. As a result, a humanitarian relief operation was launched: American food was delivered to French POW camps to raise food rations above the "hand-to-hand" level, and further disaster was averted.
The discrepancy between losses in British and American POW camps is more difficult to explain. The Americans had, without a doubt, the best supplies of all the Allied armies. Someone suggested that more prisoners died in American camps, because they were the people who led the infamous Rheinwiesenlager, but it is unclear why these camps were significantly more difficult to supply, unlike others, in any case, some of them were transferred run by the British shortly after the end of the war. In the critical period immediately after the war, the Americans were responsible for more prisoners of war than the British, although not much more: 2.59 million versus 2.12 million. If we compare these figures with the relative size of the British and American armies, then the British had more prisoners of war, from a proportional point of view.
The only significant difference between the Americans and the British is the speed with which their prisoners of war were released. While by the fall of 1945 the British had freed more than 80% of the prisoners, the Americans kept most of them in the camps throughout the winter. The reason is that Roosevelt insisted on bringing all German soldiers down to the rank and file on trial for war crimes. Therefore, the prisoners of war captured by the Americans had to stay in the camps longer so that a thorough check could be carried out.
Perhaps this is the key to why the Americans recorded higher casualties among their POWs than the British. As I already hinted, the official attitude towards the Germans in America has always been much harsher than in Great Britain. While the British at the Tehran Conference advocated the split of defeated Germany into three administrative parts, Roosevelt wanted to divide the country even more. "Germany," he said, "is less dangerous for the civilized world, divided into 107 lands." During the Anglo-American conference in Quebec in 1944, US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau put forward a plan to dismantle Germany's entire industrial infrastructure, which would return the country to the Middle Ages. While Roosevelt approved the plan, the British agreed to it under pressure. And if both states agreed to use prisoners of war as free labor after the end of the war, the British did it much longer than the Americans - only the Americans (and the French) offered to use them to clear minefields.
Such a policy was supposed to lead to high mortality, but basically it was never applied in practice: in the end, the British and American positions regarding prisoners of war were very similar. However, an official position can influence conditions in the same way as an official policy. The constant stream of bitter words from above that harshness towards prisoners of war will not only be allowed but encouraged can create an impression at the grassroots levels. If a culture of active hostility is allowed to flourish, prisoners will be mistreated. In extreme circumstances, this can lead to atrocities, and in milder conditions, to unnecessary difficulties for prisoners who are already exhausted by defeat.
Whether there is any connection between the attitude of Americans towards German prisoners of war and the mortality rate among the latter is a controversial issue that requires much more in-depth research. The same is true for the French. If James Buck had limited himself to investigating this issue, and not come up with more sophisticated theories, his book would have been much better accepted by the scientific community. But until such a study is carried out, there remains a very real possibility that Roosevelt's words about the killing of prisoners of war, no matter how humorous they may be, in the end had just such an effect.
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In childhood, history was presented to us in a very simplified way.
Take World War II, for example.
First, all of a sudden, the Germans who became Nazis attacked everyone, then they all defeated them and began to live in peace and joy, because everyone was good.
But wars never end with a declaration of peace.
May 1945: Czech Republic
As you know, Hitler began by sending troops into the Czech Republic under the pretext of protecting the Germans living in the Czech Republic. After the victory of the allied forces over Hitler, the Czechs decided to deport all the Germans living with them. It just seemed boring to some to drive to the border, and the Czech Germans paid for all the crimes of the Hitler regime, regardless of how much they were involved in it.
For example, in Prague, the police drove a convoy of the German population, from tiny children to very old people, through the streets strewn with broken glass. Naturally, the Germans were forced to go barefoot. Many fell on the way from terrible pain or blood loss. They were finished off with truncheons and stones.
Violent murders in those days swept across the Czech Republic. True, it cannot be said that as many Germans died during the pogroms as Czech Jews.
Children of Lebensborn: Norway
Many Norwegian residents fiercely resisted the German occupation. The navy, after Norway was captured, went to the English shores to fight along with the British against the Nazis. The Norwegians staged sabotage, helped Soviet prisoners of war escape, went to protest rallies, knowing how brutally they would be dispersed.
At the same time, for the Germans, the Norwegians were unreasonable Aryans who did not understand that the future belongs to the Nordic peoples and Hitler provides this future for both the Germans and the Scandinavians. From among the Norwegians, women were selected to use them for breeding the Aryan race. It is still unclear how many volunteers there were and how many were forced, a fact is a fact: these women were inseminated, and after the war they were left with semi-German children in their arms.
It was these children that the Norwegians took revenge on, although at the end of the war none of them had more four years... They were beaten, a swastika was carved on their foreheads, some children were even raped - and not all of them survived. They did the same with their mothers, besides, they went through the execution, which was popular in the Middle Ages for harlots: they were driven with their hair cropped and without clothes down the street, in front of the crowd. In total, there were about twelve thousand children in the country from Norwegians and Germans; double that number to include the mothers, and you will find out how many victims this terrible bullying had.
For some of the victims, at first it was salvation to define them as mentally ill or mentally retarded in closed psychiatric clinics - at least there was a chance not to be raped or simply trampled by an angry crowd. In total, psychopathy was diagnosed in no less than 80% of children from the Lebensborn project. Norway also negotiated with Australia to send 9,000 semi-German children to Australia, but they got nowhere. These children were also rumored to have been often castrated as "inferior."
In the fifties and sixties, the unethical experiments of the military with LSD, mescaline and other drugs were put on the "Lebensborn children". They were not sorry for anyone in the whole of Norway. Only in 2000 did the government apologize for this, and for psychiatric clinics, and for forced sterilization, and for not protecting them from the revenge of the crowd. However, it refused to pay any compensation.
Beat the Germans, beat the Jews: Poland
The post-war years were not kinder in Poland either. The Germans there were driven out of their homes, driven to labor camps, and deported on ethnic grounds. The property, of course, was confiscated. This did not prevent some Poles from continuing the Nazi cause, and in the same post-war years there were quite a few terrible Jewish pogroms, the largest of which had to be stopped by the army.
Germans were also forcibly deported from Yugoslavia and Romania. In total, up to 14 million Germans were deported from Eastern Europe, and the number of those who died during the pogroms cannot be found.
March of Whores: France
And during the war, and after, few people did not mock France as having laid down arms in front of Hitler, as soon as he pushed a little. This country has been compared to a cocotte, resisting for decency, but not for too long. Of course, France also had its own anti-Nazi underground, but not too numerous, and it consisted mainly of national minorities: Jews, Russians and Gypsies.
Nevertheless, after the war, France decided that someone should be guilty of her image, and began to scoff at the girls who met with German soldiers and officers. They were shaved bald and naked, negligee or even simply in clothes, they were driven through the streets, showered with insults and throwing rubbish at them. Swastikas were painted on their bodies, they were doused with ice water or even excrement. Children from the Germans also got it: their mothers were sometimes forced to carry them in their arms during the procession of shame.
This was not very fair: as can be seen from the photographs, almost half of the country welcomed the Nazis, and only some women had to take the rap. One of those who were outraged by this hypocrisy and stood up for the "collaborators" was the famous Jewish singer Serge Gainsbourg.
After all the humiliations of former mistresses or even wives, Germans were often tried to strike down in civil rights for life. None of those caught in the frame with flowers or a Nazi salute as the Germans entered Paris or another French city were so persecuted.
Item in the questionnaire: USSR
IN USSR for a long time it was possible to say goodbye to normal work or even freedom, if in the questionnaire to the question "Have you been in the occupied territory?" you should have answered yes. However, at some point this case was curtailed. Some women who gave birth to the Germans also suffered. Although they never came to such reprisals as in Norway, they could be kicked out of the city or tried to beat them. The film One War by Vera Glagoleva tells about women who were tried for having a relationship with the enemy. Their children were sent to orphanages.
At the same time, for a really long time - comparable in stubbornness to Israel - the USSR carried out investigations of war crimes, primarily the massacres of Soviet citizens. Eyewitnesses were interviewed, documents were sought, burials were unearthed in order to identify those killed and understand the method of killing them. The court overtook many Soviet citizens who participated in Nazi atrocities, sometimes many years later, when they had long led a calm, law-abiding life. Is it not too cruel, it will be possible to decide, perhaps, only after a century or two, when all memory has cooled down.
