Number of prisoners in 1941. "Statistical maze". The total number of Soviet prisoners of war and the extent of their mortality. Demanded that everyone shoot themselves
On the eve of the war, the Imperial Minister of Public Education and Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, wrote in his diary: “I am completely happy. The Russians still don't suspect a thing. In any case, they are concentrating their troops exactly the way we would like them to: concentrated, and this will be easy prey in the form of prisoners of war.
The German command recorded 5.24 million captured Soviet soldiers. Of these, 3.8 million were in the first months of the war. A terrible fate awaited the captured Red Army soldiers: they were killed, and they died of hunger, wounds and epidemics. The command of the Wehrmacht treated the prisoners defiantly inhumane.
Data on the number of Red Army soldiers who were shot in captivity or died from starvation and disease differ. Recently, German works give the figure of two and a half million people.
Conscious destruction
They tried not to take the Red Army prisoners. On June 30, 1942, the commander of Army Group North, Colonel-General Georg von Küchler, arrived at Hitler's headquarters. The Fuhrer was pleased with Küchler and on the same day he was promoted in rank.
“Dinner was attended by the Führer’s stenographer, who had shown himself excellently in the battles on the northern sector of the eastern front and received the rank of Field Marshal von Küchler. “Speaking of the prisoners, he said that ten thousand more wounded were captured. However, this figure did not appear in the reports, since it was absolutely impossible to help them in the swampy area and they all died ... The Russians fight like animals, to the last breath, and they have to be killed one by one.
Under the destruction of the prisoners summed up the ideological base: racially inferior must disappear from the face of the earth. Russian emigrants in Berlin went to watch weekly film magazines published by the Goebbels ministry:
“We peered at the faces flashing on the screen until tears filled our eyes. Tens, hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war with emaciated, unshaven faces for weeks, with inflamed eyes from experienced horrors and hunger. From the thousands of crowds, cameramen choose the most inspirited, rude and scary faces, and the announcers always explain these pictures with the same comments:
“These savages, subhumans, as you can see, little resembling humans, were going to attack our Germany.”
Those taken prisoner were deliberately doomed to death. They would have killed everyone, but German industry needed working hands. Hitler agreed to use the prisoners. The Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions, Albert Speer, seized on this decision. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners were taken to Germany. They were fed badly, they died. Even the command of the Wehrmacht complained to the Ministry of Food: it is ridiculous to bring people into the country to work and let them die. Of the almost two million Soviet prisoners of war sent to work, half survived.
Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture Herbert Bakke immediately declared that he had nothing to feed the Russians. The second person in the Reich, Hermann Goering, noticed that Russians can be fed with cats and horsemeat. Bakke consulted with his experts and reported to Goering: there are not enough cats in the country, and horse meat is already being added to the diets of German citizens.
Alexey Komarov / "New" Diet for Russian workers: for a week - sixteen and a half kilograms of turnips (turnips), two and a half kilograms of bread (65 percent rye, 25 percent sugar beets, 10 percent leaves), three kilograms of potatoes, 250 grams of meat (horse meat), 70 grams of sugar and two-thirds of a liter of skimmed milk. Such bread was not digested, which led to exhaustion and death.
German workers were forbidden to come into contact with the "Eastern workers". An announcement was hung on the territory of the Anhalt coal plants: “Each member of the labor collective is obliged to stay away from the prisoners. Team members who violated this rule will be arrested and transferred to a concentration camp.”
At the Oberschweig metallurgical plant, a compassionate German worker thrust a piece of bread on a Soviet prisoner. The deputy head of production notified the violator of the reaction of management in writing: “Your behavior is so incredible that, in essence, we should have transferred you to the appropriate authorities for punishment. Since you do not appear to be in need of additional cards allocated to you by the factory, you will be deprived of cards for hard work for two weeks.
Many could be saved
The Soviet government had the opportunity to alleviate the plight of the prisoners - with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Committee was created in 1863 in Geneva to protect the victims of military conflicts, to help the wounded, prisoners of war, political prisoners and residents of the occupied territories.
The delegates of the committee are the only ones who are allowed to cross the front line, visit the occupied territories and prisoner camps. The reputation of the committee was such that even Hitler had to reckon with it.
June 23, 1941, the day after the German attack on Soviet Union, the head of the ICRC, Max Huber, offered intermediary services to Moscow and Berlin so that the USSR and Germany could exchange lists of prisoners of war. In those desperate days, Moscow did not refuse any help. On June 27, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Molotov signed a telegram in response to the chairman of the ICRC:
"The Soviet government is ready to accept the proposal of the International Committee of the Red Cross regarding the submission of information about prisoners of war, if the same information is provided by countries at war with the Soviet state."
On July 23, the Soviet ambassador to Turkey, Vinogradov, sent to Moscow a recording of a conversation with an ICRC representative who recommended that the Soviet Union ratify the 1929 Geneva Convention for the Protection of Prisoners of War. This will make it possible to use the services of the Red Cross, whose representatives will be able to visit the camps of Soviet prisoners of war in Germany and demand an improvement in their situation. Of course, the Soviet camps for German prisoners of war will also be subject to inspections.
On August 9, the Germans allowed representatives of the ICRC to visit the camp for Soviet prisoners of war. But there was no continuation, because the Soviet government refused to let ICRC employees into their camps.
On September 6, Ambassador Vinogradov sent a puzzled note to the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. He did not understand why Moscow did not send lists of German prisoners of war: “The Germans have already given the first list of our Red Army soldiers captured by them. Further lists will be given only after the Red Cross receives the same data from us.” Major of State Security Soprunenko, head of the NKVD department for prisoners of war and internees, ordered a list of 300 German prisoners to be drawn up. But they didn't want to send it.
The ICRC offered to buy food and clothing for Soviet prisoners in neutral countries and promised to make sure that the parcels reached their destination. Germany didn't mind. Moscow showed no interest in this idea.
When a typhus epidemic broke out in the camps, representatives of the ICRC went to the Soviet embassy in Turkey and offered to send vaccines to prisoners of war if Moscow reimbursed the costs. There was no answer.
In November and December 1941, the ICRC sent to Moscow the names of several thousand Red Army soldiers who had fallen into Romanian captivity. The Italians also handed over their lists. The Finns were also ready to exchange lists. But everyone demanded reciprocity. But Moscow did not answer. Stalin was not interested in the fate of the captured soldiers and commanders of the Red Army, and he categorically did not want to give any information about the number of German prisoners. And he certainly did not want Swiss doctors to appear in the NKVD camps.
It was only to Hitler's advantage. At the end of November, the Wehrmacht command prepared lists of half a million Soviet prisoners who were ready to be handed over to the Swiss. When it became clear that the Soviet Union did not intend to reciprocate, Hitler ordered to stop compiling lists and forbade the entry of representatives of the ICRC into the camps where the Red Army soldiers were kept. The Fuhrer knew how many Soviet prisoners died every day in German camps, and did not want this to become public knowledge ...
The Swiss Red Cross would have saved many. Fulfilling requests from other belligerent states, the ICRC monitored the distribution of food parcels in POW camps; British prisoners of war received three parcels a month - they did not die of hunger and exhaustion. And the very appearance of representatives of the Red Cross in the camps forced the Germans to restrain themselves. No one was in such a plight as the Soviet prisoners.
Demanded that everyone shoot themselves
Stalin did not recognize surrender. In the Soviet Union, there was no concept of "prisoner of war", only - "deserters, traitors to the Motherland and enemies of the people."
It wasn't always like that. At first, the Red Army treated the captured, as is customary in all countries, with sympathy. On August 5, 1920, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a resolution on benefits for servicemen who returned from captivity. When Stalin became the complete master of the country, everything changed.
Order No. 270 of August 16, 1941, signed by Stalin, demanded that the Red Army soldiers in any situation stand to the last and not surrender, and those who dared to prefer captivity to death were to be shot. In other words, the leader demanded that several million Red Army men shoot themselves, who, due to the crimes of the leader himself and the mistakes of his generals, were surrounded and captured.
The 58th (political) article of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR allowed the families of captured Red Army soldiers to be tried and deported to Siberia. On June 24, 1942, Stalin also signed a decree of the State Defense Committee "On family members of traitors to the Motherland." Father, mother, husband, wife, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters were considered family members if they lived together.
Harsh orders, which were supposed to prevent surrender, led to the opposite results. The captured Red Army soldiers were afraid of returning to their homeland, where they were considered traitors (and this happened in 1945, when they moved from German camps to Soviet ones).
Zhukov vs Stalin
On December 27, 1941, the State Defense Committee issued a decree on checking and filtering "former Red Army soldiers who were in captivity and encirclement." Deputy People's Commissar of Defense for Logistics, General Khrulev, was instructed to create collection and transit points for former military personnel found in areas liberated from enemy troops. All former prisoners of war or encircled were detained and transferred to collection and transit points, which were led by officers of the special departments of the NKVD.
In accordance with the order of the People's Commissar of Defense No. 0521 of December 29, those released or who had escaped from captivity were sent to the NKVD camps. Everyone had to be tested. They kept former prisoners of war in the same way as especially dangerous state criminals. They were forbidden to meet with relatives, correspondence. The captured Red Army men were dealt with by the NKVD department for prisoners of war and internees, that is, they were treated as soldiers of the enemy army.
Many prisoners of war were tried as traitors to the motherland because they performed the duties of doctors, orderlies, translators, cooks in captivity, that is, they served the prisoners of war themselves. During the war, the families of those who were taken prisoner were deprived of cash benefits and the minimum benefits due to the relatives of the Red Army.
And only Marshal Zhukov, 11 years after the end of the war, stood up for the prisoners. In 1956, as Secretary of Defense, he proposed that justice be done:
“Due to the difficult situation that developed in the first period of the war, a significant number of Soviet military personnel, being surrounded and having exhausted all the possibilities for resistance, were captured by the enemy. Many servicemen were captured wounded, shell-shocked, shot down during air battles or while performing combat missions for reconnaissance behind enemy lines.
The Soviet soldiers who were captured remained faithful to their Motherland, behaved courageously and steadfastly endured the hardships of captivity and bullying by the Nazis. Many of them, risking their lives, escaped from captivity and fought the enemy in partisan detachments or made their way across the front line to the Soviet troops. The Minister of Defense considered it necessary "to condemn as wrong and contrary to the interests of the Soviet state the practice of indiscriminate political distrust of former Soviet servicemen who were in captivity or encirclement."
Marshal of Victory suggested lifting all restrictions on former prisoners of war, removing the question of being in captivity from the questionnaires, including the time spent in captivity in the general work experience, revising the cases filed against former prisoners of war, and those who were injured or escaped from captivity , submit to awards. And everyone will be awarded the medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945."
But Zhukov himself was soon removed from the post of Minister of Defense, and justice for former prisoners of war was not restored soon.
Interrogations of prisoners of the Smolensk battle. Documents of the 3rd Panzer Group of the Wehrmacht
NARA, T 313, R 224, f.f. 816 - 896
One soldier from the 166th regiment, who lived in Molotov (before and after - Perm), said the following:
His regiment suffered heavy losses at Polotsk and around July 4th came to the Nevel area. Responsibility for this retreat was assigned to the commander of the regiment, Major S. (Tatar by origin), and 05.07. he was shot personally by the commander of the division, major general G. (regiment number, division number, commander's surname are the same - M.S.). The mood in the troops is very tense. One mention of the possibility of being captured (surrendered) is enough for execution. Letters home are prohibited.
This testimony was confirmed by another prisoner from this regiment. In addition, he said that it was forbidden to listen to the regimental radio. During the German broadcasts in Russian, everyone was expelled from the premises.
From the same regiment, a political instructor of the reserve directly subordinate to the division was also taken prisoner. It was not possible to find out his last name, because. he threw away all the papers. According to him, he was supposed to teach history and geography in the company. He was shot (underlined by me - M.S.).
Another part of the prisoners was from the 19th regiment, formed in Zhytomyr and 19.07. who arrived in the Velikiye Luki region (a rifle regiment with such a number does not correspond to these circumstances - M.S.). This regiment was commanded by a senior lieutenant. The real commander of the regiment, together with the political commissar, fell behind (remained in Zhytomyr?). The regiment was broken. Lack of weapons and ammunition. Divisional affiliation is unknown. The commanders told the interrogated that the Germans treated the prisoners very badly. Therefore, one of them said that before his capture, he wanted to commit suicide.
In the afternoon of 20.07. near Savenka, the 19th TD repulsed an attack (314?) of the enemy division. The division formed in the Urals with an unknown number (314th?) arrived by train to Velikiye Luki, from there on foot to (...) and back. The division has not yet participated in the battles, it is very tired of the marches, it is armed with grenades against tanks, because. it was known that there were German tanks near Velikie Luki.
From noon 16.07. before noon on July 17, 152 prisoners were captured (most of them were defectors), among them 53 Ukrainians. Captured in the area of Usviaty...
The testimonies of the prisoners agree that the German leaflets have a great effect. It is necessary, however, to drop many more leaflets, because officers and political commissars burn everything they find. It is advised to drop leaflets in the rear in order to eliminate the fear of the German soldiers among the population.
In Verechye, about 7 km west of Lake Cösta, 6-7 thousand liters of fuel were captured.
A prisoner from 102 joint ventures showed:
08/01/41 the division was involved in the river. Howl at Yartsevo. They were told that there was only one German regiment there that needed to be driven out, Smolensk was in the hands of the Russians, the Germans had retreated far back, the German regiment located in Yartsevo was completely surrounded.
During the attack, the division suffered heavy losses. the regiment advanced along with a company of tanks, some of which were knocked out immediately during the first attack. The regiment supposedly had no anti-tank guns, but only 30-40 machine guns. Each received 90 rifle rounds.
During the attack, a chain of politically reliable people was created behind the attackers, who urged the attackers on with weapons. Therefore, it is difficult to surrender. they are shooting from behind.
The junior lieutenant from the 30th joint venture showed:
The regiment is part of the 64th Rifle Division (correctly - M.S.) Apparently, even before the current battles on the river. Vop south of the motorway, the regiment suffered heavy losses in the Vitebsk region and was replenished between Smolensk and Vyazma. There this lieutenant got into the regiment. There are very few active (real) officers in the regiment. He himself was a non-commissioned officer in the Lithuanian army and after several short courses was promoted to junior lieutenant.
The order for the new commissioning of the regiment said that on the river. Vop are the weak forces of the German airborne paratroopers, which must be destroyed. The regiment had to make at least 3 attacks. If they failed, they were threatened with execution. The deterrent and urging element are the communists. Unexpected pocket checks are often carried out in search of German leaflets. During a march without contact with the enemy, officers and commissars are at the end of the column to keep everything in hand. Officers and commissars went ahead in the attack (emphasis mine - M.S.). They acted selflessly.
The mood is depressed, there is no trust in the command. The battalion was provided with uniforms only by 50%. Some did not have boots or overcoats. Arming with rifles happened in the last hour. The machine gun company did not wait for its machine guns and was used as a rifle company.
The command transmits the testimony of the quartermaster (chief of logistics?) of the 25th rifle corps, taken prisoner in the sector of the 19th TD. The prisoner said:
Initially, he was a company commander, and then quartermaster for 11 years. He was accused of counter-revolution and sentenced for this to 10 years in prison, of which he served 3 years in a Kharkov prison, then was again taken into the army to his former position. Has the rank of major.
The 25th sk is part of the 19th Army. The 25th SC includes the 134th, 162nd and 127th Rifle Divisions (that's right - M.S.).
134th SD: formed in Mariupol before the Polish campaign as part of the 515th, 738th, 629th regiments of the 534th artillery howitzer. regiment (without one division), 410th light. artillery regiment, as well as one reconnaissance battalion, one btl. communications, one sapper and one autobtl.
There were no tanks in this or the other two divisions.
162nd Rifle Division: Formed in Artyomovsk in August 1939 as part of the 501st Rifle Regiment and one division of the 534th Art Howitzer. shelf. Other units of this division are unknown to the prisoner.
127th Rifle Division: formed in Kharkov this year (1941) as part of the 395th Regiment. Other units of this division are unknown to the prisoner.
For mobilization to wartime states, all divisions between 01.-03.06. left the formation area and after 16 days on foot arrived in the replenishment areas: Zolotonosha, Lubny, Rzhishchev (that's right; the 19th Army, formed on the basis of the administration and troops of the North Caucasian Military District, was concentrated there, the Army headquarters in Cherkasy - M .FROM.). After replenishment of the entire body between 27.6. and 05.07. by rail was sent to the Smolensk region, the main part of the trains was sent from Darnitsa. There 05.07. unloading began and then marches on foot to the concentration area around Vitebsk. Corps command post in Yanovichi, 19th Army command post in Rudnya.
In addition, the corps includes the 248th light corps artillery regiment, the 248th sapper btl. and 263rd btl. connections.
Motor transport units are only in divisions, they are not in the corps. According to the state, the army should have a motor regiment. Since this regiment was never used, the prisoner believes that it de facto did not exist.
Food bases of 25 UK are located in Kyiv and Kremenchug. Food for 10 days (including for railway transport) was taken at the base. The missing should have been obtained at the army warehouses in Smolensk and Vitebsk. Because Smolensk and Vitebsk were repeatedly attacked by German aircraft, army food stores were moved to Liozno and Rudnya on the railway line Vitebsk - Smolensk (10.07.41). Food bases of the corps contain a stock of long-term stored products up to 14 days; perishable products are taken locally.
Military units have with them a supply of food for 4 days (according to the plan for 5 days), namely, a soldier for 1 day (iron ration) and one daily dacha in a company, battalion and regiment. The slaughter platoon had one vehicle with slaughtering equipment and one with a refrigerator. Live cattle for slaughter in the next 2 days chase after the part. In the future, livestock was received at the location. The baking company has a supply of flour for only one day, and then receives flour at the bases, which are provided with supplies for 3-4 days.
Commander of the 19th Army: Lieutenant General Konev.
Commander of the 25th Rifle Corps: Major General Chestokhvalov, who was allegedly taken prisoner in the battle on July 16-17. In any case, the corps from that moment was controlled only by the chief of staff Vinogradov. In the forest, 40 km south of Belaya, he is trying to collect and reorganize the remaining parts of the corps broken between Vitebsk and Smolensk.
The prisoner with his driver and car left the building on 07/20/41. Since then, he knows nothing about his corps. He moved through the forests to observe the attitude of the Germans towards the civilian population. On the basis of his, as he said, reassuring observations, he decided to surrender.
The mood in the troops during his departure was very gloomy. Desertion is common, as for soldiers, their own lives are more precious than the struggle for a misunderstood idea. Therefore, harsh measures are applied to deserters. Due to the flow of refugees and retreating military units in places, all conventional and railway lines are completely clogged. The departing trains with the civilian population also led to congestion on the railways, and in addition, they have a morally overwhelming effect on the troops they meet. Movement [of the civilian population] from place to place within the country is prohibited under the threat of severe punishment.
The German air and tank attacks have been especially terrifying for troops coming in from Siberia lately. The daily reports on the Russian radio about the increase in labor productivity, which have been heard recently, are a propaganda device to support the mood, while in the German-occupied section of the Smolensk [region] there is a real increase in the harvest (income?)
Our leaflets dropped over the Russian front, in his opinion, are somewhat unsuccessfully worded. The arguments about Jewish power in Russia are not very impressive. In his opinion, a hint of a future solution of the agrarian question and a mention of the freedom of workers with better wages would have had a much greater success.
Those who are able to think independently and even most of the common people do not believe the information transmitted by radio about Russian losses.
The system of denunciations among commanders is especially highly developed. After a major "purge" among the commanders of the troops, reserve officers are placed in the vacant positions, even those who were previously considered politically unreliable, as in the case of himself.
Before making such a decision to surrender, he personally convinced himself in the villages occupied by us that the reports of Russian propaganda about the [cruel] behavior of the German troops and terror are false.
He does not believe in an imminent uprising of the Russian people, even in the event of further major setbacks [at the front]. Rather, there will be a [final] collapse of the Russian army.
12th TD reports:
The interrogation of the prisoners taken by the advance detachment of the 25th Infantry Division on August 4 revealed that the losses of the 89th Infantry Division had recently been very high. Only 300-400 people allegedly remained in the 400th regiment. The 390th and 400th regiments received reinforcements three times, in last days 30 people per company, they also received officers. The reinforcements are made up of communists of all ages, mainly chairmen of collective farms, executive committees, and so on. Everything that is trustworthy has been collected. The Russians are allegedly waiting for the German offensive in order to be able to surrender.
translated by Vasily Risto
Dates vary. Some cause well-deserved pride and bright memory. But there are dates of sorrow and warning. The latter always included the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
Three quarters of a century has passed. During this time, we have not been able to fully realize at what cost we managed to reach the Victory. After all, next to the heroes of the front and rear, partisan detachments and underground organizations, there are victims and executioners. Novgorod land from 1941 to 1944 experienced all the horrors of war and occupation. On December 7, 1947, an open trial of German war criminals began in Novgorod.
Hell Address: West of Novgorod
A well-known German photograph was taken on the highway between Myasny Bor and Chudovo: on the road washed out by rains there is a poster with the inscription: “Here begins the ass of the world!”. Soviet soldiers in German prisoner of war camps called what happened to them much more briefly and succinctly: hell. Few of them could survive, some after the Nazi camps had to end up in Stalin's. Therefore, next to the memoirs published during the “thaw” and “perestroika”, there are also their criminal cases. The words of yesterday's prisoners of war can be compared with the official data of the ChGK - the Extraordinary State Commission for the Establishment and Investigation of the Atrocities of the Nazi Invaders, established in November 1942.
In their post-war memoirs, generals and marshals move fronts, win decisive victories and receive well-deserved orders. The truth of war is much more prosaic. And dirtier.
On the territory of modern Novgorod region During the Great Patriotic War, more Soviet prisoners of war died in camps than English soldiers died in the entire Second World War. world war. London counted 286,200 people; on Novgorod land, such calculations are almost impossible.
There is still no final number. The German command in official data indicates a figure of 5 million 270 thousand people. The Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense in Podolsk claims that our loss of prisoners amounted to 4 million 559 thousand people. The difference is more than 700 thousand people! Many of these people were taken prisoner and perished in camps in the North-West of Russia.
What could a person who found himself a little west of Novgorod at the end of the summer of 1941 experience? Probably the worst thing is the misunderstanding of the realities of this life situation. Why here, many kilometers from the Soviet border, do the enemies feel so confident? Where are the partisan detachments that fearlessly attack the enemy?
A couple of years ago, I was asked to write an introduction to a book whose author, Alexander Klein, was able to experience all this for himself. A Leningrad student who voluntarily went to the front, he didn’t even really have time to fight, as his unit was surrounded. A long and hard road "to his own" began.
And although many collective farmers treated the guy in the overcoat very sympathetically, fed him, they clearly lost faith that “the enemy will be defeated, victory will be ours”: “We did not meet the Partisans. Residents vaguely said that, they say, at first they were, until the Germans announced that whoever came out of the forest would be forgiven.
- And forgiven. They didn't touch.
Who is hiding in the forest? I asked.
- The chairman of the collective farm, from the general store, even a communist alone.
- And you didn't touch it? I wondered.
- Not. Only as if they took a subscription, that they would not do anything against it.
I just shook my head: I didn’t believe.
Terrible oxymoron: "captured by the liberators"
Goebbels' employees in every possible way disseminated information about confusion and unrest in the ranks of the Red Army. Analyzing the course of hostilities, German propaganda emphasized not only the senselessness, but also the criminality of the struggle against Germany. Photos of prisoners or surrendering were preceded by the inscription: "Captured by the liberators."
The Nazis tried to use for these purposes the appearance of the Red Army soldiers: exhausted and hungry - while all the blame was shifted to the Soviet side. The article “The Unfortunate and the Happy” wrote about how “the number of Russian prisoners of war is increasing every day. In large parties they pass through the city under the protection of German soldiers. It's a pity to look at them... What did the Bolsheviks do to the Russian people?
It is bitter to read about how yesterday’s comrades in arms and local residents wanted to give Klein to the Nazis: “Nodding at me when I pretended to be asleep, he (one of the circled - B.K.) suggested: “Let's hand it over. And we will still be paid for the Jew ... ".
The tragedy of the situation in 1941 was aggravated by the fact that few of the soldiers of the Red Army who were taken prisoner survived the first military winter. Moreover, among them were different people: the wounded, encircled, defectors. The latter went over to the side of the enemy, including as a result of the influence of enemy propaganda.
"National" ration
After the identification of Jews, communists and commissars, by the end of the autumn of 1941, the Germans for some time stopped dividing the captured Red Army soldiers into separate national groups. But then this policy began to take somewhat different forms. Here it is very instructive to compare the book of Alexander Klein with the testimony of another person - Yuri Gal. The latter, a former prisoner of war, gave them during interrogation in the Big House, in Leningrad, shortly after the end of the war.
Klein writes: “Later, already in Gatchina, I noticed the desire of the Nazis at any cost to cause discord among the multinational mass of our prisoners. The means by which this was achieved were astoundingly anecdotal. So Ukrainians in Gatchina began to give one cigarette a day, Belarusians - two (or vice versa), Tatars - two, and someone else - one or two each. Only we, the Russians, were not supposed to do anything, except for a miserable basic ration, which took on various sizes depending on how much the division could allocate for the maintenance of its prisoners.
At special formations in the camps, prisoners of war were asked about their nationality. Russians were lined up in one column, Ukrainians in another, Tatars and Caucasians in a third, and so on. In the very first days, Jews were separated from the bulk of the prisoners and destroyed.
In September 1941, at one of the meetings of the military leadership that considered the treatment of prisoners of war, Otto Breutigam, a liaison officer for the Eastern Ministry under the Wehrmacht's High Command, complained that the "Einsatzkommandos" often destroyed all the "circumcised", mistaking them for Jews. Notorious Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller, who was present, said that this was the first time he had heard that Muslims practice the custom of circumcision.
Yu.V. Gal recalled: “Ukrainians began to be placed in a separate barracks, they were not driven to work and they were promised that they would soon recruit police units for the occupied cities, in particular, for Pskov. The Cossacks in the camp had a privileged job - in the slaughterhouse. They were full, and speculated in the camp with surplus meat. The Baltic peoples also received privileges. They were used only in intra-camp work, and in the spring of 1942 they were released home - to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The Russians were used for the most difficult jobs: loading shells on the railroad, digging ditches, building fortifications.”
Geneva is out of the question
The Nazis hypocritically argued that the terrible situation of Soviet prisoners of war was due to the fact that the USSR did not sign the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 1929. In fact, compliance with the convention is not based on the principle of reciprocity. Its 82nd article says the following: "If, in the event of war, one of the belligerents turns out to be not participating in the convention, nevertheless, the provisions of such remain binding on all belligerents who have signed the convention."
The Soviet government did not consider it necessary to sign the Convention, because it joined the Hague Conference, which contains all the most important provisions of the Geneva Conference. In addition, as Aron Schneer rightly points out: “One of the reasons why the Soviet Union did not sign the Geneva Convention as a whole was its disagreement with the division of prisoners along ethnic lines. According to the leaders of the USSR, this provision was contrary to the principles of internationalism.
Western countries turned out to be more pragmatic and, in fact, trying to prevent conflicts on ethnic grounds that could and did arise in captivity, advocated the division of prisoners along ethnic lines. The refusal of the USSR to sign the convention allowed the Nazis to use this fact and leave Soviet prisoners without any protection and control from the International Red Cross and other organizations that helped prisoners of Western countries.
Five last steps forward
Hitler's extermination camps in Poland and Germany are very well known: Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka, Sobibor. The camps in the occupied territory of the USSR, where thousands of Soviet prisoners of war died, are much less known. One of them was in Chudov.
The act on accounting for damage and investigating the atrocities of the Nazi invaders of the Chudovsky district states the following: was a camp for Soviet prisoners of war. The same camp for prisoners of war was located at the Chudovo 2 station.
Employees of the ChGK exhumed the remains: “A special commission that opened the pits - graves, found that during the time of the hostage of the Nazi invaders in the territory of the Chudovsky district, 53,256 prisoners of war were killed ...” (act dated April 25-26, 1945 ).
Information about German atrocities was collected by representatives of various government agencies, including Chekists and policemen. It was necessary not only to determine the amount of damage caused by the occupation, but also to bring war criminals to justice. The first documents were prepared by employees of the state security agencies a few months after the release of Chudov - in the summer of 1944. Various testimonies were collected: “Inhabitants of the Oskuy village of the Chudovsky district, citizens Varlamova V., Katenicheva K., testified: “During the stay of the German invaders in the territory of the Oskuy village, in the open air, in the premises of a stone church, in which there was not a single glass , as well as in the barnyard there were camps for Soviet prisoners of war. Prisoners of war were subjected to inhuman humiliation, starved, they took off their outer clothing and shoes, and in severe December frosts they were driven to physically hard work. Exhausted and unable to move, they were beaten with rubber truncheons and butts, as a result of beatings and starvation big number prisoners of war died.
The population, seeing the suffering and hunger of the soldiers of the Red Army, threw them food products on the road: bread, potatoes, but those who raised these products were beaten to a pulp. During the retreat of the German barbarians, all prisoners of war were lined up, and the camp commandant announced: "Whoever cannot move himself can take five steps forward." Exhausted and hungry prisoners of war, in the hope of providing transport for their transportation, 55 people went out of action. Everyone who came out was taken outside the barnyard and shot from machine guns in front of everyone, and the wounded were finished off with rifle butts.”
All prisoners of war were used for heavy physical work from 6-7 o'clock in the morning to 9-10 o'clock in the evening. From overwork, hunger and beatings, as they gave 200 grams of bread and one liter of gruel made from wood flour, 20-25 people died daily.
The guards and escorts of the camp, without any reason, beat people who were exhausted and unable to move with sticks. This was done in order to make them rise. Then they shot at the prisoners and threw their corpses into an open field in the cold or into a ravine.
There were cases when the wounded were buried half-dead in a pit, as a result of which the earth continued to move for a long time.
In order to hide the traces of their crimes, the Nazi monsters completely destroyed the premises in which the prisoners of war were located. So the pigsties at the Kommunar state farm and the camp, located in the city of Chudovo on Vladimirskaya Street, were burned.
In the remaining camps at the Pioner state farm, one can be convinced of the incredibly cruel living conditions of prisoners of war, they all lived in damp, dirty and cold rooms, in winter and summer, horses were with the prisoners. All prisoners of war slept in heaps, it was not uncommon for the lower ones to die at night. The food for prisoners of war in the camp, located at the Pioner state farm, was a bowl of soup made from waste potato husks and 200 grams of bread made from wood flour. After the liberation of the camp, at the moment, the corpses of prisoners of war dressed in rags, emaciated, with traces of brutal beatings are thawing out from under the snow.
The way out of hell is only in the cemetery
The war was still going on, and testimonies were already being collected for future trials of Nazi war criminals. All of them echo the pages of Alexander Klein's book. “December 13, 1944 Protocol of interrogation of Minina Akulina Fedorovna, born in 1895, housewife, lives at the Kommunar state farm, Chudovo village, house number 3. In 1941, in August, the Chudovsky district was occupied by the Germans. On the territory of the city of Chudovo, at the Kommunar state farm, the German gendarmerie division No. 61 was quartered and here, on the territory of the state farm, there was a camp of Russian prisoners of war ...
In this camp, up to 40-50 people were killed and died of starvation every day. The Germans buried Russian prisoners of war here in the camp. They buried them in large trenches. The corpses were piled in trenches in several rows.
The act of April 26, 1945 cited the result of a forensic medical examination: “Near the camp there is a cemetery on an area of 60 by 50 m, surrounded by barbed wire. In this area, 12 ditches were discovered, each 50 meters long and 4 meters wide. When tearing ditches, the depth of the latter is set at 3 meters. At the entrance to the cemetery there is a high cross with the inscription: “Russian soldiers. 1941".
We also meet the same cross at Klein: “The murdered man was ordered to undress and take him to the cemetery. Opposite the entrance gate of the camp, near two dilapidated barracks, there was another "exit" gate. The cemetery was right behind them. Someone's honest hands, with the permission of the occupiers, placed there over one of the mass graves a huge wooden six-fingered cross with the inscription: “Russian soldiers. 1941".
The examination of the remains was professionally carried out by the lieutenant colonel of the medical service, Professor Vladimirsky. He noted the following: “The putrefaction of corpses reaches such an extent that in some corpses the bone skeleton is held in clothes. On some corpses, ligaments still hold the bones together. On corpses, where, although poorly, pronounced fatty tissue, the latter has turned into a fatty tissue. The clothes worn on the corpses, some are torn with little effort. Some types of fabrics are quite well preserved and are difficult to tear. The conclusions of a professional physician are specific and include materials obtained during the work of the commission.
And here is the picture of this place three years before, when Alexander Klein was here: “The graves began two or three steps from the gate. In winter, the dead were slightly covered with snow. To a grave size four square meters and three or four meters deep they dumped the corpses. Someone went down, stacked them side by side. Then they sprinkled a little earth on top and laid other dead. So they lay in several layers.
When the sun warmed, the graves filled with water. The corpses surfaced in different poses, some on their sides, some on their backs, some on their stomachs, some with open eyes, slightly hesitating when the wind blew, swam in this "pool".
With great difficulty they covered the old graves with earth. They poured mounds. They dug a new mass grave, but it immediately filled with water. Dug another one. Both began to fill up quickly ... ".
Not everyone believed General Vlasov
In the spring of 1942, the situation of the prisoners improved slightly. They began to be regarded not as unnecessary human material, but as a force in demand. The reason for this change was the victory of the Red Army near Moscow: lightning war, planned by Hitler and his allies, failed. And then Battle of Stalingrad the Nazis began to raise the question of the possibility of creating a Russian anti-Bolshevik army. For this purpose, one of the Soviet generals who were in their captivity was urgently needed. Naturally, these commanders of the Red Army did not experience the hardships that fell to the lot of their soldiers. And the main impact on the part of the Nazi "specialists" was not on their body, but on their mind. It is difficult to say what inspired some of these people to cooperate with the Nazis to a greater extent: the realities of Stalinism, a naive belief in the ability to outwit the secret services of the Third Reich and start their own game, or the desire to serve the "great Fuhrer in the fight against the yoke of the Judeo-Bolshevism"?
An unequivocal assessment of the activities of General Andrei Vlasov as a traitor and traitor in our country by the end of the 20th century underwent some changes. Authors appeared who began to claim that he was a representative of the so-called "third force", which fought for a Russia free from communist oppression.
On April 26, 1943, an open letter from Lieutenant General A.A. was distributed in the occupied territory of the North-West of the RSFSR. Vlasov "Why did I take the path of fighting Bolshevism?". In it, the former commander of the 2nd Shock Army spoke about his life path.
Specially stipulating that the Soviet government did not offend him personally, the first reason that forced him to cooperate with the Germans, Vlasov called the discrepancy between the ideals for which he fought on the side of the Reds in the Civil War, and the results of the first decades of Bolshevik rule: collectivization, repression 1937 - 1938.
During the war with Germany, he, according to him, honestly fulfilled his duty as a soldier and faithful son of the Motherland. He saw the reasons for the defeats of 1941 in the unwillingness of the Russian people to defend the Bolshevik government, in the system of violence and the irresponsible leadership of the army on the part of large and small commissars.
All this made him think: “Come on, do I defend the Motherland, do I send people to death for the Motherland. Is it not for Bolshevism, masquerading as the holy name of the Motherland, that the Russian people shed their blood?
Conclusions " open letter"were the following: the tasks facing the Russian people can be resolved in alliance and cooperation with Germany. The business of the Russians, their duty is the struggle against Stalin, for peace, for new Russia in the ranks of the anti-Bolshevik movement.
This appeal was widely distributed among the Russian population in the occupied territory. The newspaper with him also fell into the hands of the prisoner of war Alexander Klein: “After the end of the divorce, being idle for a few minutes, I read the appeal of General Vlasov. I remember one of the first phrases: “Soviet power did not offend me in any way,” something like that. Further, the general or the one who wrote for him very sensibly explained the need to fight Bolshevism for the freedom of the Russian people and called for joining the organized Russian Liberation Army (ROA).
“Now it starts,” I thought. “But will the prisoners be able to forget the executions, hunger, cold - everything that they experienced during that year of the war? ..”
But Klein has no doubt about who benefits from this army, which is being created almost two years after the start of the war: “Let them not fool around: this is a screen - the “Russian Liberation Army”. For whom should she liberate Russia? For the Germans. Maybe Vlasov himself is not such a reptile and not a fool. The letter is very well written. But I'm sure he wrote from dictation. He knows that he has no turning back: hit or miss ... "
For Klein, any assistance to the Germans with weapons in their hands, in someone else's form, is a kind of point of no return: “Go to it (in ROA - B.K.) means to say goodbye to the motherland forever. There will be prisoners, so as not to die of hunger, they will go. But they have no other choice. And here everyone is free. The Germans keep dreaming about Russia from the time of the impostors. Here they are messing around. Either they tried to add Stalin's son to the turmoil, or something else. You can’t trust them, no matter what they promise ... "
It seemed to Klein that his behavior in German captivity, and most importantly, his knowledge would be in demand by the Soviet command. But 1944 brought him both release and a new arrest. German camps were replaced by Soviet ones. He was finally rehabilitated only in 1966.
He's still lucky. After all, the vast majority of his comrades in German captivity perished forever in the terrible winter of 1941-1942.
In 1941, the Germans took 4 million prisoners, of which 3 died in the first six months of captivity. This is one of the most heinous crimes of the German Nazis. The prisoners were kept for months in barbed wire pens, under the open sky, they were not fed, people ate grass and earthworms. Hunger, thirst, unsanitary conditions, deliberately arranged by the Germans, did their job. This massacre was against the customs of warfare, against the economic needs of Germany itself. Pure ideology - the more subhumans die, the better.
Minsk. July 5, 1942 Prisoner of war camp "Drozdy". Consequences of the Minsk-Bialystok boiler: 140 thousand people on 9 hectares in the open air
Minsk, August 1941 Himmler came to see the prisoners of war. A very strong photo. The gaze of a prisoner and the gaze of the SS men on the other side of the thorn...
June 1941 Raseiniai area (Lithuania). The crew of the KV-1 tank was captured. The tanker in the center looks like Budanov ... This is the 3rd mechanized corps, they met the war on the border. In a 2-day oncoming tank battle 06/23-24/1941 in Lithuania, the corps was defeated
Vinnitsa, July 28, 1941. Since the prisoners were hardly fed, they tried to help local population. Ukrainian women with baskets, plates at the gates of the camp...
There. Apparently, the guards still allowed to transfer food for a thorn
August 1941 Umanskaya Yama concentration camp. It is also Stalag (prefabricated camp) No. 349. It was arranged in a quarry of a brick factory in Uman (Ukraine). In the summer of 1941, prisoners from the Uman cauldron were kept here, 50,000 people. Under the open sky, as in a paddock
Vasily Mishchenko, former prisoner of the "Pit": “Wounded and shell-shocked, I was taken prisoner. Among the first was in the Uman pit. From above, I could clearly see this pit, still empty. No shelter, no food, no water. The sun is beating down mercilessly. In the western corner of the semi-basement quarry there was a puddle of brown-green water with oil. We rushed to her, scooped up this slurry with caps, rusty tin cans, just with our palms and greedily drank. I also remember two horses tied to poles. Five minutes later, there was nothing left of these horses.”
Vasily Mishchenko was in the rank of lieutenant when he was captured in the Uman cauldron. But not only soldiers and junior commanders fell into the boilers. And the generals too. In the picture: Generals Ponedelin and Kirillov, they commanded the Soviet troops near Uman:
The Germans used this photo in propaganda leaflets. The Germans are smiling, but General Kirillov (on the left, in a cap with a torn star) has a very sad look ... This photo session does not bode well
Again Ponedelin and Kirillov. Lunch in captivity
In 1941 both generals were sentenced in absentia to be shot as traitors. Until 1945 they were in camps in Germany, they refused to join Vlasov's army, they were released by the Americans. Transferred to the USSR. Where they were shot. In 1956 both were rehabilitated.
It is clear that they were not traitors. Forced staged photos are not their fault. The only thing they can be accused of is professional incompetence. They let him surround themselves in a cauldron. They are not alone here. Future marshals Konev and Eremenko ruined two fronts in the Vyazemsky pocket (October 1941, 700 thousand prisoners), Timoshenko and Bagramyan - the entire Southwestern Front in the Kharkov pocket (May 1942, 300 thousand prisoners). Zhukov, of course, did not fall into the cauldrons of entire fronts, but for example, commanding the Western Front in the winter of 1941-42. a couple of armies (33rd and 39th) did drive into the environment.
Vyazemsky cauldron, October 1941. While the generals were learning to fight, endless columns of prisoners walked along the roads
Vyazma, November 1941. The infamous Dulag-184 (transit camp) on Kronstadskaya Street. Mortality here reached 200-300 people per day. The dead were simply thrown into the pits
About 15,000 people were buried in the ditches of dulag-184. They don't have a memorial. Moreover, on the site of a concentration camp in Soviet times, a meat processing plant was built. He is still standing there.
Relatives of the dead prisoners regularly come here and made their own memorial, on the fence of the plant
Stalag 10D (Witzendorf, Germany), autumn 1941. Corpses of dead Soviet prisoners are thrown from a wagon
In the autumn of 1941, the death of prisoners became massive. Cold was added to hunger, an epidemic of typhus (it was carried by lice). There were cases of cannibalism.
November 1941, Stalag 305 in Novo-Ukrainka (Kirovograd region). These four (on the left) ate the corpse of this prisoner (on the right)
Well, plus to everything - the constant bullying of the camp guards. And not only the Germans. According to the recollections of many prisoners, the real owners in the camp were the so-called. policemen. Those. former prisoners who went to the service of the Germans. They beat the prisoners for the slightest offense, took away things, executed executions. The most terrible punishment for a policeman was ... demotion to ordinary prisoners. It meant certain death. There was no way back for them - only to curry favor further.
Deblin (Poland), a batch of prisoners arrived at Stalag-307. People are in a terrible state. On the right - a camp policeman in Budyonovka (a former prisoner), stands by the body of a prisoner lying on the platform
Physical punishment. Two policemen in Soviet uniforms: one holds a prisoner, the other beats him with a whip or a stick. The German in the background is laughing. Another prisoner in the background is standing tied to a fence post (also a form of punishment in prisoner camps)
One of the main tasks of the camp policemen was to identify Jews and political workers. According to the order "On Commissars" of June 6, 1941, these two categories of prisoners were to be destroyed on the spot. Those who were not killed immediately upon being taken prisoner were searched for in the camps. Why were regular "selections" arranged to search for Jews and communists. It was either a general medical examination with his pants down - the Germans went and looked for the circumcised, or the use of informers among the prisoners themselves.
Alexander Ioselevich, a captured military doctor, describes how the selection took place in a camp in Jelgava (Latvia) in July 1941:
“They brought crackers and coffee to the camp. There is an SS man, next to a dog and next to him a prisoner of war. And when people go for crackers, he says: "This is a political instructor." They take him out and shoot him right next to him. The traitor is poured coffee and two crackers. "And this is Yude." A Jew is taken out - shot, and again two crackers. “And this one was an Enkvedist.” They take him out - they shoot him, and again two crackers.
Life in the camp in Jelgava was inexpensively valued: 2 crackers. However, as usual in Russia in wartime, people appeared from somewhere who could not be broken by any executions, and could not be bought for crackers.
“The attitude of the Bolshevik authorities towards the soldiers of the Red Army who were taken prisoner developed back in the years civil war. Then they were shot without trial or investigation.” With these words, front-line soldier Academician Alexander Yakovlev in his book “Twilight” outlined one of the worst troubles of the Great Patriotic War, from the first day of which captivity became a cruel test for millions of Soviet soldiers and officers. It cost most of them their lives, and the survivors for almost a decade and a half bore the stigma of traitors and traitors.
War statistics
There is still no exact data on Soviet prisoners of war. The German command indicated a figure of 5,270,000 people. According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the number of prisoners was 4,590,000.
The statistics of the Office of the Commissioner for Repatriation under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR says that the largest number of prisoners fell on the first two years of the war: in 1941 - almost two million (49%); in 1942 - 1,339,000 (33%); in 1943 - 487,000 (12%); in 1944 - 203,000 (5%) and in 1945 - 40,600 (1%).
The vast majority of soldiers and officers were captured not of their own free will - they took the wounded and sick. Up to 2,000,000 soldiers and officers died in captivity. More than 1,800,000 former prisoners of war were repatriated back to the USSR, of which about 160,000 refused to return.
According to a summary of the reports of the German headquarters, from June 22, 1941 to January 10, 1942, the Nazis captured 3,900,000 people, including more than 15,000 officers.
Between the devil and the deep sea
However, all this human tragic numbers appeared only after the Victory Day. In the very first days of the Great Patriotic War, there was still no data on the course of hostilities, but the repressive apparatus of the Soviet government already foresaw possible Negative consequences and considered it necessary to nip them in the bud.
On the sixth day of the war, June 28, 1941, under the heading "Top Secret", a joint order of the NKGB, the NKVD and the USSR Prosecutor's Office "On the procedure for bringing to justice traitors to the motherland and members of their families" was issued. The families of the missing were also recorded in those. Even military personnel who had been behind the front line for only a few days fell under investigation. Fighters and commanders who escaped from the encirclement were greeted as potential traitors.
According to Soviet legislation in force before the war, surrender, not caused by a combat situation, was considered a serious military crime and was punishable by capital punishment - execution with confiscation of property. In addition, Soviet legislation provided for responsibility for the direct transfer of a serviceman to the side of the enemy, flight or flight abroad. These crimes were considered as treason to the motherland and were punishable by death, and adult family members of the traitor were brought to criminal responsibility. Thus, it is clear from Soviet legislation that a serviceman who was captured due to circumstances beyond his control, in conditions caused by a combat situation, was not subject to prosecution. There were no restrictions in the legislation regarding material support, the issuance of benefits and the provision of benefits to family members of military personnel who were captured.
However, in the real conditions of the war, to prevent cases of surrender, the country's leadership, headed by Stalin, used punitive means.
By a resolution of the USSR State Defense Committee of July 16, 1941, captivity and being behind the front line were qualified as crimes. And exactly one month later, the order of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command of the Red Army No. 270 “On the responsibility of military personnel for surrendering and leaving weapons to the enemy” appeared. It was not published, but only read "in all companies, squadrons, batteries, squadrons, commands and headquarters."
In particular, the order stated that "the shameful facts of surrender to our sworn enemy indicate that there are unstable, cowardly, cowardly elements in the ranks of the Red Army", which “They hide in cracks, fiddle around in offices, do not see or observe the battlefield, and at the first serious difficulties in battle they give in to the enemy, tear off their insignia, and desert from the battlefield. Cowards and deserters must be destroyed.”
Chairman of the State Defense Committee Joseph Stalin ordered “Commanders and political workers who, during the battle, tear off their insignia and desert to the rear or surrender to the enemy, are considered malicious deserters, whose families are subject to arrest as families of deserters who violated the oath and betrayed their homeland.” Higher commanders were obliged to shoot "such deserters."
Stalin demanded to fight until "last chance" what if "The head or part of the Red Army soldiers, instead of organizing a rebuff to the enemy, will prefer to surrender - to destroy them by all means, both ground and air, and to deprive the families of the Red Army soldiers who have surrendered from state benefits and assistance."
Obviously, Joseph Vissarionovich was deeply indifferent to the fate of his compatriots who were captured. He is well known for saying that in There are no prisoners of war in the Red Army, there are only traitors and traitors to the Motherland. The Soviet Union knows no prisoners, it knows only the dead and traitors.
In this spirit, another no less cruel order No. 277 of July 28, 1942, better known as "Not a step back!"
Stalin was tired of retreating and demanded "stubbornly, to the last drop of blood, defend every position, every meter of Soviet territory, cling to every piece of Soviet land and defend it to the last possible." Everything was there, but it wasn't enough. "order and discipline in companies, regiments, divisions, in tank units, in air squadrons." “This is now our main drawback, - the "father of nations" was convinced. - We must establish the strictest order and iron discipline in our army. "Alarmists and cowards must be exterminated on the spot" - the leader demanded.
Commanders retreating from a combat position without an order from above were declared traitors to the Motherland and subject to execution.
Order No. 227 created penal battalions from guilty soldiers and officers "in violation of discipline through cowardice or instability" in order to "give them the opportunity to atone for their crimes against the Motherland with blood." By the same order of the commander-in-chief, barrage detachments were formed in order to “put them in the immediate rear of unstable divisions and oblige them, in case of panic and disorderly withdrawal of parts of the division, to shoot alarmists and cowards on the spot.”
The bitter truth of war: you can’t be taken prisoner - they will declare you a traitor, and if you don’t retreat - they will shoot your own. From all sides - death ...
From fascist camps to native GULAG
For the surviving Soviet prisoners of war after the Victory, the tests did not end. It's by international law military captivity was not considered a crime. Soviet law had its own opinion. Every soldier who left the encirclement, escaped from captivity or liberated by the Red Army and allies in anti-Hitler coalition, was subjected to scrutiny that bordered on political distrust.
In accordance with the decree of the State Defense Committee of December 27, 1941, former prisoners of war were sent through the collection and transit points of the People's Commissariat of Defense under escort to special camps of the NKVD for verification. The conditions of detention of former prisoners of war in them were established the same as for criminals held in forced labor camps. In everyday life and documents, they were called “former servicemen” or “special contingent”, although no judicial or administrative decisions were taken against these persons. "Former servicemen" were deprived of the rights and benefits due to military ranks, length of service, as well as monetary and clothing allowances. They were forbidden to correspond with relatives and friends.
While the checks were being carried out, the “special contingent” was involved in hard forced labor in mines, logging, construction, mines and the metallurgical industry. They were set extremely high standards of output, formally charged a small salary. For failure to complete the task and for the slightest misconduct, they were punished as prisoners of the Gulag. Simply put, they got out of the fascist fire and into the Soviet frying pan.
War statistics
According to the Office of the Commissioner of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR for Repatriation, as of October 1945, 2,016,480 liberated Soviet prisoners of war were counted as survivors. There is evidence that by the middle of 1947, 1,836,000 of them returned to their homeland, including those who entered the military and police service to the enemy, the rest remained abroad. Some of those who returned to their homeland were arrested and convicted, others were sent to a 6-year special settlement, and others were enrolled in NPO work battalions. As of August 1, 1946, only 300,000 prisoners of war were sent home.
After the end of the war, 57 Soviet generals returned from captivity to their homeland: 23 of them were sentenced to capital punishment (8 for treason), 5 were sentenced to 10 to 25 years, 2 died in prison, 30 were tested and continued service.
According to Academician Alexander Yakovlev, during the war, only 994,000 Soviet military personnel were convicted by military tribunals, of which over 157,000 were sentenced to death, that is, almost fifteen divisions were shot by the Stalinist authorities. More than half of the sentences fall on 1941-1942. A significant part of the convicts are fighters and commanders who escaped from captivity or left the encirclement.
The problem of former prisoners of war in the Soviet Union drew attention after the death of Stalin. On September 17, 1955, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "On the amnesty of Soviet citizens who collaborated with the occupiers during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" was adopted. Oddly enough, but first of all, the authorities decided to pardon those who served in the police, in the occupying forces, and collaborated with the Nazis. The amnesty did not apply to those people who had already served their sentences in hard labor, in special camps, in labor battalions.
The publication of the decree caused a flood of letters to the highest party and government authorities. As a result, a commission was created under the chairmanship of Marshal Zhukov. On June 4, 1956, Zhukov presented a report in which for the first time convincing evidence of arbitrariness against prisoners of war was presented. As a result, on June 29, 1956, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a secret resolution "On the Elimination of the Consequences of Gross Violations of the Law in Respect of Former Prisoners of War and Members of Their Families", which "condemned the practice of sweeping political distrust of former Soviet servicemen who were captured or surrounded by the enemy."
From many hundreds of thousands of former prisoners of war who were captured by the enemy not of their own free will, the government washed away the stigma that it had inflicted.
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