How to learn about the prisoners during the Second World War. How Soviet prisoners of war lived in the Great Patriotic War (8 photos). According to the "Commission A.N. Yakovleva "

In 1941, the Germans took 4 million prisoners, from the bottom 3 killed in the first six months of captivity. This is one of the most disgusting crimes of German Nazis. The prisoners kept for months in the pens from barbed wire, in the open sky, did not feed, people ate grass and rainworms. Hunger, thirst, antisanitary, deliberately arranged by the Germans, did their job. This massacre was against the customs of warfare, against the economic needs of German itself. Net ideology - the more mischievous, the better.

Minsk. July 5, 1942 camp of prisoners of war "Drozda". The consequences of the Minsk-Belostok boiler: 140 thousand people in 9 hectares in the open sky

Minsk, August 1941 Himmler came to look at prisoners of war. Very strong photo. View of the prisoner and views of the SSEsovs on the other side of the barch ...

June 1941 District Ruse (Lithuania). The crew of the KV-1 tank was captured. Tanker in the center of Budanova is like ... This is the 3rd mehkorpus, they met the war on the border. In a 2-day counterweight tank battle, 23-24.06.1941 in Lithuania, the building was defeated

Vinnitsa, July 28, 1941 since the prisoners almost did not feed, they were trying to help the local population. Ukrainian women with baskets, plates at the gate of the camp ...

Ibid. Apparently, the security was still allowed to transfer food for a spin

August 1941 Concentrate "Umanskaya Yama". He is a stalander (prefaby camp) No. 349. It was arranged in a career of a brick factory in Uman (Ukraine). In the summer of the 41st, there were prisoners from the Umansky boiler, 50,000 people. In the open sky as in the pine

Vasily Mishchenko, a former prisoner of "Pits": "The wounded and contused I was captured. Among the first was in the Uman Yam. From above, I was well seen this pit more empty. Neither the beds, no food, no water. The sun is mercilessly palette. In the western corner of the semi-base career was a puddle of a boring green with fuel oil. We rushed to her, dragged this alive by the pilots, rusty tin cans, just with palms and eagerly drank. I am also remembered for two horses tied to the columns. Five minutes from these horses there is nothing left. "

Vasily Mishchenko was in the rank of Lieutenant when he was captured in the Umansky boiler. But not only soldiers and younger commanders fell into the boilers. And generals too. In the picture: Generally Pedelin and Kirillov, they commanded by Soviet troops under Uman:

This photo of the Germans used in propaganda leaflets. The Germans are smiling, but by General Kirillova (left, in a cap with a torn star) The look is very sad ... Nothing good this photo session

Again Roundelin and Kirillov. Lunch in captivity

In 1941, both generals were in absentia to execute as traitors. Until 1945, they were sitting in the camps in Germany, the Vlasov joined the army refused, liberated by the Americans. Transmitted to the USSR. Where and are shot. In 1956, both rehabilitated.

It is clear that they were not any traitors. Forced staged photos are not their fault. The only thing you can accuse them - in the uniformity. Dali surround themselves in the boiler. They are not alone here. The future marshals of Konev and Eremenko threatened two fronts in the Vyazemsky Boiler (October 1941, 700 thousand prisoners), Tymoshenko and Bagramyan - the entire South-West Front in the Kharkov Boiler (May 1942, 300 thousand prisoners). The beetles, of course, did not hit the whole fronts to the boilers, but for example, commanding the Western front in the winter of 1941-42. A couple of armies (33rd and 39th) went to the environment.

Vyazemsky boiler, October 1941 While the generals studied to fight, endless columns of prisoners walked on the roads

Vyazma, November 1941. The infamous dawn-184 (transfer camp) in Kronstadskaya Street. Mortality here reached 200-300 people per day. Dead just dumped into pits

About 15,000 people were buried in the Swab-184 Rips. Memorial not. Moreover, on the site of the concentration camp in Soviet times, the meat processing plant was built. He still stands there.

Relatives of the dead captives regularly come here and made their memorial, on the fence of the plant

Stalacious 10D (Witzendorf, Germany), autumn 1941. The corpses of the dead Soviet prisoners are discharged from the wagon

In the fall of 1941, the death of prisoners became mass. The hunger was added to the hunger, the epidemic of the rapid typhus (lice was broadcast). There were cases of cannibalism.

November 1941, Stalacious 305 in Novo-Ukrainka (Kirovograd region). Here these four (left) ate the corpse is a prisoner (right)

Well, plus to all - permanent mockery of camp security. And not only the Germans. According to the memoirs of many prisoners in real owners in the camp were so-called. Politsa. Those. Former prisoners who moved to the Germans. They beat prisoners for the slightest locality, took things, performed executions. The most terrible punishment for the police was ... degradation into ordinary prisoners. This meant faithful death. Back they were not the way - only to be heard further.

g. Deblin (Poland), the party of prisoners arrived in Stalan-307. People in a terrible state. On the right - the camp police in Budyanovka (formerly twenty), stands at the body of the prisoner, lying on the platform

Physical punishment. Two policemen in Soviet form: one holds the prisoner, the other beats the leaf or a stick. German in the background - laughs. Another prisoner in the background - stands, tied to the fence pillar (also the type of punishment in the camps of prisoners)

One of the main tasks of the camp police was the identification of Jews and political workers. According to the order "On Commissioners" dated June 6, 1941, these two categories of prisoners were subject to destroying. Who did not kill immediately when taken captive - those were looking for in camps. For which regular "selection" was arranged for the search for Jews and Communists. It was either a general medical examination with navalized pants - the Germans went and searched for circumcised, or the use of pokcs among the prisoners themselves.

Alexander Ioselievich, Packed Mervach, describes how the selection in the camp in Jelgava (Latvia) was held in July 1941:

"Brought cloth and coffee camp. There is a Schedule, near the dog and next to him a prisoner of war. And when people go beyond breadcrumbs, he says: "This is a political officer." It is removed and immediately shoot. The traitor is poured coffee and give two crumbs. "And this is Yuda." Jews remove - shoot, and there is again two croutons. "And this was an enclusion." It is removed - shoot, and there is again two croutons. "

Inexpensively appreciated life in the camp in Jelgava: 2 sugar. However, as usual in Russia in wartime, there were people from somewhere, who were not breaking with any executions, and not to buy for a crush.

The terrible years of World War II entered the story not only with a huge number of victims, but also a large number of prisoners of war. Captured one by one and whole armies: someone surrendered organized, and someone deserted, but there were completely curious cases.

Italians

Italians were not the most reliable ally of Germany. Cases of entering Italian soldiers captured everywhere: apparently, the inhabitants of Apennel understood that the war in which they had dragged them dead does not meet the interests of Italy.
When on July 25, 1943, Mussolini was arrested by the new Government of Italy, headed by Marshal Badolo, began to secret negotiations with the American command for imprisonment. The result of Badolo's negotiations with Eisenhower was the massive delivery of Italians in American captivity.
In this regard, the memory of the American General Omar Bradley, which describes the elevated state of Italian military personnel in captivity:

"Soon the festive mood was reigned in the Italian camp, the prisoners were squatting around the fires and sang under the acclomes of accordions brought with them."

According to Bradley, the festive mood of Italians was associated with the prospect of "free travel to the States."
An interesting case told one of the Soviet veterans, who recalled as in the fall of 1943 near Donetsk met the huge peasant WHO with a hay, and the Tsugom was harnessed six "skinny black men." They chased "Ukrainian Baba" with German carbine. It turned out that these are Deserters-Italians. They are so "burned and crying" that the Soviet soldier could hardly manage to guess their desire to surrender.

Americans

In the US Army there is an unusual type of loss - "overwork in battle". This category includes first of all those who were in captivity. Thus, when disembarking in Normandy in June 1944, the number of "overworn in battle" was about 20% of the total number of retired from the battle.

In general, according to the results of the Second World War, due to the "overwork," the US loss amounted to 929,307 people.

More often, the Americans turned out to be a captive Japanese army.
Most of all, the command of the US Armed Forces remembered the operation of the German troops, which included in history as "Ardenan breakthrough". As a result of the counteroffensiveness of the Wehrmacht against the Allied Troops, which began on December 16, 1944, the front moved by 100 km. deep into the territory of the enemy. American writer Dick Tolend in the book about the operation in Ardenna writes that "75 thousand American soldiers at the front on the night of December 16 lay down to sleep, as usual. That evening, none of the American commander assumed a major German offensive. " The result of the German breakthrough was the captive of about 30 thousand Americans.

Soviet military

There are no accurate information about the number of Soviet prisoners of war. According to different data, their number ranges from 4.5 to 5.5 million people. According to the calculations of the Commander of the Army Group Center, the Boca Background only by July 8, 1941, 287,704 Soviet soldiers were captured, including division and cabinet commanders. And at the end of 1941, the number of Soviet prisoners of war exceeded 3 million 300 thousand people.

Proposed primarily due to the inability to further resist - wounded, patients who do not have food and ammunition or in the absence of management from commanders and headquarters.

The bulk of Soviet soldiers and officers fell into the German captivity in the "boilers". Thus, the result of the largest battle in the Soviet-German conflict of the battle in the Soviet-German conflict - about 600 thousand Soviet prisoners of war.

The Soviet soldiers also surrendered alone or separate formations. The reasons were different, but the main of them, as noted by the former prisoners of war, is fear for their lives. However, there were ideological motives or just unwillingness to fight for Soviet power. Perhaps from these considerations on August 22, 1941, on the side of the enemy, the 436th Infantry Regiment under the command of Major Ivan Kononova moved to the opponent.

Germans

If the Germans captured the Germans to the Stalingrad battle was the exception of 1942-43 in winter. It has acquired a symptomatic nature: during the Stalingrad operation, about 100 thousand soldiers of the Wehrmacht were captured. The Germans surrendered with whole rotes - hungry, patients frostbed or just exhausted. During the Great Patriotic War, Soviet troops were captured - 2,388,443 German soldiers.
In recent months of war, the German command of the dragon methods tried to force the troops to fight, but in vain. Especially unfavorable was the situation on the Western Front. There, German soldiers, knowing about the observance of England and the United States of the Geneva Convention on the handling of prisoners of war surrendered much more than in the east.
According to the memoirs of German veterans, the mines tried to move towards the opponent's side immediately before attack. There were cases and organized passing. So, in North Africa, German soldiers, remaining without ammunition, fuel and food built into the columns to surrender to the Americans or the British.

Yugoslav

Not all countries of the anti-Hitler coalition could give a strong opponent with a worthy repulse. So, Yugoslavia, which, in addition to Germany, attacked the Armed Forces of Hungary and Italy did not stand the Natius and April 12, 1941 capitulated. Parts of the Yugoslav army, formed from Croats, Bosnians, Slovenians and Macedonians, began to massively diverge home or move towards the enemy. In a matter of years, the German captivity was about 314 thousand soldiers and officers - almost all the Armed Forces of Yugoslavia.

Japanese

It should be noted that the defeats that Japan suffered in World War II brought a lot of losses to the enemy. Following the Code of Samurai's honor, even besieged and the divisions blocked on the islands were in no hurry to give up prisoner and kept until the latter. As a result, by the time of the capitulation, many Japanese soldiers just died of hunger.

When in the summer of 1944, American troops captured the Isaipan Island occupied by the Japanese from the 30-thousand contingent of the Japanese captured only a thousand.

About 24 thousand were killed, another 5 thousand committed suicide. Almost all prisoners are the merit of 18-year-old Morpes Guy Gabaldon, who perfectly owned by Japanese and knew the psychology of the Japanese. Gabaldon acted alone: \u200b\u200bhe killed or immobilized near the shelters of the sentries, and then persuaded to surrender inside. In the most successful raid, Morpeh led 800 Japanese to the base, for which he received the nickname "Saipan rats".
A curious episode of the Japanese capture, disfigured mosquito bite, in his book "Memories and Reflections" leads Georgy Zhukov. To the question, "where and who did it so" the Japanese replied that, together with other soldiers from the evening, it was planted in the root for observing Russians. At night, they had to endure the terrible bites of mosquitoes, so as not to issue their presence. "And when the Russians shouted something and threw the rifle," said, "I raised my hands, because I could not more endure these torments."

French people

The rapid fall of France during the lightning strike in May-June 1940 countries of the axis still causes stormy discussions from historians. A little more than a month, about 1.5 million French soldiers and officers fell. But if 350 thousand was in captivity during the fighting, the rest settled the weapons in connection with the order of Petin's government about the truce. So, in a short period, one of the most combat-ready armies in Europe ceased to exist.

Transportation of Soviet prisoners of war in 1941.

Photo from the German state archive. Soviet prisoners of war in the camp, August 1942

Soviet prisoners of war during the Great Patriotic War - Category of military personnel of the Army of the Soviet Union, voluntarily or forcibly captured by the Hitler's army or the allies of the Allies of Germany during the Great Patriotic War.

Brutal conditions for the content of Soviet prisoners of war were caused by the ideological rejection by the Führer of the Third Reich Hitler of Communism and the desire for expansion of the space, under which the formal basis was supplied - the Soviet Union did not recognize the 1907 Hague Convention and refused to join the Geneva Convention for Prisoners of Secand, which completed and collected together the provisions of the Hague Rules that, according to Fuhrer, allowed Germany, who had previously signed both agreements, not to regulate the conditions for the detention of Soviet prisoners of war by these documents. In fact, the Hague Convention Soviet Russia recognized in 1918 (as a red cross agreement), and the Geneva Convention, and not signed by the USSR, regulated the attitude towards prisoners of war, regardless of whether its opponents countries signed or not.

The number of prisoners of war captured, for a long time is the subject of discussion, both in Russian (Soviet) and in German historiography. The German command in official data indicates a figure of 5 million 270 thousand people. According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the losses of the prisoners amounted to 4 million 559 thousand people.

Causes of a large number of prisoners

Military-strategic reasons: an unexpected attack of the Third Reich in the USSR, the difficult conditions of the war, in which the soldiers of the Red Army were (the overwhelming part of the prisoners was captured in t. "Big boilers"), led to the fact that large groups of the units of the Red Army, Having exhausted all the possibilities of resistance and deprived of any support of the command, captured.

As the reasons for the lack of team composition of the Red Army and inadequate level of preparation of the existing personnel, the following are allocated: a civil war, which led to the mass emigration of the Russian officer's corps; Removal from RKKU t. n. "Warnspetsov" in the late 1920s (see: the case "Spring"); Stalinist repressions in the Red Army of 1937-38; As well as the expansion of the army in 1939-41, as a result of which 70% of officers and 75% of political workers held posts for less than a year, more than 1 million redarmeys served less than a year, and the army increased three times.

Large-scale repression against the RKKE command was perceived by a potential opponent as its weakening. So, in 1937, the German magazine "Verfront" wrote Orpresses in the Red Army:

Socio-political reasons: the repressive policy of the Soviet state (red terror, collectivization, Stalinist repressions) caused significant discontent both among the USSR population, especially peasants and newly joined territories (Western Ukraine, Baltic States), refused to have armed resistance on the USSR side and Preferred voluntarily give away.

Subjectively psychological factors: confusion, panic caused by the lack of an adequate command and visible superiority of German troops in the first period of war.

It should be however, it should be noted that the German command, in violation of the Hague and Geneva Conventions, included the proportion of prisoners of war in addition to the personnel of the Red Army:

all employees of the party and Soviet bodies;

men, regardless of age, who came down with the retreats and aroused from the environment of the troops;

sometimes all men are generally between the ages of 16 and 55;

partizan and underground workers;

hotels taken in the areas covered by partisan movement.

For example, 665 thousand prisoners of war were taken to the German command of the German command of Kiev, while at the beginning of the Kiev defensive operation in the troops of the South-Western Front there were 627 thousand personnel, of which more than 150 thousand were acted out of the environment, and tens of thousands came out of Environment. In Sevastopol, the seizure of 100 thousand prisoners of war. The English historian Fuller argued that "to believe the German communiqué about victories cannot be, for the astronomical numbers were often given in them."

The total number of Soviet prisoners of war in foreign seal is determined within 5.2-5.75 million people. Commission of the Ministry of Defense, chaired by M. A. Gareeyev, announced about 4 million [p 1]. 1,836,562 people returned from captivity, of which they are directed: about 1 million - for the further passage of military service; 600 thousand - to work in industry as part of working battalions; 339 thousand (including 233.4 thousand former military personnel) - to the Camp of the NKVD, as compromised themselves in captivity.

The attitude of the Germans to the prisoners of war

The main cause of a cruel attitude to the Soviet prisoner in captivity was the Nazi theory of racial inferiority of Slavs, in particular Russians who were perceived by the Nazis as a "mass of racially defective, stupid people."

The racial hatred of the Nazis was aggravated by the ideological rejection of communism. The Führer at a meeting of the highest commander of the Wehrmacht on March 30, 1941 stated:

The communist has never been and never becomes our comrades. We are talking about fighting for destruction. If we do not look so, then, although we will break the enemy, in 30 years there will again arise a communist danger.<…> Commissioners and persons belonging to the GPU are criminals, and with them should be acting as criminals.
<…>
Political commissars are the basis of Bolshevism in the Red Army, carriers of ideology, hostile nationalism, and cannot be recognized as soldiers. Therefore, after a captivity, they must be shot.

Immediately after the beginning of the war, such an attitude spread to all Soviet prisoners of war. In particular, in the information bulletin for troops No. 112 released in June, it is said that " It is necessary to eliminate red subhumans, together with their Kremlin dictators" All German commanders published orders in the spirit of the "struggle of Germanians against Slavs and protection against Jewish Bolshevism." The OKM order of September 8, 1941 states:

Many fighters ended their lives in German captivity. The challenge of the Germans was the destruction of the live strength of the USSR in general and prisoners of war in particular. Created unbearable conditions for the existence of prisoners. On the way to the camp, they did not feed them. They fed on the road by cabbage leaves, roots, rye ears with unlocked roadside fields. Water drank from road puddles. Start the wells or ask to get drunk in the peasants is strictly prohibited. So, within five days - from October 9 to October 13, 1941 - chased a column of prisoners to the Dorogoguzhi camp. The column was accompanied by a car on which four paired machine guns were installed. On the way in one of the villages under the stove of the burned house, the captives saw semi-consuming potatoes. About 200 people rushed after her. Fire from four guns was opened directly in the crowd. Several dozen prisoners died. On the path, the prisoners rushed to the fields with an unquestioned potato, immediately opened fire from the machine guns.

The question of international conventions

The difficult situation of Soviet soldiers in Nazi captivity, the Hitler's guide explained that the USSR did not recognize the 1907 Hague Convention "On the Laws and Customs of the Ground War" and did not sign the Geneva Convention of 1929, which determined the legal status of prisoners of war, although this convention was signed by 47 countries.

In fact, the Hague Convention has not signed the USSR, but the Russian Empire, and the Geneva Convention regulated relations to prisoners of war, regardless of whether their convention signed or not.

The provisions of this Convention must be respected by high Contracting Parties under all circumstances.
If, in case of war, one of the warring parties will be not involved in the Convention, nevertheless, the situation is obligatory for all warring, the convention of the signatories.

The main reason for which the Soviet Union did not sign the Geneva Convention of 1929 as a whole, was disagreement with the division of prisoners on the national basis. The refusal of the USSR from the signing of the Convention allowed the Nazis to use this fact and leave Soviet prisoners without any protection and control by the International Red Cross and other organizations that helped the prisoners of Western countries. Head of the headquarters of the Commander-Frostedness of the Land Forces of the Wehrmacht F. Galder in the Nuremberg process led the words of Hitler: "Since the Russians do not recognize the Hague Convention, then the treatment of their prisoners of war must be in accordance with the decisions of the Hague Convention."

Article 193 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1926 provided for "For the transfer, not caused by a combat situation - a shooting with confiscation of property." In Article 22 of the "Regulations on military crimes", 1927 it was said that the transfer was not caused by a combat situation, as well as the transition to the side of the enemy envisage the highest measure of punishment (execution) with confiscation of property. In the sense of the law, it was punished only by passing "not caused by a combat situation". In 1926, the title of the Regulations commented as: "In the known cases, the situation on the battlefield may form that resistance is essentially impossible, and the destruction of fighters is aimless. In these cases, the passage is actually an act of permissible and weakly cause prosecution. "

The practice of absentee condemnation of military personnel, who were behind the front line, as traitors of the Motherland were expanded. A sufficient basis for such a solution was received by the operational way about their alleged anti-Soviet activity. The verdict was carried out without any check, sometimes only one statement.

German camp system for prisoners of war

All issues of the content of foreign prisoners of war in Germany were engaged in the department of prisoners of the German army as part of the general department of the Armed Forces. The management of the nonsense was led by General German Rainek.

The department of prisoners of war headed:

• colonel Breier (1939-1941)
• general Grevienitz (1942-1944)
• general Westhoff (1944)
• obergrouppenfuer SS Berger (1944-1945)

In each military district (only 17), and later in the occupied territories transferred to civilian management, "commander of prisoners of war" was "commander". Captured servicemen initially turned out to be in the divisional points for collecting prisoners; From there, they were transferred to transit camps (Dulagi), where they were sorted: fighters and younger commanders went to the camp for the lower ranks ("Stalagi"), and officers are in separate officer camps ("offlags"). From the stals of the prisoners of war could be translated into working camps or penalty camps.

Camps for prisoners of war were divided into 5 categories:

• prefabilities (camps)
• power camps ("Durable", it. Dulag.)
• permanent camps ("Stalan", it. Stalag.) And officer camps ("Offlag", it. Oflag. from Offizierlager)
• basic workers camps
• small working camps

Divisional prisoners of war

Prefabricated items were created in close proximity to the front line or in the area of \u200b\u200bthe operation. There was a final disarmament of the prisoners, the first accounts were made.

Durable, Stalan

The next stage of the movement of the prisoners was "Dulags" - forward camps, usually located near the railway units. After the initial sorting of the prisoners were sent to camps with, as a rule, a constant location in the rear, away from hostilities. As a rule, all camps differed by numbers, they usually had a large number of prisoners.

Before the war, Germany was divided into 17 military districts, each of which was assigned to his number Roman number.

• - Konigsberg district (Konigsberg)
• - Shattinsky District (Stettin)
• III - Berlin District (Berlin)
• - Dresden District (Dresden)
• - Stuttgart District (Stuttgart)
• VI - Munster District (MUNSTER)
• VII - Munich District (Munchen)
• VIII - Breslav district (Breslau) (Wroclaw)
• IX - Kassel district (Kassel)
• X - Hamburg District (Hamburg)
• XI - Hannover District (Hannover)
• XII - Wiesbaden District (Wiesbaden)
• XIII - NURNBERG DISTRICT (NURNBERG)
• XVII - Vienna District (WIEN) (Austria)
• XVIII - Salzburg District (SALZBURG) (Austria)
• XX - Danzig district (Danzig) (Gdansk, Poland)
• XXI - Posen district (Posen) (Poznan, Poland)

Thus, the figure IV in the word "Stalan IV B" meant its belonging to the specified district, and the index "B" is the number of this stationary camp in this district. By the way, in the Dresden District there were also under different cities of Stalag - and IV with indices A, C, D, E, G and LW5 (especially for prisoners of war of air force). There were also camps specifically for the prisoners of war of officers and generals that were called OffizierLager (abbreviated offlag - offlag) IV A, B, C and D, where their inhabitants were not forced to work. In some places, the "Durable" and "Stalan" type camps with the index "KM" intended only for seafarers prisoners of war. There was several Heillaager camps (Heilag - Highlag, or just the index "H") for "health correction in case of illness or injury." In addition to them, there were large lazarets only for sick or underwent prisoners.

The administration of each camp consisted of the following departments:

• 1A. - Guide camps. This department was responsible for the protection of the camp, the mode of the detention of prisoners of war and was reporting the activity of the camp.
• 2A. - The use of prisoners of war in operations. This department was responsible for keeping accounting for applications of enterprises for labor, concluded a contract with them, distributed prisoners of war for compulsory work and represented reporting on the use of prisoners.
• 2B - Accounting prisoners of war. Employees of the department led to the registration of persons arriving at the camp and followed their movement. The department has placed the names of the names and numbers assigned to prisoners of war.
• 3A. - Disposhering Abver. The department was engaged in recruiting agents among prisoners of war in order to identify Soviet intelligence and persons who hid themselves belonging to the political and team composition of the Red Army, Jews, as well as hostile to the Germans and preparing escape.
• 3b - Subsidious censorship led to check all the rewriting of prisoners of war.
• 4A. - Economic
• 4b - Sanchast.

Small working camps

There was a great set ascribed to the Strapham of individual local, as a rule, small camps that were called Arbeitskommando. - Working teams equipped with their own rooms indicated by Arabic numbers. Such camps, if the working and living conditions in them were very heavy, unofficially called the penalties and in them the Germans often referred "guilty" prisoners of war from different other camps, the conditions of stay in which could be considered to be treated.

Small working camps submitted to the main working camps or directly constant Strapham. They differed in the name of the settlement, where they were placed, and by the name of the main working camps, to which they were attributed. For example, in the village of Wittenheim Velzas, the camp of Russian prisoners of war, which existed in 1943 was called "Wittenheim Stalant Us". The number of prisoners in small working camps was from several tens to several hundred people.

CONTLICTION CONDITIONS AND MORTER

Soviet prisoners of war, which fell into captivity, first kept either in the front-line zone or in the "souls" located in the operational rear of the German troops. From there they moved to stationary camps for prisoners of war - "Stalagi", and the team composition - to officer camps - "offlags".

Front camps and Dulagi were placed in agricultural buildings, warehouses, but most often - in the open space - in ravines, quarries, lowlands. For the construction of camps for Soviet prisoners of war, an extremely simple method was applied: an open space of a few hectares was covered with barbed wire and put around guard tower. And only a high mortality of prisoners subsequently forced the Nazis to settle the Soviet soldiers and officers in the barracks or stables, where, however, the conditions of detention were not very good.

Soviet prisoners of war, 1941

It should be noted that in the first months of war against the Soviet Union of Soviet prisoners of war they were not sent to the territory of Reich, fearing the spread of communism among the Germans. And only if mass epidemics broke out in camps for prisoners of war, and German economies felt a lack of working arms, Hitler allowed sending prisoners to Germany.

The Soviet soldiers who fell into captivity were distilled from footing or railway echelons from prisoners (mainly Belarus, Ukraine and Western Russian) to German camps located in Poland, Germany and other countries.

Starting from 1943, the German command began to form "working battalions", working teams. Operation of the former Soviet military personnel and hiring to work in Germany "Eastern Workers" (Ostarabiters) was limitless: the German authorities widely used the working teams on the loading and unloading work in ports and at railway stations, on restoration work, on various heavy work at coal enterprises and Mining and ore industry, in black and non-ferrous metallurgy. Laws regulating work in workers and Sundays, holidays, night time, etc. They did not apply on them. In one of the orders of the director of the Mr. Farbenindusty concern, it was insistently reminded that "improving the labor productivity of prisoners of war can be reduced by the rate of food issuance,<…> as well as punishments implemented by army instances. If any of the eastern workers begin to reduce labor productivity, then force and even weapons will be applied to it. "

In addition to the daily exhausting physical labor, the serious position of the prisoners of war is complicated and extremely poor nutrition. So, by order of the supreme command of the land forces of October 8, 1941, the norm of Soviet prisoners of war for 28 days (as a percentage) compared with the norm of non-monetary prisoners of war was (when used on hard work):

productquantity%

To restore performance, each prisoner ended by 6 weeks: up to 100 grams of artificial honey a week, up to 50 g cod per week, up to 3.5 kg of potatoes per week. In this case, the added power could be obtained only 6 weeks. During the marches, prisoners of war soverees, both because of hunger and physical exhaustion, and as a result of shootings in disobedience or attempts to escape.

Soviet prisoners of war massively died in the German prisoners of war, especially in the national camps, in which they were kept at first after the capture, from exhaustion as a result of poor nutrition; In addition, they often destroyed them. In an effort to the mass destruction of Soviet prisoners of war, the authorities of Nazi Germany ordered the soldiers of the Red Army for extinction from hunger and infectious diseases, without providing them with any medical care. For example, 883 thousand 485 people were buried on the territory of Poland, according to Polish authorities. Soviet prisoners of war who died in numerous Nazi camps

It was established that the first mass destruction in the concentration camp with the use of poisoning substances was the extermination of Soviet prisoners of war; Only then this method was applied to destroy the Jews.

Jews-prisoners of war

Special German commanders indicated that captured http://readtiger.com/wkp/ru/%D0%95%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B8 "\u003e Jews are subject to destruction. Often prisoners of war -Everev killed on the spot, in other cases they separated from other prisoners of war and subsequently went to the death camps. Pavel Pollas emphasizes that the Holocaust as a system of physical destruction by the Germans chronologically leads its beginning to the systematic murder of prisoners of war ", since such executions It began on June 22, 1941, long before the Vazie Conference, and two days earlier than the first shares on the destruction of the Civil Jewish population.

Almost all Soviet Jews-prisoners perigital died, Pavel Polyan calls 94%. The main way of destroying the prisoners of war were massive executions. According to the author of the book "Captation" of Dr. Arona Schneer, the mass death of the Jews-prisoners of the Red Army contributed to the fact that the Jews were often issued to the Germans their own colleagues. The Schneer is supported by numerous facts and testimonies.

The use of prisoners of war in the war on the side of Germany

From among the prisoners of war, units were formed, intended to carry a guard-convoy service in camps for prisoners of war. In the autumn of 1941, the formation of police teams, "Cossack" mouth and squadrons began in the rear of the German army in order to protect the order and carrying the guard service in the occupied territory. In the summer of 1942, the General Headquarters of the Ground Forces prepared the Directive on the organization of ethnic and Cossack field parts and divisions. Even earlier, in November 1941, directives were issued, regulating the formation of building battalions and transport battalions of supply from among Soviet citizens, including prisoners of war.

As a result, the number of armed buildings created by the German command from Soviet citizens was approximately 250 thousand for the time of war.

In the overwhelming majority of the system parts carried the security, guard and stage-barrier service in the German operational rear, and also attracted to carry out punitive shares against partisans and civilians.

Taking into account this, the total number of Soviet citizens who served in the police, in the Armed Forces of Germany did not exceed 200-300 thousand people. Judging by the testimony of the German servicemen who had attracted to the creation and use of these formations, the share of Soviet prisoners of war in them was about 60%, the rest are local residents and immigrants .. To seek success, we began to recruit volunteers from the Russian prisoners of war right in the front-line strip .

After the war

During the war, the military personnel who came from the environment and the crossing of the front of the front, military-ridden from among the civilian population, were sent mainly to replenish the replenish parts, in particular labor armies. These armies were built prisonership of objects, in particular the Kuibyshev Aviation Plant, etc.

To check the "former military personnel of the Red Army, who were in captivity and environment of the enemy," a decree of the State Defense Committee of December 27, 1941 was created a network of test-filtration camps.

In 1944, the flow of prisoners of war and repatriated returned to the Soviet Union increased dramatically. This summer was developed, and then a new filtering system was introduced and the state security authorities of all returning persons.

In the spring and summer of 1945, a large number of repatriates accumulated in Germany and other European countries in Germany and other European countries, several times higher than the bandwidth of these items.

Soviet and Russian military historian. RU /% D0% 9A% D0% BE% D0% BB% D0% BB% D0% B0% D0% B1% D0% BE% D1% 80% D0% B0% D1% 86% D0% B8% D0% BE % D0% BD% D0% B8% D0% B7% D0% BC "\u003e Cooperation with the enemy and departed a sentence in the Gulag system.

During the war, the military personnel liberated from captivity in most cases after a short check was restored at military service, with the ordinary and sergeant composition mainly in ordinary military units, and officers, as a rule, were deprived of officer ranks, and officer assault (fined) battalions were formed . In the post-war, liberated officers were sent to the Camps of the NKVD and the spare parts of the Majorraform of the Red Army for a more thorough check.

After the war, the military personnel of an ordinary and sergeant composition, who did not serve in the German army or changed formations, were divided into two large groups in the age assembly - demobilized and non-changeable age. In 1945, after dismissal from the army to the reserve of the Red Army, those ages, on which the order of demobilization was distributed were released at home and prisoners of war and sergeant composition of the respective ages. The prisoners of war of the ordinary and sergeant composition of unfinished ages in accordance with the Special Resolution of the State Defense Committee of August 18, 1945 were sent to working battalions to work in the industry and the restoration of objects destroyed during the war. Sending to the place of residence enrolled in the working battalions was made dependent on future demobilization from the army of military personnel of the relevant ages.

According to the Directive of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR of July 12, 1946, the working battalions were disbanded, and the term "translated into permanent personnel" began to be applied to them. They did not have the right to change the place of work and return to their homeland even after demobilization from the army of their peers.

Russian estimates

In the 1990s, not only the opening of access to materials and documents, formerly secret, but also began a dialogue between historians from different countries. The result of such a dialogue was the conduct of a number of large international conferences and the publication of collective work on the history of military captivity "And forcibly recruited Soviet prisoners, on the fate of which historians still did not pay attention, nor in Huseyn-Zade, Mehsi Ganif oglu.

"Statistical Labyrinth". The total number of Soviet prisoners of war and their mortality

The value of 5.75 million people were signed out of 3.35 million taken captured in 1941 and 2.4 million- from January 1, 1942 to February 1, 1945, there is clearly for data in 1941. There are not enough 450 thousand prisoners. For as of December 11, 1941, according to a summary of the reports of the German military units, the number of Soviet prisoners of war was 3.8 million. Then from this quantity "disappeared" 450 thousand. We will not at all satisfy the possible explanations about the "clarification" of numbers. The case is much more serious. 3.8 million is the number of prisoners to report military units, and 3.35 million - relevant data of camp statistics. It turns out that in 1941, 450 thousand prisoners died after the moment of captivity before entering the camps.

There are corresponding evidence on this. Explaining in the Nuremberg process (November 20, 1945 - October 1, 1946) Causes of the mass extinction of Soviet prisoners of war, captured under Vyazma in October 1941, the defendant, the former chief of the EMB headquarters (OKV - the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces of Germany) Colonel-General A. Yodel said: "The surrounded Russian army had fanatical resistance, despite the fact that the last 8-10 days were deprived of any supply. They felt literally the bark and roots of trees, as they moved away into impassable forests, and they were captured already in such exhaustion when they were hardly able to move. It was just impossible to carry them ... There were no places nearby for their placement ... The rains began very soon, and later the cold came. This was the reason why most people captured under Vyazma died. "

This evidence confirms the fact of mass mortality of prisoners before entering the camp. Therefore, the decline in the number taken by the Germans, the Soviet soldiers taken in captible in 1941 by almost 450 thousand people and, accordingly, all statistics for the entire war from 6.2 million to 5.75 million was not just a "clarification", but by "write-off" , and in German camp statistics, the dead prisoners, of course, were not taken into account. Curious research was conducted by I.A. Dugas and F.Ya. Woman. They found that in early 1942, it was "adjusted" towards lowering (from 3.8 million to 3.35 million) only the final number of Soviet soldiers in 1941 in 1941, and primary data (coming military units ) It remained unchanged and when they are summinged it is 3.8 million people.

In the Nuremberg process, the Soviet side presented a document from the ReichSministist of the Okubyded Eastern Territories of A. Rosenberg (it was a certificate in the name of Reichs Marshal G. Goring, dated February 1, 1942, but it was given in it as of January 10, 1942), in which It was said about the total number of Soviet prisoners of war, and was called the figure of 3.9 million, only 1.1 million of them were available on the "missing" 2.8 million. In the certificate, nothing was said, but from other German sources it is known that general The number of dead Soviet prisoners of war to mid-January 1942 passed over a mark of 2 million people - and these are only dead in camps, without taking into account more than 400 thousand prisoners who died even before entering there.

Liberated and fledging from captivity could be as much as possible to be 400 thousand. As a result, by January 10, 1942, the total of 3.9 million Soviet soldiers were captured, they died - 2.4 million, were in stock - 1.1 million. They were released and fled - 400 thousand historians are known for another source - a summary of the reports of German headquarters, - where as of January 10, 1942 called the total number of Soviet prisoners of war in 3.9 million people. Then 3.8 million (on December 11, 1941) and 3.9 million (on January 10, 1942) disappear from German statistics and appear "refined" 3.35 million in 1941 as it happened And under what circumstances, researchers have not yet succeeded.

It should be borne in mind that the Nazis in their ambitiousness and vanity could not simply impress their own "success" in the captivity of the enemy's troops. They obviously feared something. Perhaps the Rights of the West German historian K. Strette in his suspicion that the nature of the "statistical flaw" lies in the desire to hide "gross violations" from the International Red Cross, whose representatives from time to time were allowed to examine the position of prisoners of war.

Russian researcher P.M. Pollas, the author twice published (in 1996 and 2002) monographs "Victims of two dictatorships: Ostarabiters and prisoners of war in the third Reich and their repatriation", speaking about the "clarification" of German statistics for 1941 by reducing the total number of Soviet prisoners from 3, 8 to 3.35 million people, expressed inadmissible, in my opinion, the assumption: "It is not quite clear whether prisoners of war, released into liberty in these figures." According to documents, it is known that in the period from July to November 1941, the Germans were released nearly 318.8 thousand Soviet prisoners. However, the latter are not related to "excluded from statistics." From the analysis of the diagnosis contained in the monographs and a strategy of abundant statistical material with a detailed indication of "decrease" ("died", "executed", "released", "ran", etc.) the integral part of the integral part, released throughout the war "Specified" German statistics for the total number of Soviet prisoners of war. This means that they (liberated) in statistics in 1941 were included in the "refined" 3.35 million, and in the "written off" 450 thousand. They are not.

From January 1, 1942 to February 1, 1945, according to German documents, 2.4 million Soviet soldiers fell into German captivity. If you add 3.8 million prisoners of 1941 here, then their total number is not 5.75, but 6.2 million people. This is a condition until February 1, 1945, and it should be borne in mind that some quantity (probably insignificant) Soviet soldiers and officers were captured in February-April 1945

But there was still a Finnish and Romanian captivity. At the Finnish captivity for 1941-1944 There are accurate data - 64188 people. There are no statistics of the same character in Romanian captivity, and quite acceptable estimates in the scientific literature are usually varying from 40 to 45 thousand people. Soviet soldiers captured by the Hungarian, Italian and Slovak troops were transmitted to the Germans and were taken into account in their statistics. Consequently, the total number of Soviet prisoners of war (total in German, Finnish and Romanian captivity) amounted to about 6.3 million people.

In domestic historiography, the most authoritative source according to the question under consideration is considered to be prepared by the team of military historians under the general editorship of G.F. Krivosheeva and published in 1993, the statistical compilation "Vulture of secrecy is removed". This edition was preparing under the auspices of the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation with a certain complaint about the policy. In it, in the column "was missing, a number of 4559 thousand people were specified". There is also an explanation: "In total, 4059 thousand Soviet military workers were in captivity, and about 500 thousand died in battles, although they were taken into account on the front of the fronts as missing." Further read: "In addition, in the initial period of war, about 500 thousand military-ridic, designed to mobilize, but not enrolled in the troops were captured.

Before us, the statistics of a completely different scale rather than German. According to the calculations of Krivosheeva and his colleagues, no more than 4.2-4.3 million military personnel could be captured (taking into account the military-ridicated opponents, designed by mobilization, but not enrolled in the states of military units).

The total number of Soviet prisoners of war is almost 2 million less than it was indicated in German reports. Understanding that their calculations dramatically diverge with the testimony of German sources, the authors of the collection tried to refute the German statistics, leading the arguments that the opponent allegedly "overestimated" the number of prisoners, included the party and Soviet workers, civilians (men), etc. . I agree that this practice was, but also the corresponding adjustment radically does not change the provisions: German and Krivosheevskaya statistics remain different ways. The "Griffs of Secrecy removed" listed in the book "The calculations significantly distort the real picture. This is the general opinion of all the leading specialists involved in the development of this problem. So, Pollas pays attention to the inaccuracy of these "calculations" and, not without humor and sarcasm, calling them "alternative results", states that it would be premature "to talk about corrective comparison" with German data. The researcher unequivocally made it clear that this kind of "calculations" cannot seriously be perceived in the scientific historical community.

The Commission under the President of the Russian Federation on the rehabilitation of victims of political repression led by A.N. was also engaged in determining the total number of military personnel Yakovlev ("Commission A.N. Yakovlev"). According to her, 4.07 million soldiers were captured during the war. These figures are even more dubious than those that brought the authors of the collection "Griff Secretness". Unlike the enemy, who considered prisoners on the heads (in the literal sense), the members of the Commission A.N.Yakovlev used some other "methodology" of the calculation, the essence of which was not disclosed. They ignored German statistics and "invented" alternative, in my opinion, is obviously unreliable. Really, the Commission could rely on some data on missing (for 1941-1943. It is clearly incomplete), and then of them speculative to calculate captured. The Commission presented to the dynamics of captured in the war years (in the book "Fragment of the Secrecy" it is not), which made it possible to compare it with the corresponding dynamics available in German sources (see Table 1).

Table 1. Dynamics of getting into German Captivity of Soviet servicemen *

Years	In German sources	According to the "Commission A.N. Yakovleva "	How much more (+) or less (-)
including:
		almost 2 million

* Compiled by: Dallin A. Deutsche Herrschaft in Russia 1941-1945: Eine Studie Uber Besatzungspolitik. Dusseldorf, 1958. S.440; The fate of prisoners of war and deported citizens of the USSR: the materials of the Commission on the rehabilitation of victims of political repression // New and the newest story. 1996. №2. P. 92.
** In German data in 1941, not "refined" 3.35 million, and the number (3.8 million), which was recorded in the summary of the German military units. Accordingly, this and the total number of Soviet prisoners of war for the entire war is not 5.75, but 6.2 million people.
*** German data for 1945 were brought only to February 1.

When compared to the data specified in Table 1, their blatant inadequacy is striking. In statistics "Commission A.N. Yakovleva "ridiculous looks up" from the ceiling "and an overly understated number of captured in 1941 (almost 2 million people). This contradicts the testimony of the entire complex of available sources. Inaccuracy of data for 1942-1943. It is manifested in a much lesser extent than in 1941, the shaped surprise presented the Commission when calculating the captured in 1944, rather than 56 thousand people more than that specified in German statistics.

To some extent, the specified inadequacy is explained by the difference in determining the concept of "prisoners of war." The enemy interpreted him significantly wider, not limited to military personnel. The Germans attributed to the prisoners of war of specialization of various civilian departments (ways of communication, marine and river fleets, defense construction, civil aviation, communications, etc.), the unfinished formations of the national militia, the union of the self-defense of cities and local air defense, fighter detachments, militia , as well as part of the partisans and underground workers, party and Soviet workers; Part of civilians, men in which the enemy suspected disguised redarmeys; Patients and wounded servicemen in hospitals that were previously taken into account as sanitary losses earlier in the reports of the Soviet military units.

The overwhelming majority of listed categories of persons are usually armed, together with military personnel participating in hostilities. I am in the root I do not agree with the interpretation of the authors of the book "Vulture of secrecy is removed", that the enemy illegally included them in prisoners of war and due to this "overestimated" their number. Asks: And where did the opponent have to include captured armed enemies? Naturally, in prisoners of war. However, despite the impressive list of categories of these "illegally included" (according to Krivosheeva), their proportion of prisoners of war was minor (hardly more than 5%). Therefore, even taking into account this adjustment, the differences between the German and domestic ("Krivoshevskaya" and "Yakovlevskaya") statistics are by no means eliminate.

The main reason for the specified inconsistency statistics lies in the other: in the collection "Griffing of secrecy removed" the real amount of missing is incurred by about 30%. This can be proved by operating the statistical indicators of this collection. It has been said that during the war years from the Armed Forces decreased for various reasons a total of 21.7 million people. The following should be a detailed listing of the components of this decrease, indicating their number (mentioned 4.559 million. There are present), but in the amount it turns out not 21.7, and 19.45 million). There are not enough 2.25 million people (21.7 million - 19.45 million). The compilers of the collection saw this inconsistency in statistics and explained the "missing decline" by the departments from the army and the fleet on political unreliability (including persons of a number of nationalities whose families were forcibly evicted to the eastern regions of the USSR), as well as the "significant number of neraznaya deserters".

"The missing decline" (2 million people) unequivocally refers to the category of missing. It follows from this that the column declined under the title "was missing, the captive was paid to" "should be not 4559 thousand, but over 6.5 million (4559 thousand + 2 million people). After that, much can be explained, and most importantly, the German and domestic statistics are becoming utilized. The overwhelming majority of these more than 6.5 million is definitely captured, although some part of them, of course, disappeared for other reasons. Taking into account the above expansion interpretation by the opponent of the concept of "prisoners of war" established by me the total number of Soviet prisoners of war (6.3 million), refuted by the domestic statistics, is fully fit in its framework.

It can be considered established that by February 1942 no longer lived in more than 2.4 million Soviet prisoners of war. In the future, the magnitude of mortality decreased noticeably - from February 1942, until the end of the war, they died, according to my calculations, about 1.5 million more people. This was a consequence of a change in the approach of the German leadership for this problem, which did not spoke from humanistic motives, and from purely pragmatic - until February 1942, the large masses of Soviet prisoners of war were perceived as an unnecessary ballast, from which they got rid of, and now began to look at them as Source of labor. Breaking variables of the dynamics of monthly mortality. If in the first 7 more than the months of the war (in January 1942 inclusive), on average, about 340-350 thousand Soviet prisoners of war were dying, then in the next 39 months (February 1942 - April 1945) - 35-40 thousand.

Consider the extent to which the results of my research on the scale of mortality of Soviet prisoners of war are consistent with the conclusions of the most authoritative specialists in this area. Stretch, who personally, processed and who studied the huge array of German documents, came to the conclusion that 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war were died in German captivity, of which about 2 million - until February 1942, the Strette allowed that some part From almost 0.5 million "excluded from statistics" in 1941, prisoners of war died in reality, but did not decide to include them in general mortality statistics. On the contrary, Dallin was confident that "excluded" are mostly those who died at the stages of captivity and transportation to the camps, and believed that the total number of dead Soviet prisoners of war was 3.7 million. As for I.A. Dugas and F.Ya. Flame, they agreed with the conclusions of Dallia. Thus, in the overseas scientific literature, the assessment of the mortality of Soviet prisoners of war in 3.7 million people seems to be the most convincing and acceptable. I emphasize that this is exactly the quantity died in captivity. 3.9 million established by me include all of the prisoners of war, including dead collaborators (approximately 200 thousand), in the portions of the Wehrmacht, the Army Vlasov and otherwise changed (military and police) formations.

How appreciates the mortality rate of Soviet prisoners of war of military historians led by G.F. Krivosheev? In the collection "Griffing of secrecy," read: "673 thousand, by German data, died in the fascist captivity (in fact, German data are completely different. - Vz). From the remaining 1110.3 thousand people, according to our data, more than half are also the dead (dead) in captivity. " Then the numbers of 673 thousand and 1110.3 thousand are folded, and it turns out an incomprehensible amount of 1783.3 thousand people, which is placed in the form of a total figure in the heading "not returned from captivity (died, died, emigrated to other countries)." As a result of these more than strange arithmetic manipulations, the real amount of mortality of Soviet prisoners of war were "sunk" by more than 2 million people. This is a rare sample of "statistical alchemy". It is clear that these kinds cannot be used in scientific, teaching and propaganda work.

In 2001, the second edition of the book "Vulture of Secrecy is removed" called "Russia and the USSR in the wars of the 20th century" (the head is the same Krivosheev). In it, the valid number of 1783.3 thousand was not directly mentioned, but, unfortunately, was used by the authors in the calculations of a principled nature, which makes their results incorrect. It is this obviously unreliable figure that makes up the difference between the demographic losses of military personnel (8668.4 thousand) and combat and non-combat losses of the Soviet Armed Forces killed and the dead (6885.1 thousand). The arithmetic is simple: 8668.4 thousand - 6885.1 thousand \u003d 1783.3 thousand. You can produce another arithmetic effect: 6885.1 thousand + 1783.3 thousand \u003d 8668.4 thousand. How not to consider, all Equally pops up this "Statistical Surrogat" (1783.3 thousand). I explain that 2 other numbers (8668.4 thousand and 6885.1 thousand) differ in the fact that the first of them takes into account the victims in captivity, and the second is not. And here it becomes clear that the scale of demographic losses of military personnel during the war (8668.4 thousand), calculated by the "Krivoshevsky" team (8668.4 thousand), perceived by many researchers as quite reliable, in fact, is not a fundamental revision.

The sake of fairness must be said that not all Russian military historians strictly follow the statistical plants of Krivosheev and his colleagues. So, N.P. Dembetty in the article "The Fate of Prisoners", published in 2004, made the following conclusion: "Total Soviet prisoners of war were at least 5 million people, of which more than 3 million were killed." This can be adopted as a permissible point of view that does not go beyond common sense. Another military historian, V.A. Pronko, in the less than the article "Victory price", completely ignoring the "Crivoshevsky" calculations, fully operated on the most chassis in Western historiography of statistics: total Soviet prisoners of war were 5.7 million, from among those "from hunger and illness or died either About 3,300 thousand people were shot. " Of these numbers, the number of survivors (2.4 million) is absolutely determined, but the total number of prisoners of war and the scale of their mortality is reduced by 600 thousand. I repeat that all Soviet prisoners of war were about 6.3 million, about 3.9 of them Million killed and died and at least 2.4 million remained alive. This statistic has already been introduced into scientific turns. For example, it is it that is indicated in the corresponding volume of fundamental scientific work "The population of Russia in the XX century: historical essays."

It is known that one part of the prisoners of war was found in camps on the occupied territory of the USSR, the other - in Germany and a number of European countries (subject to and allied). According to the Strateta, until May 1, 1944, 3.1 million Soviet prisoners of war were in Rehech. This data is definitely reliable. To be added to them at least 200 thousand people taken in captivity from May 1944 to April 1945 and held in captivity in Finland, Romania and in the territories of other countries. Consequently, from 6.3 million prisoners of war outside the USSR were at least 3.3 million.

With a sufficiently high degree of reliability, it can be argued that about 1.7 million (the total number of repatriates and the "non-reputation") can be argued from among the prisoners of war held in Germany and other countries. Since they were outside the USSR, they were a living demographic loss. Only their mass repatriation could correct this position. In October 1944, the Office of the USSR authorized SCC was formed on repatriation cases led by Colonel-General F.I. Golikov, which was engaged not only by returning to the homeland of prisoners of war, but also all the so-called displaced persons. By mid-1947, Golikov's department managed to return to the USSR from Germany and other countries of 1549.7 thousand Soviet prisoners of war. The order of 150 thousand for one reason or another did not return (this value is estimated, the maximum permissible; it is possible to adjust in the direction of a decrease).

In the scientific literature, another number of repatriated prisoners of war is often mistakenly called. This figure, for example, appears in the collection "Fighting secrecy" in the heading "returned from the captivity at the end of the war (according to repatriation bodies)". But the fact is that the repatriation bodies included 286.3 thousand prisoners of war in their statistics, exempted from captivity in 1944 - early 1945 during the onset of the Red Army in Soviet territory, and they were part of the surviving prisoners of war in the occupied territory THE USSR. The repatriated prisoners of war, as of mid-1947, it was 1549.7 thousand (1836 thousand - 286.3 thousand).

Since outside the USSR out of 3.3 million, about 1.7 million prisoners of war remained alive, the number of dead and died is about 1.6 million (3.3 million - 1.7 million). According to a strategy, until May 1, 1944, 1.1 million Soviet prisoners of war were died in the Reich. We have no reason to doubt the accuracy of this information. However, the war continued for another year, and some quantity died precisely during this period. It seems that there will be a big mistake if we define the number of dead Soviet prisoners of war on the territory of the then Germany from May 1944 to May 1945 of the order of 200 thousand about the mortality of Soviet prisoners of war in Finnish captivity in 1941-1944. There is accurate statistics - 19016 people. There are no similar data on Romanian captivity, about 10 thousand Soviet military workers died there. Tens of thousands of Soviet prisoners of war died in other European countries - the places of their burials were revealed in France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Poland (that part of it, which was not part of the Reich), Yugoslavia, Hungary, and others. The number of these burial places is calculated by many hundreds . The Soviet repatriation bodies in 1952 had information that only in Norway were 217 of such burial places. The dead collaborators from among the former prisoners of war are also included in general statistics as not to those who have lived before the end of the war. In my opinion, the number of Soviet prisoners of the dead beyond the USSR as about 1.6 million looks fairly reasonable.

Having determined that in the occupied territory of the USSR, it contained about 3 million Soviet prisoners of war (6.3 million - 3.3 million), try to calculate the number of survivors. Many tens of thousand managed to escape (I suppose there were more than 100 thousand). As already noted, the Germans from July to November 1941 were released from captivity 318.8 thousand people - Balts, Germans, Ukrainians, Belarusians. In November 1941, the invaders covered such "charity" against Ukrainians and Belarusians, but retained it against the Balts and Germans. In 1942-1944 Exemption from captivity was made only with the mandatory condition for the arrival of military or police service. For 3 years (from mid-1941 to mid 1944), the total number of liberated and fledging from captivity in the occupied territory of the USSR was at least 500 thousand people. However, we cannot include them in the number of survivors, since some part of them certainly died after the liberation or escape from captivity. Another 286.3 thousand prisoners of war were liberated by the Red Army in the Soviet territory in 1944 - early 1945. Taking into account the foregoing, the total number of survivored prisoners of war on the territory of the USSR subjected to occupation is determined by about 700 thousand people. The number of dead and died is about 2.3 million (3 million - 0.7 million).

Table 2 presents the results of research to determine the scales of mortality of Soviet prisoners of war (and the number of survivors) both, as in general, and separately, those who were kept in the occupied territory of the USSR, and who in Germany and other countries.

Table 2. The ratio of dead and surviving Soviet prisoners of war in 1941-1945. (million people)

Thus, it can be considered established that, given all the available data and factors, the total number of Soviet prisoners of war, the victims and those who died in the occupied territory of the USSR, is determined by about 2.3 million people. And here we are confronted with another statistical mystery. In the Nuremberg process, the Soviet side had information that 3.9 million Soviet prisoners of war were killed in the occupied territory of the USSR. At the same time, it was implied that their total number (taking into account the unknown number of those killed in Germany and other countries) much more.

In Soviet newspapers, this figure is until the end of the 1960s. It was not called and only in 1969 "surfaced" in one of the rooms of the newspaper "Pravda" in the article of the former main prosecutor from the USSR in the Nuremberg process R.A. Rudenko. In 1970-1980 These are 3.9 million (and necessarily with the remark: "On the occupied territory of the USSR"), sometimes appeared on the pages of individual scientific papers, in particular in the 10th Tome of "History of the USSR from ancient times to the present day." In the Encyclopedia published in 1985, the "Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" said: "The German-fascist invaders only destroyed 3.9 million Soviet prisoners of war in the occupied territory of the USSR."

Naturally, a reasonable question arises about the origin of this mysterious statistics. It turns out that this data by the emergency state commission on establishing and investigating the atrocities of the German fascist invaders and their accomplices (FEK) from the end of 1942. She counted over 3.9 million (3932256) killed and tortured prisoners of war on the territory of the USSR, subjected to enemy occupation. According to the regions of the occupied territory of the USSR, according to ChGK, this figure was distributed as follows: RSFSR - 1125605, Ukraine - 1366588, Belarus - 810091, Karelian-Finnish SSR - 3600, Estonia - 64 thousand, Latvia - 330032, Lithuania - 229737 and Moldova - 2603.

It is clear that these data are overestimated and need significant adjustment. It is necessary to refrain from hanging on them "falsified" labels, etc., since CGC statistics were obtained as a result of painstaking search for work. This is a historical source requiring serious critical analysis and understanding. The occupied territory of the USSR was covered with a thick network of prisoners of war camps, mortality in which (especially in the winter of 1941/42) wore a truly monstrous scale. So, on December 14, 1941, Rosenberg reported Hitler that in the camps in Ukraine "as a result of exhaustion dies up to 2500 captives every day." There are evidence that many of these camps contained not only prisoners of war, but a lot of civilians. The former head of the Department for the Affairs of Prisoner War Danking Military District, Lieutenant General K. von Osterrech in his testimony noted that in the subordinates of the camps in Ukraine simultaneously with prisoners of war in separate barracks were held under arrest to 20 thousand Soviet citizens taken as hostages from a number Regions covered by partisan movement.

It seems that many burials identified by the Commissions of the CCM in places of the former camps of prisoners of war were common fraternal graves for prisoners of war and civilians (captive partisans, hostages, partisan families, etc.). It is possible that some part of the victims of the Holocaust rest in them (it is known that the Nazis destroyed at least 2.8 million Jews in the occupied territory of the USSR). Local Commissions of the CCM may have believed to the dead prisoners of war, all the dignified remains of the burials in the places of former camps for prisoners of war. However, only due to this could not form such a significant overestimation of relevant statistics. In the work of the Commissions of the CHG, a witness survey was widely practiced, therefore a subjective factor took effect, and a number of testimony could be very exaggerated.

Actually, these CHC data were the only statistical information about Soviet prisoners of war, which had our historical science. There was no clarity in matters about their total number, the scale of mortality in camps in Germany and other countries and the number of survivors. Although since the 1960s. We were known that Western historians usually operate in 5.7 million people as a common number of Soviet soldiers who fell into captivity. It was clear that many hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war were killed in camps outside the USSR, but hundreds of thousands and survived. Our personal ideas at that time (until the end of the 1980s) looked like this: 5.7 million people were captured, of which the USSR was died in the occupied territory of the USSR 3.9 million (doubt in this figure meant then " Kramol "), 1 million - died in camps in Germany and other countries and 800 thousand people remained alive.

Since 1989, when working with documents from previously classified archival funds, as well as with the established accessible studies of foreign authors, our previous ideas have undergone significant changes. A pleasant surprise was the fact that surviving prisoners of war was at least 3 times more than before. But those contained in the transmissions "Voice of America", "BBC" and "German Wave" during the Cold War of the approval about the terrible fate of the former prisoners of war in the Soviet Union were highly exaggerated. In addition, the dead turned out to be 1 million less: not 4.9, but 3.9 million people.

The death of a huge number of Soviet prisoners of war is a monstrous humanitarian crime, inferior in its scale only by the Holocaust (the destruction by the Nazis 6 million Jews). The results of our study confirmed that the Soviet side in the Nuremberg process had in principle loyal statistical information on the death of 3.9 million Soviet prisoners of war.

Zemskov Viktor Nikolaevich, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Leading Researcher of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Datner S. Crimes of the German-Fascist Wehrmacht regarding prisoners of war / trans. with Polish. M., 1963; Nazarevich R. Soviet prisoners of war in Poland during the Second World War and help them from the Polish population // Questions of history. 1989. No. 3; Semirega M.I. The fates of Soviet prisoners of war // Questions of history. 1995. No. 4.
Dallin A. Deutsche Herrschaft in Russia 1941-1945: Eine Studie Uber Besatzungspolitik. Dusseldorf, 1958. S. 440.
IBID.
Stretch K. Soldatsea do not count them: Wehrmacht and Soviet prisoners of war in 1941-1945 / lane. with it. M, 1979. P. 99; Dugas I.A., Cheron F.Ya. Crushed out of memory: Soviet prisoners of war between Hitler and Stalin. Paris, 1994. P. 399; Pollas P.M. Victims of two dictatorships: Ostaraberters and prisoners of war in the Third Reich and their repatriation. M., 1996. P. 65, 71.
Population of Russia in the XX century: historical essays. T. 2. 1940-1959. M., 2001. P. 144.
Streit with OP. CIT. S. 244.
GA RF, f. 9526, OP. 3, d. 54, l. 53; 55, l. 135.
The stiffness is removed ... P. 131.
Streit S. Op. CIT. S. 244-245.
Dugas I.A., Cheron F.Ya. Decree. cit. P. 59.
GA RF, f. 9526, OP. 4a, d. 7, l. 125-126.
Ibid, d. 1, l. 62, 223, 226.
Rudenko R.A. For oblivion is not subject to // True. 1969. March 24. P. 4.
History of the USSR since ancient times to the present day. T. 10. M., 1973. P. 390.
The Great Patriotic War. 1941-1945: Encyclopedia. M., 1985. P. 157.
Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War. 1941-1945. M., 1976. P. 369.
Streit S. Op. CIT. S. 259.
Nuremberg process over the main German war criminals. Collection of materials. T. 3. M., 1958. P. 130.

I believe that calling today's Germans "partners", "colleagues", etc., we can never forget about this page of our story and who created all these atrocities with our compatriots.
The exact number of Soviet prisoners of war of the Great Patriotic War is still unknown. From 5 to 6 million people. About what had to go through the Nazi camps with the prisoners of Soviet soldiers and officers - in our material.

Speak numbers

Today, the question of the number of Soviet prisoners of war during the Great Patriotic War is still a discussion. In German historiography, this figure comes to 6 million people, although the German command spoke about 5 million 270 thousand. However, it should be considered the fact that the German authorities violating the Hague and Geneva Convention, the German authorities included not only the soldiers and officers of the Red Army, but also Employees of party bodies, partisans, underground workers, as well as the entire male population from 16 to 55 years, retreating with Soviet troops. According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the loss of prisoners in the Secondary Grooms amounted to 4 million 559 thousand people, and the Commission of the Ministry of Defense chaired by M. A. Gareeyev declared about 4 million. The difficulty of counting is largely related to the fact that Soviet prisoners of war to 1943 years did not receive registration numbers. It is precisely established that 1,836,562 people returned from German captivity. Further fate is such: 1 million sent for further military service, 600 thousand - to work in industry, more than 200 thousand - in the Camp of the NKVD, as compromised themselves in captivity.

The first years

Most of the Soviet prisoners of war falls on the first two years of war. In particular, after an unsuccessful Kiev defensive operation in September 1941, about 665 thousand soldiers and Officers of the Red Army turned out to be in German captivity, and after the failure of the Kharkiv surgery in May 1942, more than 240 thousand redarmeys got to the German troops. First of all, the German authorities were filtered: the commissars, the communists and the Jews were immediately eliminated, and the rest were steady in the special camp created in the rush order. Most of them were on the territory of Ukraine - about 180. Only in the notorious camp of Boguni (Zhytomyruschina) there were up to 100 thousand Soviet soldiers. The prisoners had to make exhausting marchs - 50-60 km. in a day. The path was often delayed for a whole week. The meal on the march was not envisaged, so the soldiers were satisfied with the foot feed: everything went to food - spikelets of wheat, berries, acorns, mushrooms, foliage, bark, and even her grass. The instruction prescribed convoirs of all exhausted destroy. During the movement of the 5-thousandth column of prisoners of war in the Luhansk region on a segment of a distance of 45 kilometers a "shot of mercy", 150 people killed. As the Ukrainian historian Gregory naked notes, about 1.8 million Soviet prisoners of war died on the territory of Ukraine, which is approximately 45% of the total number of victims among the prisoners of war of the USSR.

Soviet prisoners of war were in much more stringent conditions than soldiers of other countries. The formal basis for this Germany called the fact that the Soviet Union did not sign the Hague Convention of 1907 and did not join the Geneva Convention of 1929. In fact, the German authorities carried out the Directive of the Supreme Command, according to which the Communists and Commissioners were not recognized as a soldier, and no international legal protection on them was distributed. With the beginning of the war, this applied to all RKKA prisoners of war. Discrimination of Soviet prisoners of war was manifested in everything. For example, in contrast to the rest of the prisoners, they often did not receive winter clothes and were attracted exclusively to the hardest work. Also on Soviet prisoners did not extend the activities of the International Red Cross. In camps, intended exclusively for prisoners of war, the conditions were even more terrifying. Only a small part of the prisoners was placed in relatively adapted premises, most of the incredible recurrence could not only lie, but also stand. And someone was completely deprived of the roof above the head. In the camp for Soviet prisoners of war - the "Uman Yama" prisoners were in an open-air, where there was no possibility to hide from the heat, wind or rain. "Umanskaya Yama", in fact, turned into a huge fraternal grave. "Died for a long time lay next to alive. No one paid attention to the corpses, there were so many of them, "they remembered the surviving prisoners.

In one of the orders of the director of the German concern "IG Farbenindastr", it was noted that "improving the productivity of prisoners of war can be reduced by the rate of food issuance." This directly related to Soviet prisoners. However, in order to maintain the working capacity of the prisoners of war, I had to accrue the added food rate. For the week she looked like this: 50 gr. Cod, 100 gr. Artificial honey and up to 3.5 kg. Potatoes. However, the adding power could be obtained only for 6 weeks. The usual diet of prisoners of war can be seen on the example of Starak No. 2 in Hammerstein. On the day, prisoners received 200 grams. Bread, Erzats-coffee and vegetable soup - the feeder of the diet did not exceed 1000 calories. In the zone of the Army Group "Center", the daily rate of bread for prisoners of war was also less - 100 gr. For comparison, we call the norms of food provision of German prisoners of war in the USSR. On the day they received 600 grams. Bread, 500 gr. Potatoes, 93 grams. Meat and 80 gr. croup What fed the Soviet prisoners of war was little similar to food. Erzatz-bread, which in Germany was called "Russian" had the following composition: 50% of rye bran, 20% beets, 20% cellulose, 10% straw. However, the "hot lunch" looked even less edible: in fact, it is a scope of stinky liquid from poorly washed horses, and this "snack" was preparing in boilers in which the asphalt was cooked. Disabled prisoners of war were deprived of such nutrition, and therefore their chances to survive were reduced to zero.

By the end of 1941, in Germany, a tremendous need for labor was revealed in Germany, mainly in the military industry, and the deficit decided to fill first at the expense of Soviet prisoners of war. This situation saved many Soviet soldiers and officers from mass destruction planned by the Nazi authorities. According to the German historian G. Mommena, "With appropriate nutrition", the productivity of Soviet prisoners of war was 80%, and in other cases and 100% of the productivity of the German workers. In the mountain and metallurgical industry, this figure was less than - 70%. Mommesen noted that the Soviet prisoners were "crucial and profitable labor", even cheaper than the concluded concentration camps. Income to the state treasury, obtained as a result of the work of Soviet workers, was calculated by hundreds of millions of brands. According to another German historian, W. Herbert, all the works in Germany were employed 631,559 prisoners of war of the USSR. Soviet prisoners of war often had to develop a new specialty: they became electricians, locksmiths, mechanics, turkeys, tractor drivers. The payment of labor was piecework and provided for the premium system. But, isolated from workers other countries, Soviet prisoners of war worked at 12 o'clock a day.

Mortality

According to German historians, until February 1942, up to 6,000 Soviet soldiers and officers were destroyed in camps for prisoners of war. Often it was done by rejection with gas of entire barracks. Only in Poland, according to local authorities, 883,485 Soviet prisoners of war were buried. It is now established that the Soviet military turned out to be the first, poisoning substances were tested in concentration camps. Later, this method was used everywhere to destroy the Jews. Many Soviet prisoners of war died of diseases. In October 1941, in one of the branches of the Mauthausen-Guzen camp complex, where the Soviet soldiers were kept, the epidemic of the Tifa, which took about 6,500 people in the winter life. However, without waiting for the fatal outcome of many of them, the camp authorities destroyed the gas right in the barracks. Great was mortality among the wounded prisoners. Medical assistance to the Soviet prisoners turned out to be extremely rare. No one cared for them: they were killed both during the marches and camps. The diet of the wounded rarely exceeded 1000 calories per day, not to mention the quality of food. They were doomed to death.

On the side of Germany

Among the Soviet prisoners there were those who, without preparing inhuman conditions of detention, replenished the ranks of the armed buildings of the German army. According to some reports, their number was 250 thousand people for the time of war. First of all, such formations carried a security, guard and stage-barrier service. But there were cases of their use in punitive operations against partisans and civilians.

Return

Those few soldiers who survived the horrors of the German captivity, waiting for a difficult test at home. They needed to prove that they are not traitors. Special Directive Stalin, at the end of 1941, special filtration and test camps were created, in which the former prisoners of war were placed. In the deployment band of six fronts - 4 Ukrainian and 2 Belarusian, more than 100 similar camps were created. By July 1944, almost 400 thousand prisoners of war were held in the special test. The overwhelming majority of them were transferred to Railoencomats, about 20 thousand became personnel for the defense industry, 12 thousand were full of assault battalions, and more than 11 thousand were arrested and convicted.