In response to your question on the thread
Another cause of death of Soviet POWs
http://www.thirdreichforum.com/phpBB2/v ... 694ca118e4
I have scanned the works on the subject that I possess, Christian Streit’s Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941-1945 and Christian Gerlach’s books Kalkulierte Morde and Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord.
Another standard work which I do not own yet is Die Behandlung sowjetischer Kriegsgefangener im "Fall Barbarossa", by Alfred Streim, Heidelberg and Karlsruhe: C. F. Müller Juristischer Verlag, 1981. Streim, a jurist, is or was a Senior State Attorney at the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen für die Untersuchung Nationalsozialistischer Verbrechen in Ludwigsburg, Germany; his book accordingly focuses on the legal questions surrounding the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war by Nazi Germany. Streim has also written an article in English about International Law and Soviet Prisoners of War, which I have and can send you if you are interested.
The statistical data you are looking for seem to be rather hard to come by. The most detailed information in this respect I found in Streit’s Keine Kameraden, from which I translated the corresponding chapters. I hereafter send you the first part of the translation. Two other parts and a few words about the assessment of Gerlach will follow briefly.
Best regards,
Roberto
The Mass Dying of Soviet Prisoners of War in 1941/42
On 19 February 1942 the head of the Working Group Labor in the Four-Year Plan, Ministerial Director Mansfeld, held a lecture before the Reich Economy Chamber about “general questions of labor usage”. In regard to the steadily worsening lack of workers, Mansfeld declared:
The current difficulties of finding labor would not have come about if a decision for the generous use of Russian prisoners of war had been decided upon in time. There were 3.9 million [Footnote: After a listing by the Army High Command / General Quarter Master cleansed of erroneous reports, until 20.12.1941 3,350,639 prisoners had fallen into German hands; this number included released, deceased and escaped prisoners of war: War Diary of the Wehrmacht High Command, I, page 1106] Russians were available; thereof only 1.1 million are still left. Between November 1941 [Footnote: As becomes apparent from other sources, the period referred to is from the end of November 1941 to 31.1.1942] and January 1942 alone 500,000 Russians died. The number of Russian prisoners of war currently employed (400,000) should hardly be possible to increase. If the number of typhus infections goes down, it may be possible to take another 100,000 to 150,000 Russians to the economy.
Of the Soviet prisoners of war in German hands thus two million had perished or been killed until this time. [Footnote: Of the 3,350,639 prisoners there were 1,020,531 still in German captivity on 1.2.1942; Economy and Armament Office and Economy Staff East at the Army High Command / General Quarter Master, No. 683/42 g of 27.5.42, Federal Archives R 41/172, page 61. Up to this time 280,108 prisoners had been released in the Army High Command area: Army High Command General Quarter Master No. II/400/gKdos. of 20.2.42; Federal Archives / Military Archive H3/729. After deduction of escapes and the numerically low releases in the Wehrmacht High Command area the remain about two million who were shot or perished] It has already been described how it was made possible to the Einsatzkommandos in the Wehrmacht High Command area and in the area of military operations to liquidate about 600,000 prisoners of war, most of them before the spring of 1942. But how did it happen that beside this between the beginning of the eastern campaign and the end of January 1942 a daily average of about 6,000 prisoners perished?
The military leadership tried already at an early stage to find a relieving explanation for the mass dying of the prisoners of war, given that the misery of the prisoners led to unrest among the civilian population of the occupied territories and of course among the prisoners themselves. The Department Wehrmacht Propaganda at the Wehrmacht Command Staff on 10 November gave instructions as to how the propaganda was to be conducted:
As the mood in the prisoner of was camps cannot be hidden from the civilian population and the partisans and thus will also become known to the enemy, a carefully prepared counter-propaganda […] must be carried out. […] It is not the intention of the German Wehrmacht to insufficiently feed the prisoners of war or to delay their labor employment. The guilt for this war and thus also for the privations that the prisoners of war must bear lies with the Moscow rulers. Stalin has given the criminal order to destroy food stock and means of production and transport. The prisoners’ own countrymen have partially carried out this diabolic order […] The German Wehrmacht has orderly supplies at its disposal and has all that it needs. Nobody can expect of it, however, that beside this it still carries out huge transports of food for the prisoners while the fighting is still going on.
The tight supplies and the makeshift accommodation characterize especially the transit camps at the front. As the prisoners are transported further westward, the situation improves.
The version that Stalin was the actual responsible for the misery of the prisoners because in the areas occupied by the Germans the food supplies had been destroyed was complemented by another which blamed the death of the Soviet prisoners of war on the outbreak of epidemics against which their captors had been powerless – sort of a natural catastrophe. A secret basic order about the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war issued in March 1942 by the Head of Prisoner of War Matters attributed their bad health to “undernourishment over many years”, “feeding difficulties in the Soviet army” and the “events of the war”. The most frequent explanation is the one provided by the representatives of the military leadership indicted at Nuremberg: the mass dying of Soviet prisoners of war in the autumn of 1941 had been a consequence of the fact that the huge number of prisoners, especially after the huge encirclement battle at Vjaz’ma and Brjansk (mid-October 1941, 662,000 prisoners) had made their feeding impossible. Thus the head of the Wehrmacht Command Staff, Colonel General Jodl, declared the following:
The encircled Russian armies had offered a fanatical resistance, this already in the last eight to ten days without any food supplies. They had lived off tree barks and roots because they had withdrawn to the most inaccessible swamp areas and thus fell into our hands in a state of exhaustion such that they were hardly able to move. It was impossible to take them away. In the tight supplies situation we were facing with the destroyed railway network it was impossible to take them all away. Shelter there was none nearby. The greater part could only have been saved by immediate careful hospital treatment. Soon the rain set in and later the cold; and this is the reason why such a huge part of these, especially these prisoners taken at Vjazma, died.
All these explanations contain correct elements; but already a superficial examination of the sources shows that in this categorical form they are apology. To establish the causes of the mass dying of the Soviet prisoners of war in 1941/42 is thus seems appropriate to first of all reconstruct the development of this mass dying.
Such an undertaking meets with considerable difficulties. Although in general there is a relatively great density of sources for the first months of the war in the East, statistical data about the Soviet prisoners of war for the time until the beginning of 1942 are hard to come by. The at first sight reasonable explanation that this is due to coincidental transmission of documents is revealed incorrect by closer examination. Exact numerical reports about the fate of Soviet prisoners of war were ordered for the Army High Command area only after 1 January 1942, when the climax of the mass dying was already past. In the Wehrmacht High Command area there had been no interest in the creation of statistical files from the start. While it must be assumed that the Department Prisoners of War recorded the number of prisoners in the Wehrmacht High Command area, it seems that this happened in a superficial manner and that the figures were not transmitted to other entities. The organization order of the Department Prisoners of War of 16 June had stated a report to the Wehrmacht Information Bureau (Wehrmachtauskunftstelle – WASt) to be “not necessary”. On 2 July 1941 the prisoner of war department of the Wehrmacht High Command changed this to requiring the report to the WASt, given that the Soviet government had declared itself prepared to communicate the names of German prisoners. The corresponding file cards, however, were to be filled in “only at the camps on the territory of the Reich”. This order was repeated on 30 September, because camp commandants in the east required file cards for the registration of the prisoners. It was pointed out that the “recording of the Soviet prisoners of war in the General Government […] will be ordered only after the conclusion of operations on the Eastern Front” and that only those prisoners were to be reported to the WASt who after the “selections” by the Einsatzkommandos “finally remain at the camp or are used for labor purposes. The intention was very clear to keep the foreseen losses on the way from the area of military operations to the camps on the territory of the Reich as well as those resulting from the murder actions of the Einsatzkommandos out of the files of the WASt. In the reports that the prisoner of war department of the Wehrmacht High Command handed to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – only for the Wehrmacht High Command area – the Soviet prisoners of war are recorded only since February 1942, after the basis decision in favor of their labor employment in the German war industry had been taken and it was thus necessary to keep them alive.
The lack of statistical data for the first half year of the war in the East is herewith explained. At the same time it can be taken down that the military leadership expected high losses and intended to cover them up from the beginning. For the reconstruction of the magnitude and development of the mortality of the prisoners of war there are thus only a few scattered source, which merely allow for an approximate description. The situation of sources for the General Government and the rear area of Army Group Center is comparatively good. For the other areas some sparse sources allow the conclusion that the tendency there was similar. Especially deplorable is the nearly complete loss of sources for the areas of the Reich Commissariats Ostland and Ukraine, where in the autumn of 1941 a great part of the prisoners was located.
The Course of the Mass Dying
a) Area of Military Operations
The most frequently employed explanation for the mass dying of the prisoners argues that the size of the masses of prisoners, especially from the encirclement battles of Vjaz’ma and Brjansk and of Kiev (mid-September 1941, 665,000 prisoners) had made it impossible to feed them and that the Soviet soldiers had fallen into German captivity already half-starved anyway. It is certain that especially these two encirclement battles faced the troops with enormous problems regarding the transportation and feeding of the prisoners. The mass dying began much earlier, however, and the conditions therefor were created already in the first weeks of the campaign.
It has already been pointed out that the whole conception of the war in the East made higher numbers of prisoners of war in a shorter time than actually occurred expectable a priori. At least the masses of prisoners from the first two great encirclement battles of Army Group Center (Bialystok/Minsk, beginning of July, 323,000 prisoners and Smolensk/Roslavl, beginning of August, 348,000 prisoners) should not have presented any organizational problems, especially as it was not the first time that the Wehrmacht was confronted with huge numbers of prisoners – a consequence of the tactic of lightning campaigns and the encirclements of huge bodies of troops.
While the scale of the mortality of the prisoners in the first weeks cannot be quantified, the available sources leave no doubt that losses were very huge already at this time.
Helmut James Graf von Moltke, who as a staff member of the international law section of the Amt Ausland/Abwehr of the Wehrmacht High Command was always well informed about the situation, wrote to his wife in August:
The news from the East are again horrible. Obviously we are having very, very high casualties. This would still be bearable, however, if it wasn’t for hecatombs of corpses lying on our shoulders. Again and again one hears news that of transports or prisoners or Jews only 20 % arrive, that in the prisoner of war camps there is hunger, that typhus and other diseases related to undernourishment have broken out […]
The sources still available from the area of Army Group Center allow for the conclusion that the news received by Moltke were not exaggerated. Already on 10 July Ministerial Council Xaver Dorsch of the Todt Organization had called to the attention of the future Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Rosenberg, the danger of epidemics due to hunger and catastrophic sanitary conditions in Minsk. There the troops of Army High Command 4 (General Field Marshall Kluge) had “on an area of the size of the Wilhelmsplatz” fenced in a camp for about 100,000 prisoners of war and 40,000 civilian prisoners – almost the whole male population of Minsk:
The prisoners, crammed in this area, can barely move and are forced to make their necessities where they are standing. The camp is guarded by a detachment of active soldiers in company strength. Given the reduced strength of the guard detachment, guarding the camp is possible only through the use of most brutal force.
The prisoners of war, regarding whom the food problem can hardly be solved, are sometimes without food for six to eight days, and in their animal apathy caused by the hunger they have only one urge: to get something to eat.
[…]
The only possible language of the weak guard detachment, which without being relieved is on duty day and night, is their firearms, which they ruthlessly use.
That the mortality at least in the area of Army Group Center soon exceeded a “normal” level must also be concluded from the food rations granted to the prisoners. The prisoners transported through the area of the District Commandant J for Prisoners of War, Colonel Marshall, in the rear area of Army Group Center, received daily rations of “20 grams of millet and 100 grams of bread without meat”, “100 grams of millet without meat”, “according to the work performed, up to 50 grams of millet and 200 grams of bread, if available fresh meat” – rations that with a nutritional value of 300 to maximally 700 calories were far below half the absolutely necessary survival minimum, and this at a time when a mass problem was not yet in sight. The consequences of this hunger ration were clearly recognized. The supply officer of a security division involved in the transportation to the rear called to attention
that the food rations (20 – 30 g millet, 100 – 200 grams of bread) are insufficient even for a march of 30 – 40 kilometers and it must be expected that a great part of the people don’t reach their goal due exhaustion.
How quickly this happened cannot be determined. In the activity reports of the quarter master of the commander of the Army Rear Area Center there is no indication about the health situation of the prisoners for the month of July; in August it is described as “generally satisfactory”, in September as “normal, partially […] good”. These indications are meaningless, as the standard of measure is not revealed. Already in September, however, the transit camp Molodechno recorded an increased mortality due to exhaustion and dysentery-like disease. At least for a time a daily mortality of one per cent was already exceeded. From a later report by the quarter master it results that the mortality already before the influx of prisoners from the battle of Brjansk (mid-October) was enormous – “on average only 0.3 per cent per day” – i.e. 10 per cent monthly.
After the influx from the battle of Brjansk the mortality went up to an average of 1 % [per day], at the end of November to 2 %. At the beginning of December with the coming of the great cold it increased still further, so that in some camps (Vjazma, Smolensk, Gomel) up to 350 prisoners are dying every day
Also in December the “mortality remained very high, up to 2 % daily”.
On the whole the following picture emerges for the Rear Area Army Group Center: mortality increased with relative steadiness in the first three months and probably in September reached an average of 0.3 per cent per day, i.e. about 10 per cent monthly. With the influx of prisoners from the encirclement battle at Vjaz’ma and Brjansk it took a leap in mid-October to one per cent daily, the monthly mortality thus reaching 15 to 20 per cent. In November mortality again increased rapidly, it should have reached 1.3 per cent daily and 40 per cent for the month. In December it went down; according to a list prepared by the General Quarter Master there died in this month in the whole area of Army Group Center – i.e. also in the areas of the subordinated armies – 64,165 prisoners, a quarter of the number available at the beginning of the month. In January 1942 this number went down slightly to 23 per cent monthly (44,752 prisoners), in February more markedly to 15 per cent (19,117 prisoners), in March to 10.3 per cent (11,582 prisoners) and in April to 6.2 per cent (8,476 prisoners). During this whole time the number was clearly higher in the rear area of the army group.
For the areas of Army Groups North and South there are no data available regarding the summer months. Also for the area of Army Group North the sources show, however, that the mortality took a leap in October and kept increasing until January. The absolute and relative numbers were below those in the area of Army Group Center, as Army Group North had captured much fewer prisoners. In the area of the District Commander C for Prisoners of War in the army rear area there died between 16 and 30 November 4,612 prisoners, i.e. 5 or 6.5 per cent of the prisoners existing. In the whole area of Army Group North 11,802 prisoners (12.3 per cent) died in December, in January mortality increased to 17.4 per cent (16,051 prisoners), to sink in February to 11.8 per cent (10,197 prisoners), in March to 9.45 per cent (7,636 prisoners) and in April to 6.3 per cent (4,852 prisoners).
In the area of Army Group South the dying reached horrible dimensions at the latest after the encirclement battle of Kiev. According to a report by the Head Quarter Master of the 17th Army, which at this battle had captured a great part of the prisoners, the daily mortality of prisoners being taken to the rear was one per cent, so that also here a first peak of the mass dying was reached in October/November. In December, as the number of prisoners had been considerably reduced by transportation to the rear and death, there was a clear reduction of the mortality to 7.1 % (11,306 prisoners). The number, however, again increased in January to more than double – 16.8 per cent, 24,861 prisoners – to sink in February to 12.2 per cent (15,543 prisoners), in March to 9.4 (11,812 prisoners) and in April to 5.3 per cent (6,132 prisoners). For the whole area of military operations we thus have the following numbers:
December 1941: 89,693 deaths (15.4 %)
January 1942: 87,451 deaths (19.4 %)
February 1942: 46,579 deaths (13.2 %)
March 1942: 31,703 deaths (9.4 %)
April 1942: 19,535 deaths (5.8 %).