History 01/03/20 How many German prisoners escaped from a Soviet Gulag
Until recently, to talk about remaining in the USSR for permanent residence of German prisoners of war was not accepted, despite’s been preached “proletarian internationalism”. But it was not only cohabitation between German POWs and Soviet women, but marriage. How many of them were – it still can be judged only indirectly.
the Number of prisoners
First of all, there is ambiguity with the total number of prisoners of war of Nazi Germany and its satellites in the Soviet Union. According to official Soviet figures, 1956, during the great Patriotic war, the Soviet Union captured 2 million 390 thousand Germans. This is the data after accounting for the prisoners according to nationality. It is known that the Wehrmacht and SS troops fought not only the Germans. German historians give a figure of 3.15 million prisoners of war — employees of the Wehrmacht and SS, caught up in the USSR. That’s not counting prisoners from the allied armies of Germany countries. Of them from 1.1 to 1.3 million died in captivity.
After the war, the Soviet authorities pursued a policy of gradual release certain categories of prisoners of war. On 12 March 1947 in the USSR, according to the note of the Minister of foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov to Stalin, remained 988,5 million prisoners of war German nationality. 786 thousand at that time was already released. We can assume that the others are probably already dead, since the same note recommended Molotov to Stalin, to announce the number remaining in the Soviet Union German prisoners of war true below about 10%, “given their increased mortality”.
What was done: in the TASS statement of 15 March of the same year it was said that the Soviet Union remains 890,5 million prisoners of war of the Germans, and more than a million reportedly already released and released in Germany. Likely, however, that the total number remained in the Soviet Union German prisoners exceeded Molotov called “the true figure”. After three consecutive by orders of the Ministry of internal Affairs of the USSR in 1947 and 1948 were repatriated a total of 900 thousand German prisoners of war.
But then, according to the end of 1949, the Soviet Union was still 430,7 thousand former soldiers of the Wehrmacht. In the following, 1950, they were released, with the exception of those sentenced for war crimes by various terms of imprisonment. There were 13 546, and they were released in 1956 in connection with the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and the FRG.
the USSR will not run away
From Soviet captivity to escape was much harder than German during the war. Here for the prisoners was a foreign country thousands of kilometers. Escape for many was probably more true to death than stagnation in the camp. Despite this, 1944-1948. there was 11 403 escape from the camps for German prisoners of war. 10 445 the fugitives were caught. What is the fate of the remaining 958 is unknown. It is unlikely that many of them managed to get home.
In the period of captivity skilled workers from among the German soldiers and officers were engaged in the construction of residential houses and industrial sites and in other work that provided for more favorable treatment of the content than in the camp. Increased opportunities for contacts of prisoners with the local population, despite the fact that the alert “comrades” is vigilantly monitored and strictly suppress evidence found of communication. And in the camps, sometimes there are conditions for “hazing” between prisoners and women from the staff (nurses, cooks, etc.). This was facilitated by the fact that the Germans in the camps began to pass off the work of not only food, but also allowance, and in the USSR because of the war, formed a huge imbalance between female and male population.
Few percent
the Historian Elena Zubkova indicates that immediately after the war, the numerical sex ratio in the village was 2.7:1 in favor of women. This demographic skew can impact patterns of behavior. Investigating this problem on the local materials of the Vologda region (the Gryazovets camp) historian A. Kuzmin notes that during the war there were cases of “undesirable relations”, and after the war they became more frequent. Despite the prosecution of those engaged in them (women left, puts on record “competent” authorities, etc.), communication “women-winners” with the “army of the aggressor” was a topical phenomenon.
Relationship of this kind, not least influenced by the fact that on 12 February 1947, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree “on prohibition of marriages between Soviet citizens and foreign citizens.” This has not stopped the rising trend began to occur attempts to legalize arisen relations. Kuzmin leads episode when a prisoner of war Max Hartmann asked about the acceptance of the Soviet citizenship, to be able to enter into a marriage with a citizen of the USSR. It was officially replied that it will be able to make such a request only after the liberation and repatriation through the Embassy of the USSR.
However, in the late 40-ies of the researcher counted eight cases of officially registered marriages of Soviet women from the former soldiers of the Wehrmacht only in the Vologda and Arkhangelsk regions. It is known that in the Gorky region, where German prisoners were building a nuclear closed city Arzamas-16 (Sarov), in 50-e years have seen a growth in the number of German surnames.
to Establish how many of these Germans, who found in the USSR a new home, it is not possible even by extrapolation, as the figure should somehow take into account not only the local population, but the number of prisoners held in the area. From the above example in Northern areas where there was a large concentration of prisoners of war, it is clear that across the country it could be, at most, several tens, maximum hundreds of people. It is disproportionately small compared with the three million prisoners. The number of children born to a German prisoner of warx outside of marriage is likely to exceed the number of marriages by one to two orders of magnitude and in the thousands, and then tens of thousands.
Yaroslav Butakov
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© Russian Seven
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