Soviet pows in the German captivity and returning home

On 22 June 2016, the Joint Statement of the German and Russian foreign ministers, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Sergey Lavrov initiated a new German-Russian project on the history of Soviet and German Prisoners of War and Internees. The initiative reflected the general memorial gap with regard to the fate of this victim group of National Socialism. The purpose of the article is to analyse the most important aspects of German policy towards Soviet Prisoners of War. On this basis, the article discusses the development of historical research and collective memory in Germany, post-Soviet republics, and the rest of Europe, thus highlighting misbalances in our historical knowledge about the Third Reich and in our commemoration alike. The article draws from a vast collection of war-time documents, secondary literature, and media coverage of newer developments. German policy against Soviet POWs constituted an integral part of the national-socialist war of annihilation against the Soviet Union. Indeed, pre-war planning expected millions of Soviet POWs. With regard to these future prisoners, German military authorities translated Hitler's ideological prescriptions into a special regime for Soviet POWs of War, thus demonstrating ideological allegiance or ideological compatibility. In comparison to the treatment of Western POWs, the Wehrmacht consciously defined lower standards of accommodation, medical support, and supplies, postulated harsher rules of custody and work, excluded Soviet POWs from certain general rights of POWs, and so on. Besides, Hitler and the Wehrmacht singled out certain categories of the Red Army's soldiers for immediate homicide. Altogether, German politics reflected general anti-communism, anti-slavism, and German beliefs in racial hierarchies. Therefore, mass mortality of Soviet POWs in German custody cannot be ascribed to allegedly unexpected climate or transport conditions, surprisingly high numbers of POWs, and the like, but proved to be a logical, often desired result of handling of Soviet POWs. Against this background, Soviet POWs developed, if possible, own strategies of survival. In this field, the article discusses possible ‘grey zones' between the poles of collaboration and resistance. It makes clear, that Stalin's general condemnation of POWs as traitors did not correspond to the realities of German camps and politics or to the activities of the vast majority of POWs, but reflected his ideological approach to assumed alliances between internal and external enemies. Finally, deep-seated German racial and political prejudices against Soviet POWs as well as Soviet politics with regard to POWs and home-comers contributed to the long neglect of this group in historiography and remembrance.

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