The fate of the 91,000 German soldiers who surrendered at Stalingrad in February 1943 was a descent into a hell far removed from the battlefields, one defined by starvation, disease, forced labor, and the brutal machinery of the Soviet Gulag system. The Battle of Stalingrad, a turning point in World War II, ended with the encirclement and capitulation of the German Sixth Army, a force once considered the most powerful in the Wehrmacht. But for the survivors, the war did not end with the signing of surrender.
Their ordeal was only beginning.
The German High Command, under Adolf Hitler, had poured immense resources into the capture of Stalingrad, a city on the Volga River that held both strategic and symbolic importance. The initial German offensive, Operation Blue, began in June 1942 with high hopes. The German Army Group South advanced rapidly, capturing key territories and pushing toward the Caucasus oil fields.
But the Red Army, under Joseph Stalin, mounted a fierce and costly defense. The battle degenerated into brutal, block-by-block urban combat, stripping the Germans of their advantage in mobility and air support.
By November 1942, the Soviet counter-offensive, Operation Uranus, had encircled the German Sixth Army. The German soldiers were trapped in a frozen pocket, cut off from supplies and reinforcements. The Luftwaffe’s attempt to supply the army by air failed miserably.
The men faced temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius, with little food, no winter uniforms, and rampant disease. Typhus, spread by lice, ravaged the ranks. Field hospitals were overwhelmed, and soldiers died from a mysterious condition called sudden death syndrome, caused by a combination of cold, exhaustion, hunger, and despair.
On January 31, 1943, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, promoted by Hitler in a cynical attempt to force his suicide, surrendered to the Red Army. The German soldiers who survived the final assault were marched out of the city in what became known as the death march. They were forced to trek through snow-covered trails, 𝓮𝔁𝓹𝓸𝓼𝓮𝓭 to brutal cold and deliberate starvation.
They were humiliated, beaten, and tortured by their Soviet captors. Only about 5,000 of the original 91,000 prisoners survived this initial march. The rest died along the way, their bodies left to rot in the desolate Soviet steppes.
The survivors were then transferred to Soviet labor camps, known as gulags. These camps were scattered across the Soviet Union, from the forests of Siberia to the industrial centers of the Urals. The prisoners were considered a resource to be exploited for the Soviet economy.
They were forced to work in mines, logging camps, and construction projects, often for 16 hours a day with minimal food and no rest. The work was brutal and dangerous, and many prisoners died from exhaustion, disease, or accidents.
The conditions in the gulags were deliberately harsh. The prisoners were subjected to a system of extreme 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮 known as korga, reserved for Nazi soldiers and collaborators. They were given meager rations of watery soup and bread, and they were forced to sleep in overcrowded, unheated barracks.
Medical care was virtually non-existent. The mortality rate in the camps skyrocketed, reaching 23 percent in 1943. Many prisoners died from typhus, tuberculosis, dysentery, and other diseases.
Some resorted to eating rats and dogs to survive.
The German prisoners were also used for the reconstruction of Stalingrad itself. They were forced to clear rubble, rebuild factories, and restore the city’s infrastructure. This work was incredibly dangerous, as the city was littered with unexploded ordnance and unstable buildings.
The prisoners were treated with contempt by their Soviet overseers, who held them responsible for the destruction of their homeland.
The treatment of German prisoners varied depending on their skills and status. Those with specialized knowledge, such as engineers, doctors, and scientists, were often given better conditions. They were housed in cities near their workplaces and received wages in German marks.
But even these privileges were meager. The vast majority of prisoners, the ordinary soldiers, endured unimaginable suffering.
The Soviet government also used the prisoners for propaganda purposes. They were forced to participate in public works projects, such as building stadiums and roads, to demonstrate the Soviet Union’s ability to rebuild after the war. They were also used as a source of labor for the Soviet economy, which was in ruins after the war.
The prisoners were forced to work in mines, factories, and farms, often in dangerous and unhealthy conditions.
The repatriation of German prisoners began in 1945, but it was a slow and painful process. Many prisoners were not released until the 1950s. The Soviet government released about 200,000 sick and weakened prisoners in June 1945, and another 600,000 by August.
But many more remained in captivity. The prisoners who were released were often in poor health, and they were not allowed to keep the money they had earned. They were transported back to Germany in crowded trains, with no food or water.
The fate of the German prisoners at Stalingrad was a tragedy of immense proportions. Of the 91,000 soldiers who surrendered, only about 5,000 survived the initial death march. The rest died in the gulags or during the repatriation process.
The survivors returned to a Germany that was itself in ruins, and they were often met with suspicion and hostility. They were seen as traitors or cowards, and they were forced to live with the memories of their ordeal.
The story of the German prisoners at Stalingrad is a stark reminder of the human cost of war. It is a story of suffering, survival, and the enduring power of the human spirit. But it is also a story of the brutality of the Soviet system, which treated prisoners as expendable resources.
The legacy of Stalingrad is a complex one, but it is a story that must be told, to ensure that the horrors of war are never forgotten.
The battle itself was a turning point in World War II. The German defeat at Stalingrad marked the beginning of the end for the Third Reich. It shattered the myth of German invincibility and demonstrated the resilience of the Soviet Union.
But the cost was staggering. The battle claimed the lives of over one million soldiers, both German and Soviet. The city of Stalingrad was reduced to rubble, and the surrounding countryside was scarred by war.
The prisoners who survived the battle were subjected to a different kind of war, a war of attrition against the Soviet system. They were forced to work in the gulags, where they faced starvation, disease, and brutal treatment. Many died, but some managed to survive through sheer willpower and luck.
They returned to a Germany that was divided and occupied, and they were forced to rebuild their lives from scratch.
The story of the German prisoners at Stalingrad is a cautionary tale about the dangers of ideology and the human cost of war. It is a story that should be remembered, not just as a historical event, but as a reminder of the importance of peace and human dignity. The men of Stalingrad, both German and Soviet, endured unimaginable suffering.
Their stories are a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, but also a warning about the horrors of war.
The Soviet government’s treatment of German prisoners was part of a larger pattern of repression and exploitation. The Gulag system was a key component of the Soviet state, used to control and punish dissent. The prisoners were subjected to a system of forced labor that was designed to break them physically and mentally.
The conditions in the camps were deliberately harsh, and the mortality rate was high.
The German prisoners at Stalingrad were not the only ones to suffer in the gulags. Millions of Soviet citizens, political prisoners, and other nationalities were also subjected to this brutal system. The Gulag was a stain on the Soviet Union’s history, a reminder of the dark side of the communist experiment.
The story of the German prisoners at Stalingrad is a part of this larger history, a chapter in the story of human suffering and resilience.
The survivors of Stalingrad returned to a Germany that was itself in ruins. The country was divided into occupation zones, and the economy was in shambles. The prisoners were often met with suspicion and hostility.
They were seen as traitors or cowards, and they were forced to live with the memories of their ordeal. Many struggled to reintegrate into society, and they were haunted by the horrors they had witnessed.
The story of the German prisoners at Stalingrad is a powerful reminder of the human cost of war. It is a story of suffering, survival, and the enduring power of the human spirit. But it is also a story of the brutality of the Soviet system, which treated prisoners as expendable resources.
The legacy of Stalingrad is a complex one, but it is a story that must be told, to ensure that the horrors of war are never forgotten.
The battle of Stalingrad was one of the most significant confrontations during World War II. The bloodshed during this struggle and the uncompromising victory by the Soviet side undoubtedly marked a turning point in the conflict. After this fierce battle, the fate of the approximately 100,000 German soldiers who survived the brutality of the Red Army was not much more encouraging than those who ended up underground.
Their lives in Soviet gulags were marked by torture, forced labor, and endless hours of a seemingly endless ordeal. Today, we see what happened to these soldiers after Germany’s defeat in Stalingrad.
During the early years of World War II, the Third Reich had already managed to invade key theaters such as Poland, France, and the Netherlands. Adding up the casualties from these three battles, the German ranks suffered fewer than 100,000 losses and managed to double the losses of the opposing forces. These numbers were extremely encouraging and prompted Adolf Hitler to double down and consider attacking a front he had long set his sights on.
The Soviet Union seemed like a rather challenging target for various reasons. On one hand, its territorial expanse was over 22 million square kilometers. France had approximately 640,000, Poland reached 322,000, and the Netherlands barely surpassed 40,000.
Despite the good results obtained in these European countries, it seemed unrealistic to conquer every inch of Soviet soil.
On the other hand, the might of the Red Army throughout the Great Patriotic War, as they called it, saw 5 million soldiers fight, equipped with weaponry that far exceeded that of several European armies combined. Last but not least, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression treaty signed between Germany and the Soviet Union on the night of August 23-24, 1939, in which they agreed not to attack each other. However, Adolf Hitler’s ambitions were greater than any reason that could stand in his way.
After his participation in World War I, the German leader harbored a deep-seated resentment toward the Soviet state and Bolshevism. By conquering this territory, he could prevent a blockade by Great Britain from happening again, in addition to avoiding a famine similar to the one that occurred after the previous major conflict.
Hitler’s intention was to enter Soviet territory several months earlier, but the decisive invasion of Greece delayed the timeline. This significant delay brought him a great deal of criticism. In fact, Hitler pushed for the formation of 300,000 troops to join the ranks of the Sixth German Army and fight in the Soviet Union as part of the famous Operation Barbarossa.
After months of training, he managed to create the most powerful formation in the entire German army. According to Hitler’s arrogant beliefs, the Sixth Army was capable of storming the heavens.
In 1942, following failed interventions in Moscow, Sebastopol, and Leningrad, the German Army set its sights on the territory of Stalingrad. Despite continuous German defeats, the Führer and his trusted confidants assumed that following the unexpected deployment, the Soviet ranks would face a lack of military and moral supplies after the countless losses suffered in the early years of the conflict. According to calculations made by the Nazi authorities in what was called the Hunger Plan, the population of the main Soviet cities would have died of starvation, reaching 35 million deaths.
However, Hitler couldn’t have been more wrong. A bloody and deadly battle was about to begin.
With approximately 275,000 German soldiers and just under 190,000 Soviet soldiers at the outset of the conflict, the Third Reich had deployed 3,000 artillery pieces, 500 tanks, and over 1,000 aircraft. In contrast, the Soviet Union had only 2,200 artillery pieces, 400 tanks, and 300 aircraft in Stalingrad. These numbers would change once the confrontation began.
The methodical plan began in early April with the so-called Operation Blue, which involved entering Southern Russia to conquer the basins of the Don River and the Volga River. This way, the German Army could destroy Stalingrad’s most influential industries, such as its mechanical production center and its railway communication system. Once these tasks were completed, Hitler could order his men to head towards the oil wells of the Caucasus.
This was crucial as it allowed the Third Reich to ensure it had enough energy resources for the subsequent years of the war.
On June 1, 1942, after some delays, final preparations were made for the major offensive, and on June 28, Operation Blue began. The start was promising for Germany. The Army Group South managed to advance smoothly while the ranks of the Red Army moved eastward.
A week later, units of the German Army Group B advanced towards the Don River on both sides of the city of Voronezh, engaging in brutal combat with their enemies until they conquered it. Following the planned victory, the German side continued towards its objective, advancing towards the Don River, the Donets River, and then towards the Volga River. On July 13, after some failed decisions by the Führer, the Red Army managed to recover and prevented Germany from continuing to gain Soviet territory.
Weeks passed one after the other, and Operation Blue began to fade to black for the German troops. The capture of the Caucasus turned into a real failure. Adolf Hitler had no choice but to rethink his strategies and modify his objectives.
Following the failed decisions of the German ranks and the commendable successes of the Soviet soldiers, he decided to continue his path to Stalingrad and focus his forces on that objective. The plan was to surround the city from the north and south and finally initiate the dreaded armored assaults. On August 19, General Friedrich Paulus ordered the first attack, and on August 23, hundreds of Heinkel 111 and Junkers 88 aircraft bombed the city of Stalingrad.
A day later, German panzers swept through the land and clashed with the powerful Soviet tanks. However, the Red Army’s response was simply astounding and caused terrible losses for the Third Reich.
According to Colonel David Glantz, an expert in this conflict, the battle for the city had degenerated into a messy dispute block by block and building by building, desperately slow, exhausting, and immensely costly, where German forces managed to break through but only from the west and south. Stalin’s decision to defend the city deprived the Germans of their traditional advantage in mobility, maneuver, and air and artillery support fire. It forced them to break through Soviet defenses to engage in a battle that resembled more the Somme of 1916 than the Blitzkrieg of the previous three summers.
After two long months of fighting and enduring three German offensives, the fierce Soviet counter-offensive would come, making Adolf Hitler regret provoking Joseph Stalin and his powerful Red Army.
Despite the losses, the Soviet dictator had managed to buy time and devise a perfect plan to stop the German troops. This served as a decisive turning point for World War II. This strategy was called the Cosmic Plan and consisted of five operations: Uranus and Mars in the southwest and central sectors of the front, followed by Saturn and Jupiter, culminating with Operation Spark in the north.
For this counter-offensive, Stalin deployed 2. 5 million soldiers, over 13,000 artillery pieces, 4,000 tanks, and over 1,000 aircraft. Germany, battered by its mistakes, only had 1.
4 million soldiers, just over 10,200 artillery pieces, 500 tanks, and 700 aircraft. However, of all the operations devised by the Red Army, Uranus was the one that set precedence and became the most influential of the Cosmic Plan.
Led by Marshal Georgy Zhukov in the northern wing and Colonel General Alexander Vasilevsky in the southern wing, Soviet ranks sought to push the enemy in the Don region westward, regain lost areas of Stalingrad, and completely destroy the German Sixth Army. The German side did not anticipate the opponent’s talent, which had adopted a doctrine known as Maskirovka, meaning disguise in Spanish. It involved military deception based on camouflage, manipulation of facts, denial, deceit, and persuasion to affect both the media and world opinion.
This strategy included measures such as imitation, disinformation, decoys, dummies, and maneuvers to confuse the enemy.
On November 19, 1942, the Soviet Union initiated the brutal counter-offensive with thousands of massive bombardments one after another, utilizing over 3,500 artillery pieces. After several weeks of massive attacks, the ranks of the Third Reich were cornered in the fortress of Stalingrad with no chance of obtaining supplies or reinforcements. The Germans suffered from high temperatures and hunger due to the lack of food.
They had no choice but to slaughter their draft horses to obtain some pieces of edible meat. Due to the low temperatures, they had to cut the horses with metal-specific saws. Hermann Göring, commander of the Luftwaffe, suggested to Hitler to assist the surrounded army with Junkers cargo planes tasked with supplying supplies dropped by parachute.
Air General von Richthofen warned them that such an attempt would be in vain. With the lack of aerial support, snow storms, anti-aircraft fire, and enemy aircraft, only a small fraction of the trapped army could be supplied by air.
Despite the Third Reich’s attempts to keep their soldiers alive, thousands of them died of starvation. Field hospitals were overwhelmed. Nurses and doctors were overwhelmed.
A Soviet doctor who entered a German hospital post-Battle of Stalingrad confessed to having seen several patients with craters on their faces. Soldiers suffering from chest, abdominal, and head wounds were left outside the hospital in the icy Soviet cold as it was impossible to save them. Many of them tried to join the trucks heading to the airfields for healing, but military police rejected them without hesitation.
Sadly, these soldiers froze to death as the German Army lacked winter uniforms.
In addition to injuries from the fighting, typhus wreaked unimaginable havoc on German soldiers. It is a disease spread by lice, with symptoms including chills, vomiting, fever, rashes, pink eyes, dilated pupils, and black lips. Those who contracted typhus had to be isolated quickly to prevent further contagion.
After suffering a large number of casualties from this anomaly, a new and mysterious cause of death brought new headaches to the Führer. Hundreds of German soldiers were dying suddenly without apparent cause. After a prestigious pathologist traveled straight from Berlin and conducted a thorough analysis of the results of many autopsies, the enigma was uncovered.
The curious phenomenon was dubbed sudden death syndrome and was caused by cold, exhaustion, hunger, and despair.
By the end of January 1943, Paulus requested authorization from the Führer to initiate negotiations with the Red Army. The outlook was not positive at all, and there seemed to be no choice but to make concessions and try to survive. In response, Adolf Hitler did the unexpected.
He promoted him to Field Marshal, reminding him that throughout Germany’s history, no Field Marshal had surrendered. The situation was irreversible. German soldiers removed themselves from the advancing Soviet front.
They inflicted wounds on themselves in the hope of obtaining a ticket home and even 𝓮𝔁𝓹𝓸𝓼𝓮𝓭 themselves from their hiding places in the hope that an enemy sniper would end their torment.
Paulus was indignant. He had grown tired of seeing the leaders enjoying good conditions, feasting on delicacies and champagne, while his men begged for a dignified death. Furthermore, he could not conceive that despite the Soviets offering honorable conditions for surrender, the authorities adamantly refused to accept them.
For that reason, Paulus did not oppose occupying the infamous position to which Hitler had brought him and saw no other option than to sign the surrender. “I see no way out of this hell. I still cannot grasp the idea of death, but that diabolical music of battle which brings death does not stop playing and playing,” wrote an anonymous German soldier who likely died in his diary found on the Stalingrad front.
Judging by the interrogations of captured Germans, they had continued fighting despite hunger, exhaustion, and massive death out of a mixture of resentment, obedience, and ideological conviction with National Socialism. Several prisoners showed pro-Nazi sentiments, such as their concern for blood purity and insisting on blaming Jews for the war, some without realizing their interrogator is Jewish. A particularly motivating factor, it adds, was the fear of being taken prisoner.
As officer Ernst Jünger recounted, the idea spread that being captured by the Russians meant poor treatment, torture, and death. Although according to Jünger, until the last moment, most officers still hoped for help from outside.
Regarding the reasons for surrender, Lieutenant Hermann Strotmann refers to the lack of provisions, men, and artillery shells, and the fact that it was physically impossible for us to continue fighting. “We were starving and most of us had frostbite. What a man can endure has a limit, and we reached that limit.
On February 2, we surrendered.” Sergeant Helmut Pist pointed out that those last days were horrible. “Thousands of corpses and wounded soldiers dying in the streets, and on top of that, we were receiving intense artillery and aerial fire from them.”
An anonymous soldier noted in his anguished diary, describing the terrible cold, meager food rations, and constant combat. “Everyone’s nerves are shot. I have lost faith in humanity.”
An emotional letter to his father was written by this anonymous lieutenant, found in the book Dust, Dr. Reich. “Dear father, the division has been cannibalized before the big battle, but the big battle will not happen.
You may wonder why I’m sending you this letter to your workplace, but what I have to tell you can only be said between men. You will pass it on to Mom in your own way. We were told that today we could write for someone who knows our situation.
That means this will be the last time we do so. You are a colonel, dear father, and a member of the general staff, so you know what this means. And there is no reason for me to indulge in sentimentality.
This is the end. I may possibly live for another week, but I believe that after that everything will be over. I do not want to seek reasons for or against our situation, since after all they are useless and unimportant.
But if I must say something, I will say this: do not look to us for an explanation of the situation. Look within yourselves and at the man who is responsible for all this. Do not give up, father, nor all those who think like you.
Stay vigilant so that this great disaster does not engulf our homeland. The hell on the Volga River must be a warning to you, and I beg you not to ignore it. And now to the present: of the entire division, only 16 useful men remain.
Bl and Harle are still alive, but little Dean lost both arms. He will probably return to Germany soon, so ask him about any details you wish to know. Name admitted he has lost all hope.
Sometimes I wish I knew what he thinks about the situation and its consequences. We still have two machine guns and 400 usable cartridges, as well as a mortar and 10 rounds. Besides that, only hunger and fatigue.
Without waiting to be ordered, Berg launched an attack with 20 more men. It’s better to know how the end will come in 3 days rather than wait for 3 weeks. I can’t blame him.
Finally, on personal matters: you can be sure that everything will end for me in a respectable way, although it’s a bit early at 30. I know no hard feelings. I send a handshake to Lydia and Helen, a kiss to Mom.
Be careful with her, father. Think about her heart problems. A kiss to Gerder and greetings to everyone else.”
The battle ended for the Third Reich with approximately 1 million casualties, 900 destroyed aircraft, and 500 tanks in the same condition. The defeat at Stalingrad, combined with other failed attempts to seize Soviet territories, marked the beginning of what would be an elusive fate for Germany in World War II. Meanwhile, the ordeal was not over for the nearly 100,000 survivors of the German Army.
After the capitulation was confirmed, a long road awaited them, unfortunately not leading them back home and increasingly separating them from their families.
The German soldiers who had managed to withstand the Battle of Stalingrad were subjected to the harrowing March of Death. This involved a heartbreaking trek through snow-covered trails, 𝓮𝔁𝓹𝓸𝓼𝓮𝓭 to temperatures below minus 30 degrees Celsius. Additionally, they were fiercely humiliated by their Soviet counterparts, who tortured them both physically and verbally.
They suffered from deliberate hunger and dehydration. They fell ill with typhus, tuberculosis, malaria, dropsy, jaundice, diphtheria, scurvy, dysentery, among other diseases. This deadly march, which also included forced labor, lasted for long weeks.
Only 5,000 German troops managed to survive. The rest of the soldiers died on the way and could not enjoy a dignified funeral. Their bodies simply lay in the middle of the desolate Soviet steppes.
The survivors did not enjoy a better fate. They were transferred to Soviet labor camps, better known as gulags, located in Lunovo, Susal, Krasnogorsk, Beal, Yelabuga, Usman, Asrian, Irank, Karaganda, and Banovski, among others. The prisoners of war were considered by the Soviet Union not only as a source of labor but also as a resource to be used in the country’s economy, not only during the war but more importantly in the post-war period, wrote historian Vladimir Vdov.
During the Tehran Conference, Stalin claimed to need more than 4 million German citizens to rebuild the destroyed Soviet cities and restore the industry. According to historian Elena Sharaya, this figure was based on the identical number of Soviet soldiers killed and missing at the time of the international convention. At the same time, during World War II, over 3 million citizens governed by Stalin were taken to Germany for forced labor.
Everything indicates that what the Eurasian state was seeking was nothing less than to compensate for the damages received.
To understand the suffering to which the German survivors of the Battle of Stalingrad were 𝓮𝔁𝓹𝓸𝓼𝓮𝓭, it is necessary to know the most chilling details about the gulags. The acronym Gulag refers to the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies. It is the branch of the NKVD, the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union.
This unit was responsible for directing the penal system of forced labor camps from its establishment in the 1930s until its dismantling in the early 1950s. The gulags housed over 14 million political prisoners and all types of criminals. At the beginning of World War II, approximately 2 million people were already residing in the gulags.
This number increased significantly with the entry of the Soviet Union into the war after Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Stalin ordered the invasion and annexation of Eastern parts of the Second Polish Republic. A year later, he occupied countries such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bessarabia, and Bukovina.
Hundreds of thousands of citizens from these territories were arrested and sent to the gulags, even without having committed any crimes. There was no distinction to prevent a sentence in these camps. Minor offenses, offenses and jokes about the government, opinions or thoughts contrary to Stalinist ideology, cruel murders all were sent to these establishments without hesitation.
It is estimated that there were over 500 gulags throughout the Soviet territory and even abroad.
According to the writer Anne Applebaum, the gulags did not emerge out of nothing. They reflected the general level of society that surrounded them. If the camps were filthy, the guards brutal, the work teams negligent, it was in part because dirt, brutality, and neglect abounded in other spheres of Soviet life.
After the start of the Second World War, the directors of the gulags created the term korga, which referred to an extremely abusive system of labor superior to what the rest of the prisoners had to tolerate. The ones responsible for these tasks were none other than the Nazi soldiers and collaborators, for whom they held a particular contempt. This means that the survivors of the Battle of Stalingrad were subjected to the most enslaving punishments.
Many of them did not survive and died on the spot. A small group of soldiers who fought in the Russian fortress were sent to different work camps than the gulags, closer to the city. At the same time, other troops were sent directly to Stalingrad to carry out the arduous reconstruction tasks due to the staggering destruction caused during the conflict.
It is necessary to revisit the tasks that captives had to perform in the gulags. Among the main activities were work related to gold, timber, nickel, tin, cobalt, iron, and chromium. They also had to manufacture weapons, ammunition, uniforms, airplanes, tanks, and railways.
Prisoners had to work long hours without pause and lacked time for recreation. They only had between 4 and 5 hours to sleep. This latter aspect had serious consequences for productivity, but Stalin seemed uninterested.
It was more important for him that they felt contempt for life over their usefulness in the service of labor. Furthermore, the prisoner’s food was scarce to non-existent due to the shortage of supplies that plagued Europe almost entirely in 1941. After the German attack, the conditions of the camps deteriorated significantly.
Food rations were reduced, and medical supplies began to run out. According to the writer Galina M. Ivanova, in the spring of 1942, the camp ceased to function.
It was difficult to find people who could even collect firewood or bury the dead. Andrei Vyshinsky, the chief Soviet prosecutor, wrote in a memorandum that among the prisoners, there are some who are so ragged and lousy that they pose a health hazard to others. These prisoners have deteriorated to the point of losing any resemblance to humans.
In the absence of food, they collect garbage and, according to some prisoners, eat rats and dogs.
Aren’t for Marov, a survivor of the Klag Gulag, testified about the hell he experienced in that camp. “Sometimes you have to crawl along the path to the wagon with a log on your shoulders, specifically one that is heavy, damp, and made of older like oak. You are bathed in sweat.
Your heart beats as if it is about to jump out of your chest. You breathe so hard that you start to pant like an overheated horse, and you start to think, let me break a leg. I would fall and the log would crush me, and that would be the end.
No more suffering. It would all be over forever.” Helmet Bone, a German soldier, confessed that until we reached the camp, the daily ration was a liter of liquid soup and 300 grams of hard bread.
Those days, we were ordered to cut firewood for the Russian field kitchen. They gave us a little hot tea for dinner. We, a dozen prisoners, were locked up in a goat pen supervised by a young lieutenant from the Red Army.
However, it is important to mention that the living conditions of convicts varied according to the gulag. For example, in Balom, there were 3,000 non-political prisoners housed. While they were lightly supervised, they could walk at will.
They had open barracks, mattresses, and pillows. They could even watch western movies. However, these conditions were exceptional compared to those of other gulags.
In Nushka 2, they housed political prisoners and high-profile criminals. There, the Soviet authorities installed surveillance towers with machine guns and provided closed barracks. Prisoners in general were prohibited from having photographs of their loved ones and were only allowed to send one letter per year.
On the other hand, inmates also held positions of responsibility in which they assumed great responsibilities. Some of them were camp guards and had to ensure the safety of their fellow inmates. In some exceptional cases, prisoners could be released early if they showed good performance.
Occasionally, they had livestock farming courses and theatrical performances performed by the professional theater group of the gulags.
It is estimated that between 1934 and 1953, more than 1 million people died within the gulags. This means that many of the survivors of the Battle of Stalingrad died before they could find freedom or the end of World War II. In 1941, the mortality rate was 6 percent.
In 1943, the year German troops entered, the rate had reached 23 percent. After several months following the end of World War II in 1946, there were still over 240 labor camps in the Soviet Union, housing over a million prisoners. Over time, this number increased to nearly 4 million.
However, around 70 percent of them had health problems. German prisoners of war, both sick and healthy, were assigned to labor battalions. Humiliated because of their crimes committed during the greatest war in history, former members of the Nazi forces were cruelly forced to rebuild factories, dams, railways, and ports.
They also restored thousands of houses for civilians that had been destroyed, as well as homes exclusively designed for Ministry of Interior workers. Some of them worked in a glass factory located in a Moscow suburb called Litkarino. Others built an archives building in Krasnogorsk based on the project of the prestigious German architect Paul Spiegel.
They were also responsible for logging and building roads and railways in remote and inaccessible areas. There were also those who collaborated in mineral extraction in the mines of the Don River Basin. There, they extracted uranium, coal, and iron.
In turn, hundreds of prisoners were responsible for the construction of Dynamo Moscow football club’s stadium.
In addition to using the services of soldiers who participated in the Battle of Stalingrad for all these tasks, the Soviets recruited various high-level German specialists for the restructuring of different industries. Thus, over 250 civil engineers, 220 electrical engineers, and over 110 doctors in physical sciences, technical sciences, and mathematics worked towards the reorganization of the state led by Joseph Stalin. It is true that those with doctorate or university certificates enjoyed better conditions than those who had caused thousands of deaths in the Soviet stronghold.
Not only did they live in the cities near the institutions where they worked, but they also received wages in German marks, something an average Nazi officer envied greatly. However, it is necessary to clarify that both workers and soldiers working in construction projects received minimal pay for their services. Privates received 7 rubles a month, while former senior officers received between 10 to 30 rubles every 30 days.
However, any of these figures was meager. A picture of milk cost two rubles, and a pair of shoes reached 100 to 150. On the other hand, prisoners who did not have any special skills had to find a way to survive.
The experiences lived in the postwar labor camps were not very different from those they had to endure while the Third Reich fought to dominate the world.
According to prisoner Ry Cold Brow, “At first, we had to load two train wagons with wood during a work shift. Then the norm increased to three wagons. We were forced to work 16 hours a day, also on Sundays and holidays.
We returned to the camp at 9:00 or 10 at night, but often did so at midnight. We received watery soup and fell asleep so that the next day at 5 in the morning we would go back to work.” According to officer Heinrich Ikenberg, who also had to tolerate the hardships of the post-war period in Soviet lands, “The stomach problem was above all.
The soul and body were sold for a plate of soup or a piece of bread. Hunger ruined people, corrupted them, and turned them into animals.” Stealing products from their own companions became a common thing.
During 1946, the death rate increased compared to the previous year and approached 300,000 people. Despite many Germans continuing to be prisoners, some enjoyed the coveted freedom. In June 1945, the Soviets released about 200,000 sick and weakened prisoners.
Two months later, that number rose to 600,000. Those fortunate enough to return to German soil could not keep the money earned from their tasks. That’s why they tried to buy provisions before it was taken from them.
According to Wilhelm Lot’s testimony, who was repatriated in 1949, before returning home, he acquired 6 kg of cookies, over 2,300 cigarettes, and 600 grams of tobacco. Despite being liberated, the transportation conditions were no different from those of a labor camp. Passengers received neither water nor food during the long days when trains crossed Soviet lands.
Once on German soil, they were transferred to the Soviet relocation camp in Frankfurt, where the next 48 to 72 hours passed. Finally, the ranks of the Red Army sent them to their hometowns.
The repatriation of German prisoners of war from Soviet lands officially ended in 1950. However, during the next 6 years, between 10,000 and 20,000 captives who had not been declared regularly were handed over. Additionally, what few know is that the Soviets created 10 special camps in Germany, where they had approximately 176,000 prisoners.
According to Carl Vel Vikman, who was imprisoned in the Torgau camp in Saxony, “We couldn’t leave. We were three in each cell. They barely gave us food, and we had to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 time.
At the end of the captivity, a third of the prisoners had died.” Those who could emerge unharmed were prohibited from mentioning the conditions in which they lived in the camps, as they were accused of incitement and slander. After the fall of the German Democratic Republic, researchers discovered mass graves containing over 7,000 corpses.
Regarding the convicts who worked in Stalin’s gulags, according to official Soviet statistics published in 1956, over 2 million German prisoners were repatriated to Germany. However, some claim that these figures were manipulated and that the actual number was approximately 600,000. Another fate befell Friedrich Paulus, the aforementioned Field Marshal in Stalingrad, as he endured truly desolate days after leading the German Army in this brutal battle.
In 1943, after receiving Hitler’s ultimatum pressuring him not to surrender, Paulus confessed to his subordinates, “He wants me to commit suicide, but I won’t give him that pleasure.” He then ordered one of his men to contact the Soviets to negotiate surrender. That same day, he was captured along with all his staff.
After the defeat, Hitler organized a funeral in Germany on top of an empty coffin. He ordered Paul’s baton to be placed in this way. He sought to declare the Field Marshal dead, who was still alive in Soviet territory.
Upon learning of this situation, Stalin’s close associates tried to persuade Paulus to abandon his convictions and cooperate against the Nazi State.
During the summer of 1944, after refusing to betray Germany, Paulus received two devastating news. On one hand, the death of one of his twin sons. On the other, the execution of a large number of former comrades who conspired to defeat Hitler.
After these events, Paulus decided to take action and collaborated with the Soviet Union to establish a new state direction that would end the war and restore peaceful and friendly relations with the current enemy. Thus, he joined the Free Germany Committee initiated by the German Communist Party in Soviet territory. In 1946, Soviet leaders secretly brought Paulus to testify in the Nuremberg trials.
His presence caused great astonishment in the courtroom, as Adolf Hitler himself had declared him dead. During the interrogation, Paulus stated that in early 1940, when he began working in the General Command Staff as head of logistics, he found among other files an unfinished operations plan regarding an attack on the Soviet Union. Thanks to his presence and testimony in the trial, the Soviet Union was able to demonstrate that the Third Reich had planned the attack beforehand.
Thus, Nazi criminals had no chance of exoneration.
In 1953, after being released along with other prisoners of war by Stalin’s government, Paulus lived in the German city of Dresden. There, he served as the civilian head of the Institute of Military Historical Research of the German Democratic Republic. During those years, he developed progressive bulbar paralysis, a form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Friedrich Paulus passed away on February 1, 1957. Another remarkable story was that of Walter von Seydlitz-Kurzbach. After being promoted to Lieutenant General following his work in the Demyansk offensive operation, he was part of the Sixth Army in Stalingrad alongside Paulus.
Shortly before the end of the battle, Seydlitz was taken prisoner. During his captivity, Soviet officers noticed that he often spoke derogatorily about the Third Reich. For that reason and upon Stalin’s order, they tried to persuade him to join the group of German military personnel who wanted to overthrow Nazism.
After agreeing, he began to persuade other German troops to join him. Upon learning of this situation, Hitler ordered him to be sentenced to death in absentia for his betrayal. Consequently, his relatives were persecuted and expelled from official positions.
In 1943, Seydlitz was appointed president of the League of German Officers, composed of prisoners in Soviet hands. This entity depended on the National Committee for a Free Germany, the same one that Paulus was part of. The former Lieutenant General’s thirst for revenge was insatiable.
He even proposed the creation of an anti-Nazi German Army composed of German prisoners. Additionally, he attempted to plan an operation to gather paratroopers and drop them over Germany to initiate a communist partisan guerrilla. However, the Soviet authorities vehemently rejected all his proposals.
Later, Stalin deemed the Officers’ League to be utterly useless and reimprisoned his comrades. After the war ended and faced with such disappointment, he refused to cooperate and in 1949 was sentenced to prison for the war crimes committed by his troops. Seven years later, Seydlitz was released and sent back to Bremen, his hometown.
Although he sought to regain his rank and have his lifelong pension recognized, this was not possible. It wasn’t until 1956 that the West German government annulled the sentences imposed by the Third Reich. Seydlitz died on April 28, 1976.
Almost 20 years after his death, in 1994, his family succeeded in having the military courts of Russia annul the sentences imposed by the former Soviet Union in the 1950s.
Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd, which in Spanish means the city of the Volga. Beneath its new structures and buildings lies the bloodshed of a bloody war, which left millions dead and led to almost 100,000 troops ending up in the brutal Soviet gulags. After the war, many of them died under the most terrible conditions, while others managed to survive the ordeal and returned to their native Germany.
However, none of them could avoid the judgments exercised by justice and the resentment of a citizenry that for the years to come sought peace and prosperity in their homes, in their prisons, and in their graves. The men of Stalingrad hold the darkest stories of a battle that marked military history forever.
