Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
This article was downloaded by: [Pennsylvania State University]On: 16 May 2013, At: 03:27Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK
The Journal of Slavic MilitaryStudiesPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fslv20
Dulag-205: The GermanArmy’s Death Camp for SovietPrisoners at StalingradFrank EllisPublished online: 23 Sep 2006.
To cite this article: Frank Ellis (2006): Dulag-205: The German Army’s Death Camp forSoviet Prisoners at Stalingrad, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 19:1, 123-148
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13518040500544600
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan,sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone isexpressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make anyrepresentation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up todate. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should beindependently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liablefor any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damageswhatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connectionwith or arising out of the use of this material.
Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 19: 123–148, 2006Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN 1351-8046 printDOI: 10.1080/13518040500544600
FSLV1351-80460000-0000Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 19, No. 01, January 2006: pp. 0–0Journal of Slavic Military Studies
DULAG-205: THE GERMAN ARMY’S DEATH CAMP FOR SOVIET PRISONERS AT STALINGRAD
Dulag-205F. Ellis Frank Ellis
Ration return documents in the archive of the German 6th Army revealthat approximately 30,000 Soviet soldiers were conscripted or volun-teered to work for their German captors at Stalingrad. Their fate afterthe German capitulation remains unknown, though it seems likely thatthe bulk of them fell into the hands of the NKVD and SMERSH, undergo-ing a lengthy process of filtration and interrogation. The precise detailsof what befell these Hilfswillige or Hiwis remain one of the major unre-solved questions concerning the battle of Stalingrad. Those Soviet prison-ers who were deemed by German intelligence to be unreliable or simplytoo loyal to the Soviet regime were incarcerated in Dulag-205. After thecapitulation of 6th Army the officers responsible for the running ofDulag-205 were captured and interrogated so revealing a regime of star-vation, beatings, and forced labor inflicted on Soviet troops. In this arti-cle, which is based on access to the original interrogation files of theGerman officers, the author traces the history of this forgotten deathcamp inside the Kessel.
The existence of Dulag-205 was one of the more gruesome discoveriesmade by the Red Army after the capitulation of 6th Army. The officersresponsible for the running of Dulag-205 were captured and interrogatedso revealing a regime of starvation, beatings, and forced labor inflictedon Soviet prisoners. In this article, which is based on access to the origi-nal interrogation files of the German officers, the author traces the his-tory of this forgotten death camp inside the Stalingrad Kessel.
On the basis of German 6th Army’s Tagesmeldungen and Lagemeldungenand on some of the extant divisional documents we know a great deal aboutthe day-to-day routine of life inside the Stalingrad Kessel. We have plentyof detail about the bitter nature of the fighting, the creation of quick-reac-tion units (Alarmeinheiten), rationing, and the onset of starvation. As for thefinal German surrender itself, this will be forever linked with the newsreel
Address correspondence to Dr. Frank Ellis, Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies,University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
124 F. Ellis
footage of a long line of freezing and starving German soldiers, manybarely alive, resembling grotesque scarecrows in their improvised combina-tion of military and civilian attire, as they stumbled into Soviet captivity.Seriously weakened by the lack of food before the surrender—some hadalready died of starvation inside the Kessel—German soldiers were physi-cally ill-prepared to endure Soviet captivity. The majority died of exhaus-tion, hunger, and disease or simply lost the will to live and would never seetheir homeland again. For the small group who did survive and whoreturned, about 5,000 in all, there was a 13-year wait before final liberation.
There is, however, one aspect to the German presence at Stalingradthat has only very recently been acknowledged in published, declassifiedarchive material for the first time,1 and that concerns the existence ofDulag-205. Dulag-205 (Dulag is derived from Durchgangslager, a transitcamp) was set up to hold Soviet prisoners. It was located about 500meters from the village of Alekseevka in the Stalingrad district and somethree miles from Gumrak, the location of one of 6th Army’s airfields.From the outset the camp’s regime was punitive and typical of the Wehr-macht’s general behavior towards Soviet prisoners on the Eastern front.
The fate of Soviet soldiers captured by the Germans reflected one of thecentral tenets of Nazi race ideology; that Soviet soldiers were raciallydegenerate. The norms of captivity which applied to Anglo-American pris-oners carried no weight on the Eastern front. Nor, as Christian Streit haspointed out in Keine Kameraden,2 was this brutal treatment the sole prerog-ative of the ad hoc anti-partisan units, Einsatzgruppen and the SS. Theethos of casual brutality towards Soviet prisoners pervaded the Wehrmacht.The archive material on Dulag-205 is consistent with Streit’s thesis.3
Any discussion of German treatment of Soviet prisoners must also takenote of the Soviet response to the ordeal these men endured at the handsof the Germans. The official Soviet attitude towards liberated Red Armysoldiers was harsh, almost contemptuous of their suffering. During WorldWar Two the Western belligerents, having signed and ratified the variousinstruments governing the treatment of prisoners of war, made everyeffort through the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross
1See ‘Dokladnaia zapiska V. Abakumova A. Vyshinskomu o zverskom otnoshenii nem-etskikh voennosluzhashchikh k sovetskim voennoplennym, 2 sentiabria 1943 g.’in Stalingradskaiaepopeia: Materialy NKVD SSSR i voennoi tsenzury iz Tsentral’nogo arkhiva FSB RF, Ya. F. Pagonii idr., Zvonnitsa-MG, Moscow, 2000, pp. 356–363.
2Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen1941–1945 (1978), (Bonn: Verlag J.H.W.Dietz Nachf. GmbH), 1991.
3Federalnyi Arkhiv, Federalnaia Sluzhba Bezopasnosti Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Ugolovnoe Delo PoObvineniiu Kerperta i dr. Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159 (hereinafter cited as FA FSB, Arkhiv NoK-99468, delo 159). List/listy refers to the individual sheets of paper and their numbers in thefile (delo).
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
Dulag-205 125
to ensure the best treatment for their service personnel in German andJapanese captivity. Red Army soldiers enjoyed no such legal protectionand derived no moral or practical succour from the hope that Soviet diplo-mats and other agencies were actively trying to ameliorate their lot inGerman captivity. Once captured by the German army, they were effec-tively abandoned by the Soviet state. The Germans exploited them asslave labor or simply allowed them to die of cold and exhaustion, espe-cially in the 1941–1942 winter. Those Soviet soldiers who managed toescape—and some did—could expect to be regarded with extreme suspi-cion by the operatives of the NKVD, and after April 1943, SMERSH, onreturning to Soviet lines. The operational presumption on the part of theNKVD and SMERSH was that until these organizations’ interrogatorscould satisfy themselves otherwise, all Red Army prisoners passingthrough the special filtration camps and transit camps, whether they beescapees or liberated soldiers, had been recruited by German intelligenceor had some other dark secret to hide.
In 1943 and from thereafter to the war’s end, as the Red Army liberated theGerman-occupied territories, the process of interrogating and filtering thehundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers who had spent long periods inGerman captivity became a high priority for SMERSH, as is clear from thatorganization’s founding document.4 In any case, the detailed tasks which Sta-lin set for SMERSH and the harsh treatment meted out to Soviet returners andescapees were firmly established norms well before the SMERSH decree.
Indeed, two of Stalin’s orders set the tone: Order No 270 issued on 16August 1941, as the Germans were sweeping all before them; and hisfamous (or infamous) Order No 227 issued on 28 July 1942 after the fallof Rostov, the essence of the latter being known under the slogan of “nota step backwards” (ni shagu nazad), in which Stalin demanded executionsfor panic mongers, deserters and retreating units.5 The NKVD needed no
4A high priority is “the checking of military-service personnel and other persons who have beenin enemy captivity or encircled by the enemy”. See Section II, paragraph (e), ‘Polozhenie oGlavnom Upravelenii kontrrazvedki Narodnogo Komissariata Oborony (“SMERSH”) i ego orga-nakh na mestakh’, 21 aprelia 1943 goda. The full text of this decree is in A. N. Yakovlev, ed. et al.,Lubianka: organy VChK-OGPU-NKVD-NKGB-MGB-KGB 1917–1991 spravochnik, in the series“Demokratiia”, Rossiia. XX VEK, Dokumenty, Mezhdunarodnyi fond, Moscow, 2003, pp. 623–626.
5See ‘Prikaz Stavki verkhovnogo glavnogo komandovaniia Krasnoi armii’, No 270, 16avgusta 1941 goda’, Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, 9, 1988, pp. 26–28 and I. Stalin, ‘PrikazNarodnogo komissara oborony Soiuza SSR, No. 227, 28 iiulia 1942 g.’ in Voenno-istoricheskiizhurnal, 8, 1988, pp. 73–75. This is the first time that the full text of both orders was published.The Germans soon become aware of the savage penalties provided for by Order No 270. A fewdays after the 16th August 1941, the German ambassador in Ankara, von Papen tried, througha third party while making enquiries concerning the fate of German prisoners, to ascertainwhether it was true that Stalin had threatened the families of Soviet soldiers who were capturedby the Germans with repressive measures. See Keine Kameraden, p. 229.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
126 F. Ellis
encouraging. Caught between the racial ideology of the Nazi invaderwhich accorded them sub-human status and Stalin’s paranoia about theloyalty of Soviet soldiers, who had been captured, Red Army soldiersendured a uniquely dreadful fate.
DULAG-205
On 31 January 1943 the German officers responsible for running Dulag-205were captured by the Red Army: the camp commandant, Oberst RudolfKörpert (1886–1944); the deputy camp commandant, Hauptmann CarlFrister (1896–1944); the officer responsible for work details, HauptmannKurt Wohlfarth (1893–1944); the officer in charge of the camp’s constructiongroup, Hauptmann Richard Seidlitz (1887–1944); head of camp security,Rotmeister Fritz Müsenthin (1889–1944); and adjutant to the commandant,Oberleutnant Otto Mäder (1895–1944). All were interrogated by SMERSH.
The initial Soviet investigation concluded that in Dulag-205 the Germancamp administration presided over “the mass killing of Soviet military pris-oners as a result of which more than 3,000 were exterminated.”6 On thebasis of material gathered from the interrogations of both the officers them-selves and former Soviet prisoners, Körpert and his staff were formallyarrested on 18th September 1944. In the arrest document it was noted:
[ … ] that over a long period of time Soviet military prisoners, locatedin Dulag-205 were given no food whatsoever which led to the prison-ers’ being forced to eat the corpses of their comrades. Soldiers in thecamp were shot without any reason, tormented by dogs and condi-tions were created which were totally unsuited for human habitation.7
The considerable delay between the capture of the German officersdirectly involved with running Dulag-205 and their interrogations hints attwo things. First, NKVD and SMERSH interrogators were simply over-whelmed by the numbers of German prisoners of interest to them. Forobvious reasons the highest priority was given to von Paulus himself andhis immediate entourage as well as the divisional commanders and theirstaff officers who had been captured. Other areas and personalities wouldalso have been of great interest to Soviet military intelligence: the state ofGerman knowledge of Red Army intentions; the success or otherwise ofGerman intelligence in recruiting civilians and Red Army soldiers (andtheir identity); and the effectiveness of German radio monitoring. Second, 6thArmy archives, mainly ration returns, reveal, that there were approximately
6FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 1.7FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 3.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
Dulag-205 127
30,000 Soviet prisoners, Hilfswillige or Hiwis for short, who were work-ing for the Germans in the Kessel. The possibility cannot be excluded thatthey fell victim to instant retribution after the German surrender; thatthese men were rounded up by the NKVD, shipped off to some location inthe steppe and executed en masse.
While it is entirely possible that spontaneous retribution fell upon theseSoviet soldiers after their capture, I am of the opinion that the key to the fateof these Red Army men is to be found in the archives of SMERSH not theNKVD. Retribution featured prominently in the work of both organisations,as Körpert and his fellow officers were eventually to discover, but securinginformation and hard intelligence would be of greater importance for anycounter-intelligence organisation. Instant retribution on the scale of Katynor even greater, would have drastically eliminated the pool from whichvaluable intelligence could be derived. This would hardly have been a ratio-nal or desirable outcome. Delayed retribution on the other hand would havesatisfied both the need for hard intelligence and the desire of the ideologicalsadists for blood. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.
THE INTERROGATION OF OBERST KÖRPERT ET AL.
Körpert, the camp commandant, was first interrogated on 23 June 1943.Körpert told his interrogator, Captain Prikhodin, a senior SMERSH investi-gator, who was attached to the 3 Baltic Front, that the prisoners lived in dug-outs which measured 60 × 3 meters and that 150 men were allocated to eachdugout. The total size of the camp was 200 × 200 meters. By the beginning ofDecember 1942, a camp that had been designed for 1,200 prisoners, was nowholding 3,400.8 Körpert said that up until 5 December 1942 sparse rationswere available for the Soviet prisoners, thereafter there was nothing and heacknowledged that “real starvation started.”9 From 10 December 1942 thedeath rate due to starvation was running at about 50 prisoners per day.10
According to the record of Körpert’s interrogation, “The corpses ofmilitary prisoners who had died in the night were taken out of the dugoutsevery morning and carted off beyond the camp boundary and buried.”11
At this stage the figure of Soviet dead from famine is given as 2,000.12
One of the main lines of attack deployed against Körpert by the interro-gator was to highlight the fact that the Germans were obliged to adhere tothe terms of The Hague (1907) and Geneva Conventions (1929). There
8FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 25.9FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 26.10FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 27.11FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 27.12FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 27.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
128 F. Ellis
were in fact two conventions signed by a number of states at Geneva on27th July 1929: the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition ofthe Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field.13; and the Convention Rela-tive to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, with Annex.14
The Soviet Union eventually acceded to the Convention for the Ame-lioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field(26 March 1932), but not to the Convention Relative to the Treatment ofPrisoners of War.15 This posed something of a problem for the Nazi lead-ership. For it meant quite clearly that Germany was obliged to care forSoviet sick and wounded. The solution here was a typical sleight of handon the part of the Nazi administration: to argue that since the SovietUnion had not acceded to the first Convention this, in effect, negated anyobligations that Germany had under the latter.16
Körpert was obviously unaware that the Soviet Union had refused toratify one of the 1929 Geneva Conventions. Stalin’s refusal to ratify both1929 Conventions, thereby denying Soviet prisoners the protection of thefull range of internationally agreed norms helped to fuel German con-tempt for Soviet soldiers, making it easier for all ranks in the Germanarmy to justify their barbarity. German soldiers were able to convincethemselves that if the Soviet authorities were indifferent to the conditionsof their own men, then it was hardly incumbent upon the German Army toworry about them either. On this latter point one can cite Major-GeneralZolotarev’s assessment of the fate of Soviet prisoners in German captiv-ity, which by comparison with the views prevailing throughout the Sovietperiod, represents a remarkable volte-face:
Today historians acknowledge that of the 5.7 million Soviet prisoners ofwar who ended up in Germany, nearly 3.3 million perished. It would bewrong to attribute these terrible figures exclusively to the evil deeds of thefascist regime. Responsibility for the death of prisoners from famine, ill-ness and other privations also lies with the Stalin government which dem-onstrated a criminal indifference to the fate of its fellow countrymen.17
13See, League of Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 118, No 2733, pp. 303–341.14See League of Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 118, no 2734, pp. 343–409.15In a draft decree intended for the Supreme Soviet which was dated 17th July 1941 it was
proposed that the Soviet Union observe the provisions of the Hague Convention (1907), theGeneva Protocol which proscribed the use of gas and bacteriological warfare (1925) and thetwo Geneva Conventions of 1929. The decree was not enacted. See Major-General Zolotarev,ed., Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, vol 13(2), Nemetskie voennoplennye v SSSR 1941–1955 gg., Sbornik dokumentov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA, Moscow, 1999, pp. 17–18.
16See Keine Kameraden, p. 183.17See Major-General Zolotarev, ed., Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, vol. 13(2),
Nemetskie voennoplennye v SSSR 1941–1955 gg., Sbornik dokumentov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA,Moscow, 1999, p. 15.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
Dulag-205 129
Körpert admitted that two prisoners were shot and conceded that pris-oners were harried by dogs, the latter concession prompting the followingquestion from his interrogator: “Which paragraph of the Geneva Conven-tion envisages the method of ‘establishing of order’ among starving mili-tary prisoners with the help of dogs?”18
The sequence of interrogations, as recorded in the file, now leads us toOberleutnant Mäder who was interrogated on 18 June 1943. Examining thesame ground as covered in Körpert’s interrogation, the SMERSH officerobviously tried to identify contradictions and discrepancies in the officers’testimonies which could then be used in subsequent interrogations.
One remarkable aspect of Mäder’s testimony was that he makes nomention at all or shows any awareness of the fact that German soldiershad starved to death inside the Kessel.19 This would have been highly rel-evant for his defence, since he could have argued that although Sovietprisoners were indeed dying of starvation, they were no worse off thanGerman soldiers. In the final Military Tribunal hearing after the officerswere formally arrested and charged, Oberst Körpert was specificallyasked whether German soldiers were dying of starvation to which hereplied, “There was none of that.”20 This is an extraordinary admission onthe part of a senior German officer.
First, and most obviously, it is not true. We know that German soldierswere dying of starvation and that the death rate accelerated after19 November 1942 (the start of the Soviet counter-offensive), as resupplyfrom the air failed to bring in sufficient food. Second, it suggests that evenfairly senior German officers such as Körpert who would have had con-tact with German 6th Army headquarters, with Major, later Colonel, vonKunowski, for example, were not aware of just how bad conditions werefor the German infantry. In other words, and for quite understandable rea-sons, 6th Army Headquarters forbade any mention of starvation. Third, acentral plank in the capitulation terms offered by Voronov and Rokossovskiito 6th Army on January 8th 1943, and, indeed, of most of the loudspeakerpropaganda directed at German troops, was an offer of food if theysurrendered. SMERSH interrogators knew full well that German soldierswere dying of starvation, and to the clear detriment of the defense
18FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 29.19Some support for Körpert’s extraordinary ignorance can be found in Oberleutnant Georg
Michael’s experiences in the Kessel. “Many officers told their subordinates nothing about beingsurrounded (Even in January I came across officers who knew nothing about any “cauldron” andstill hoped to be the next in line for leave) and on the other hand by means of deliberately falsestatements tried to raise morale. [ … ] Right from the beginning the mass of NCOs and soldierswere not aware of just how serious the situation was.” Erfahrungen in den Wintermonaten innerh-alb der Festung Stalingrad 1942/1943, (Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv/RH 27–24/27).
20FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 203.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
130 F. Ellis
withheld vital and material information.21 Had Körpert and Mäder beenaware of the parlous state of rationing for German soldiers, they couldhave argued that priority had to be given to the German infantry. Theycould also have pointed out that such a decision would not have beentaken by them. Would the Red Army have behaved any differently in sim-ilar circumstances? Mäder stated in his interrogation that von Kunowskiproposed shooting the starving Soviet prisoners. A solution that would,one suspects, have received nods of approval from his Soviet oppositenumbers had the roles been reversed.
Mäder was interrogated again on 27 August 1943. He confirms the useof dogs against the Soviet prisoners who were losing their minds throughhunger.22 The interrogator noted that in the previous interrogation Mäderhad referred to a number of “mutineers” (miatezhniki). Mäder was thenasked why they had caused problems (the interrogator would appear to beusing the results of Körpert’s interrogation against Mäder). Mäderrejected the notion, advanced by Körpert, that prisoners were plottingsome kind of insurrection. Prisoners were shot, insisted Mäder, notbecause they attempted to escape but because they had merely talkedabout it.23 The following statement was especially damning for Körpert:
There was no trial of any kind, they [prisoners] were shot without anytrial on the order of Colonel Körpert. I am a lawyer by education andI understand perfectly that this these shootings were illegal, simplymurder in fact.24
21As early as September rations emerged as a factor in German morale. Major Menzel, astaff officer attached to 6th Army Headquarters, noted that there was considerable bitternesson the part of the infantry regarding what was to be perceived unfair distribution of rations(Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv/RH 20–6/213/174). Three months later, as stated in a staff reportdated 22nd December 1942, German soldiers are dying of starvation:
Situation with regard to health. Food for troops unsatisfactory to bad. Half rationssince the 26th November and since 8th December only 200 gr. of bread a day. Con-sequently bodily strength weakening. The troops because of lack of bodily reservesare unable to undertake long marches and assault operations without large numbersdropping out. Since 21st November there have been 56 deaths in the Army’s areawhich in the judgement of military doctors are directly due to the effects of theration situation. (Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv/RH 20–6/238/5)
Von Paulus himself noted that captured German soldiers of the 44th Infantry Division weremaking statements over Soviet radio about the lack of rations (Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv/RH20–6/240/77). Soviet military intelligence would have been very well informed concerning thestate of rationing inside the Kessel.
22FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 67.23FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 68.24FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 68.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
Dulag-205 131
In a third interrogation which took place on 18th September 1944 Mädercommented on the high mortality rates, implying that the regime wasintended to kill prisoners, so implicating Körpert in this plan, “Up to 50prisoners died every day. Such a mortality rate existed because the condi-tions created for the prisoners were intended to kill them.”25
On the basis of the material in the file most of the interrogators’ effortsseem to have been concentrated on Körpert and Mäder. The first date ofFrister’s interrogation was given as 27 June 1944 which is late by com-parison with the other officers. There were no obvious explanations forthis delay. In both Frister’s and in Müsenthin’s interrogations there wereno references to the Hague or Geneva Conventions. Again, as in the caseof Mäder, Müsenthin’s testimony was highly damaging for Körpert.Körpert, according to Müsenthin, ordered that a Soviet Senior Lieutenantbe shot for talking about escape.26 The interrogations of Wohlfarth andSeidlitz added nothing substantial to the testimony of Mäder.
THE INTERROGATION OF FORMER DULAG-205 SURVIVORS
At the same time as Körpert and his fellow officers were being interro-gated, other SMERSH operatives were diligently gathering witness state-ments from Soviet prisoners who had been in Dulag-205.
Now there is a specific Soviet context to the interrogations of thesemen which must be borne in mind. The mere fact that they had been cap-tured by the Germans rendered them objects of deep suspicion on the partof the NKVD’s Special Sections and SMERSH. Their subsequent interro-gation was not just an opportunity for SMERSH officers to gather evi-dence which could be used against Körpert, it was also an attempt bySMERSH to ascertain the circumstances of their capture and behaviour inGerman captivity. Soviet soldiers who had been liberated from Germancaptivity and were then dragged through the gruelling rituals of NKVD/SMERSH filtration were well aware of the Red Army’s attitude to thosewho were captured.
In the interrogation record of Red Army soldier, Kirill KirillovichPisanovskii who when captured by the Germans was serving in 883 RifleRegiment, 193 Rifle Division, we find the following entry regardinghis service history: “In the Red Army from 1939 to the day of his captureon 28th October 1942.”27 The interrogator’s assumptions are clear:
25FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 84. An acknowledgement from Mäder thatthe German camp authorities were deliberately violating their obligations under the GenevaConvention (No 2734) regarding the maintenance of hygiene and the provision of food, waterand warmth as stipulated in Articles 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15.
26FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 102.27FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 130.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
132 F. Ellis
Pisanovskii ceased to be a Red Army soldier from the moment he wascaptured. No American or British pilot shot down over Germany wouldcease to be in the USAAF or RAF merely because he was captured.Another clue is the frequent use of byvshii (former) to describe Red Armysoldiers under interrogation. In the period between being liberated, orrather being transferred from German captivity to a Soviet filtrationcamp, which is what liberation means here, and cleared of any wrong-doing (as defined by Stalinist-inspired suspicion) Red Army soldiersexisted in a legal no-man’s land. This state of affairs is critical whenevaluating the quality of the evidence against Körpert et al., provided byRed Army soldiers. Former prisoners of the Germans, these men had avested interest in painting as black a picture as possible so as to impresstheir interrogators and so mitigate any perception that they had betrayedthe Motherland.
Another factor that must be taken into account is the possibility thatinterrogators adapted the statements to suit their own purposes. Theywere after all under enormous pressure to get results and one can assumethat the rules regarding the acquisition and use of evidence were some-what flexible. There is a hint of such behavior in the witness statements.In his testimony Red Army soldier Anatolii Alekseev stated that:
There were public executions in the camp. In January 1943 on aboutthe 10th–11th a former senior Lieutenant of the Red Army, his sur-name I don’t know, was executed for allegedly organising an escapeattempt.28
The use of “former” in this soldier’s testimony, with all its implications, issuspicious. It is ideological jargon that would come naturally to an inter-rogating officer but not a “former” soldier. Moreover it is the sort ofnuance that Red Army soldiers would miss and would probably not be toowilling to challenge when ordered to sign their statements.
The file contains the interrogation records of other Red Army soldierswho had spent time in Dulag-205, Pisanovskii, already noted, Ivan Kosi-nov, Konstantin Krupachenko, Stepan Kucheriaev and Anatolii Alekseev.All the prisoners confirmed the exceptional filth and appalling conditionsin which they were kept, the general and arbitrary brutality employed bythe Germans and, as food ran out, the onset of cannibalism. One prisoner,according to Pisanovskii, asked a guard for permission to relieve himself.While the prisoner was squatting down, he was shot in the back of thehead by the German.29 In a subsequent interrogation (8 August 1943), in
28FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 165.29FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 132.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
Dulag-205 133
response to a question from SMERSH officers, Pisanovskii confirmedthat Soviet prisoners were beaten in the presence of German officers. Thetestimony of Kosinov suggested that the German guards shot prisoners onany pretext:
In all cases the Germans would shoot prisoners without any warnings atall. In the month of October 1942 I personally saw up to 30 prisonersshot. They shot people every day for falling behind to and from work,and sometimes for breaking ranks. I am unable to give the surnames ofthe prisoners shot by the Germans. Moreover, when we were herdedfrom the Alekseevka camp to the area of Karpovka village, then severalprisoners were shot dead by German officers for the fact that when wewere working we were bombarded by Soviet troops and several prison-ers took cover. After the firing had stopped the officers came out of theirtrench dug-outs and shot them on the spot. Three prisoners were shotdead for taking some tobacco while working on a dump.30
Krupachenko, already cited, added to this picture of arbitrary execution:
In a corner behind the dugouts there was toilet – just an ordinary pit.Guard duties were carried out by the Polizei, former soldiers of theRed Army, mainly Ukrainians and German dog handlers […] Theguards were allowed to shoot without any warning at prisoners whoapproached the barbed wire barrier, who tried to jump the queue forfood and at prisoners who tried to have a piss in the wrong place […]In the camp the prisoners were fed horse meat, regardless of the stateof the flesh. The meat was cooked and every prisoner was given twobowls of about half a litre of watery soup a day which had been madewith the horse meat, moreover there was not much meat. Hardly anywater or bread was given to the prisoners. The prisoners slept in thedugouts without any bedding, jammed tight. The prisoners were neverable to rest since they had to sleep standing and sitting. There was notroom for everyone. Many lice came into the dugouts. Lice covered theprisoners’ clothing and bodies and as a result of the bites the prisonershad wounds and scabs on their bodies. There were no baths in thecamp. During my whole time in the camp – about 5 months – I did notwash once. Prisoners did not wash themselves in the camp since therewas no water. As a result of such inhuman conditions which were cre-ated in the camp some 10–15 prisoners died every day and in the lastdays of December 1942 and the beginning of January 1943 the ratewas about 20–30 a day caused by famine, cold, the degrading and
30A FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, listy 138–139.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
134 F. Ellis
cruel treatment of the prisoners on the part of the camp administra-tion and the Polizei.31
Krupachenko also provided detailed testimony on arbitrary shootings,death by exhaustion, and the use of dogs to terrorise prisoners. Here aresome examples from his interrogation statement:
On about the 25th November 1942 while working on a road which ledto Gumrak three kilometres from the camp a group of prisoners ofabout 50–60 was levelling and clearing the road. One prisoner whosename I don’t know collapsed from tiredness and exhaustion andcouldn’t work. The guard tried to force the exhausted man to standand work but the prisoner couldn’t get up. Then the guard shot theprisoner dead with a sub-machine gun and ordered that he be buriedin a ditch at the side of the road.32
and:
On about the 18th December 1942 a group of about 6 prisonersintended to escape but were betrayed by somebody. All six prisonerswere led out of the camp beyond the wire, taken about 20 metres to apit and shot without any hearing. Before the execution the interpretertold the prisoners that the 6 men had wanted to escape from the campand for that they would be executed. This would happen to anyonewho tried to escape from the camp. The surnames of those who diedare not known to me.33
In his interrogation (8 August 1943) Kucheriaev asserted that officersthemselves beat prisoners:
Prisoners were not only beaten in the presence of German officers. Imyself saw several prisoners, mainly those who were ill, approach anofficer with a request that they not be sent to work. For this the officerbeat them with a stick. Most of all they beat those prisoners who wereexhausted and could not go to work.34
Wounded in an attack on the German lines in December 1942, Alekseevdid Körpert and his officers no favors:
31FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, listy 144–145.32FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 145.33FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 145.34FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 160.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
Dulag-205 135
I could not give you his surname but I know the German camp com-mandant by sight, tall, stooping, thin and wore glasses, about 40–42years old. He would always walk with a wooden stick and would mer-cilessly torment the prisoners. He would force them to be harnessed toa cart so as to remove the bodies of the dead prisoners. The seniorGerman in the camp was about 35 years old of medium height, broad-shouldered and maintained order in the yard where I got my food. Hewould walk about with a rubber whip on the tip of which there was ametal mounting. He would beat the prisoners on the slightest pretextfor anything which seemed to him to be an infringement of campdiscipline.35
As 1942 moves to its conclusion and the cold starts to bite the domi-nant theme in all the prisoners’ testimony is starvation and cannibalism.36
In fact one of the best sources is the testimony of Körpert himself, as canbe seen from the record of a later interrogation which took place on 19thSeptember 1944:
On 15th December [1942] several corpses were discovered from whichparts of the body had been cut out: the heart, liver, the cheeks andother parts. Other corpses had opened skulls and the brains removed.These episodes consequently became more and more frequent,becoming almost a mass phenomenon. Clothing and footwear werealso removed from the prisoners, which were used for fuel in orderto prepare water from snow collected in the camp […] Although Iwarned the prisoners that for cases of cannibalism the penalty was thefiring squad, I personally nevertheless attached no serious significanceto this and considered that the prisoners would be sufficiently fed.37
Alekseev confirmed the gruesome picture:
35FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 164. There are photos of the German officersin the file. None is shown wearing glasses (FE).
36Responding to assertions on the part of German historians that German prisoners of warresorted to cannibalism in Soviet camps, Zolotarev insists on a tough evidentiary standard: ‘Tomeet the standards of scholarly proof regarding cannibalism one requires exclusively documen-tary, convincing and irrefutable confirmation’. See Zolotarev, ed., Russkii Arkhiv: VelikaiaOtechestvennaia, vol 13(2), Nemetskie voennoplennye v SSSR 1941–1955 gg., Sbornik dokumen-tov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA, Moscow, 1999, p. 9. The question here is whether the witnessstatements of former Dulag-205 inmates and the circumstances in which they were compiledmeet the same standard. For Körpert and his fellow officers the rules of evidence were mattersof more than legal academic interest.
37FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 43.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
136 F. Ellis
I know of cases when the Red Army arrived on 22nd January 1943and liberated us that corpses of prisoners were discovered withsmashed skulls from which the brains had been removed. The soft tis-sue had been cut off the legs and the stomachs had been torn open, thelungs and hearts removed.38
THE MILITARY TRIBUNAL
On 23 September 1944, General-Lieutenant Belkin, the head of SMERSHon the 3rd Baltic Front upheld the charges of “mass extermination ofSoviet citizens.”39 Additionally, the German officers were accused of“having implemented the policy of German fascism concerning the exter-mination of the Soviet population.”40 The formal indictment was signedby Belkin on 7th October 1944 and the case scheduled to go before aMilitary Tribunal. The offer on the part of the court to allow the accusedto call expert witnesses in their defense was of no practical use to theGerman officers. It must be seen as one of those cynical, theatricaltouches that accompanied the exercise of Stalinist jurisprudence.
The Protocol of the Court Session reveals that Seidlitz, Müsenthin,Wohlfarth, and Frister were far more vocal than they were earlier. Theirstance towards Körpert was markedly hostile and one cannot exclude thepossibility, given the well established Stalinist precedents of groomingprisoners for their role in court, that some or all of these officers, had beenpromised their lives in return for the correct testimony in open court.Some support for this claim can be found in Abakumov’s memorandumto Vyshinskii dated 2nd September 1943, at a time when the interroga-tions of the German officers were in progress. The head of SMERSH con-cluded with the following point, “I have raised the question with thegovernment of whether it would be expedient to organise a public trial ofthis case with coverage in the press.”41 Nothing came of Abakumov’s sug-gestion, the most likely reason being the eventual liberation of Krasnodarand Kharkov in 1943, which revealed German atrocities on a muchgrander scale. In both these cities public trials of German officers alongthe lines suggested for Körpert, though on a much bigger scale, took placein 1943 (Krasnodar, 14 July 1943 and Kharkov 6–18 December 1943).
38FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 165.39FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 182.40FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 184.41‘Dokladnaia zapiska V. Abakumova A. Vyshinskomu o zverskom otnoshenii nemetskikh
voennosluzhashchikh k sovetskim voennoplennym, 2 sentiabria 1943 g.’in Stalingradskaiaepopeia: Materialy NKVD SSSR i voennoi tsenzury iz Tsentral’nogo arkhiva FSB RF, Ya.F. Pagonii i dr., Zvonnitsa–MG, Moscow, 2000, p. 363.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
Dulag-205 137
During the hearing Seidlitz and Müsenthin seemed to have abandonedany sense of solidarity with Körpert, seeking to lay the blame for the pris-oners’ plight on their former superior: “In the camp I was a minor figureand the commandant took no account of my opinion,” (Seidlitz42) and, “Ido not see that any guilt can be laid on me at all. I was a subordinate andwas unable to do anything to improve the situation in the camp at all.”(Müsenthin43)
Müsenthin’s point was echoed by Frister in his final statement to thecourt:
As soon as I ended up serving in the camp I understood that this was aplace unworthy of a soldier […] Yesterday it was noted that I was a mem-ber of the National-Socialist Party. That does not mean that I wasenthused by National-Socialism. Being in government service in Germany,I was compelled to become a member of the National-Socialist Party.
The whole time I considered that the war with Russia was a great mis-fortune for Germany.
I request that you remove me from the ranks of the arrested and returnme to the prisoners so that I can return to my homeland after the war.44
Mäder put the blame on von Paulus:
My service in the Dulag was a great spiritual torment for me. It wasdreadful to see the terrible condition of Russian prisoners.
I stand before the court at that time when the main culprits responsi-ble for the death of 3,000 Soviet prisoners – Field Marshall Paulus, thearmy’s chief-of-staff, General Schmidt, Lieutenant-Colonel Kunowskiand the army quartermaster – do not stand before the court. They arenot only guilty of the death of Soviet prisoners-of-war, but have put uson the accused’s bench!45
The court session ended at 1430 hrs on 10 October 1944, the court proto-cols running to some sixteen pages. In reaching their verdict the presidingofficers, Colonel Antonov (legal section), Major Ivanov (legal section)and Captain Mazikin (legal section) made the following findings of fact:
42FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 198.43FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 201.44FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 208–209.45FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 210.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
138 F. Ellis
(i) that a camp intended for not more than 500 prisoners eventu-ally held some 4,000 prisoners;
(ii) that at its best food consisted of scraps from the Germankitchens and sometimes horse flesh;
(iii) that the prisoners were beaten and terrorized by dogs;(iv) that the prisoners, exhausted, starving, and ill were made to
do work on defences and shot by guards when unable to workany more;
(v) that two prisoners were executed merely for having talked ofescape and that more than 3,000 Soviet prisoners died fromstarvation, beatings and executions.
Körpert, Frister, Müsenthin, Mäder, Seidlitz and Wohlfarth were sen-tenced to be shot (rasstrel). No right of appeal was granted and Körpertand his officers were executed on 13th October 1944.
REHABILITATION AND THE LEGAL PROCESS
In 1998 the Körpert file was reviewed by the Head Military Prosecutor inaccordance with the provisions of the Russian Federation Law Concern-ing the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions (1991, Articles2 & 8).46 None of the officers was rehabilitated, since, as the MilitaryProsecutor pointed out:
The file was not submitted to a court in so far as there was an absenceof declarations on the part of any interested parties and is to bereturned to the Central Archive of the Federal Security Service of theRussian Federation.47
Regarding, in the first instance, the absence of any declarations from aninterested party, it is not clear whether German embassy officials werealerted and asked to notify any surviving relatives in Germany of the proce-dure under way in the Russian Federation. This would not necessarily havebeen a futile gesture. The file contains personal photographs belonging toFrister some of which were taken in Germany before the start of the Rus-sian campaign. In one there is a snow-covered street in Germany. He standswith a woman, one assumes his wife. In the other photograph he is shownstanding with the same woman and a young man, most likely his son. Thestreet name—Friedrich-List-Strasse—is clearly visible. Assuming the boywas not killed in the Allied bombing of Germany, the likelihood that he
46Zakon Rossiiskoi Federatsii o reabilitatsii zhertv politicheskikh repressii, 1991.4723 July 1998, memorandum attached to the file, p. 2.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
Dulag-205 139
survived, even that he is still alive, with family and grandchildren cannot beruled out. One can well understand that any surviving relatives may welltake the view that the clock cannot be turned back; that Frister and the oth-ers were casualties of war; that the dead should be left in peace.
Another consideration, and one of relevance for any rehabilitation pro-cess, since it relates to the conduct of the Tribunal itself, is the legal opin-ion expressed by the Senior Military Prosecutor of the RehabilitationSection, M. P. Likhodii, during the case review. He argued that the guiltof the condemned was established by their statements and those of former(!) Red Army soldiers. The conviction was, he concluded, “lawful andjustified.”48 That assertion is by no means clear, as we shall see.
The Geneva Convention was mentioned in Körpert’s interrogation and itsapplication raises additional questions that can be addressed here. To beginwith, one might consider the Soviet Union’s accession to the Convention forthe Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in theField in 1932. There seems little doubt that the violations and the faminedetailed in the indictment took place under Körpert’s stewardship of Dulag-205. All over the Eastern front Soviet prisoners received the same treatmentfrom their German captors. The Soviet position—the enumeration of multi-ple violations by the Germans of the Convention—is, however, complicatedby the fact that Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Poland, Romania, andCzechoslovakia also signed the Convention for the Amelioration of the Con-dition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field.
Now all of these states suffered in varying degrees from the violations ofthe Convention perpetrated by the Red Army and NKVD formations. Aninfamous example was the mass execution of Polish officers and other “classenemies” carried out by the NKVD, a direct consequence of the Soviet-NaziNon-Aggression Pact (1939). In 1940 in the Katyn forest, at the Starobelskand Ostashkovo camps, and in other sites throughout Western Ukraine andBelorussia, 21,857 Polish prisoners and civilian and military personnel wereexecuted and buried in mass graves.49 These men did not die as a conse-quence of the Red Army’s inability to feed or clothe them in harsh winterconditions. On the contrary, these prisoners were deliberately and systemati-cally selected and killed in accordance with the Soviet policy of exterminat-ing “class enemies.” This is absolutely clear from Beria’s memorandum toStalin dated 5 March 1940 in which Beria describes the Polish prisoners as
4823 July 1998, memorandum attached to the file, p. 2.49The figure of 21,857 is cited in a memorandum (dated 3 March 1959) sent to Khrushchev by
the head of the KGB, Alexander Shelepin. The document is reproduced in Wojciech Materski,ed., KATYN: Documents of Genocide, Documents and Materials from the Soviet ArchivesTurned over to Poland on October 14 1992, with an introduction by Janusz K. Zawodny, trans.Jan Kolbowski and Mark Canning. (Warsaw: Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy ofSciences, 1993), pp. 26–29.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
140 F. Ellis
“sworn enemies of Soviet power, consumed with hatred for the Soviet sys-tem,” and recommends that they be shot.50
In 1997 an important collection of documents relating to the massacreswas published in Russia, supplementing those already published inPoland.51 In the introduction to the Russian volume the authors recordinstances of mass and arbitrary shootings of Polish soldiers whichoccurred after the Red Army invaded on 17th September 1939 and whichpredate the main massacres carried out at Katyn and other sites. Forexample, immediately after the surrender of Grodno to the Red Armysome 300 of the Polish defenders were shot on the spot. In Poles’e 150officers were executed without any trial and arbitrary executions werecarried out in at least 17 other sites.52 The authors state, incorrectly, thatthe captured Polish officers were not protected by the Geneva Conventionsince the Soviet Union had not signed it.53 Poland was one of the firstbatch of signatories to both Geneva Conventions and the Soviet Union, aswe have seen, did eventually accede to the Convention for the Ameliora-tion of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field.
As far as the treatment of Polish prisoners was concerned, the NKVDdecided quite deliberately to disregard the provisions of the Hague andGeneva Conventions. This is revealed in a response to the head of theStarobelsk camp, Captain Berezhkov, dated 10th November 1939.Berezhkov had earlier requested a copy of the “doctors’ Geneva Conven-tion” for guidance.54 In a terse reply from Moscow Berezhkov was left inno doubt as to what jurisdiction should take precedence in dealing withPolish prisoners: “The Doctors’ Geneva Convention is not the documentby which you should be guided in your practical work. In your work youare to follow the instructions of the Directorate of the NKVD for Prison-ers of War.”55 The basis for Berezhkov’s initial request is not stated,though it seems likely that Polish prisoners, among whom were lawyersand military doctors acquainted with the Geneva Conventions, had com-plained to him, the camp commandant, who then sought guidance fromMoscow. The reference to “the doctors” ‘Geneva Convention’ may there-fore be understood as referring to those parts of the Convention dealingwith medical matters.
50KATYN: Documents of Genocide, p. 26.51A. N. Yakovlev, ed. et al., Katyn’: Plenniki neob”iavlennoi voiny, in the series
“Demokratiia”, Rossiia. XX VEK, Dokumenty, Mezhdunarodnyi fond, Moscow, 1997.52Katyn’: Plenniki neob”iavlennoi voiny, p. 14.53Katyn’: Plenniki neob”iavlennoi voiny, p. 1554Katyn’: Plenniki neob”iavlennoi voiny, p. 416.55“1939 g., noiabriia 10, Moskva. – Rasporiazhenie YPV NKVD SSSR A. G. Berezhkovu o
Zhenevskoi konventsii i neobkhodimosti rukovodstvovat’sia v prakticheskoi rabote direktivamiupravleniia,” Katyn’: Plenniki neob”iavlennoi voiny, p. 189.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
Dulag-205 141
The Convention dealing with the wounded and sick imposes obliga-tions on signatories to treat sick and wounded prisoners, and to allowthem to be treated. By no stretch of the imagination could the Conventionbe interpreted to mean that sick and wounded prisoners are to be treatedbut that healthy and sick prisoners can, at the discretion of the detainingpower, in this case the Soviet Union, be executed. Is this the ominous lineunder consideration in Moscow and hence the irritated response toBerezhkov?
The same policies of Sovietization, analagous to the Nazi policy ofGleichschaltung, were implemented in the Baltic states. Forcibly incor-porated into the Soviet Union in 1940, again under provisions of theNon-Aggression Pact, Estonia and Latvia (and Lithuania) were purged ofhostile class elements. That Estonia and Latvia, and the invading power,the Soviet Union, had signed the Convention meant nothing. The require-ments of class war took precedence over any international obligations tohonour the Geneva Convention.
It is, I think, significant that the legal basis cited by the members of theTribunal in reaching their verdict in the Körpert case makes no referenceto any violations of the Convention for the Amelioration of the Conditionof the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field. Such an omission invitesspeculation that the Soviet prosecutors were not exactly unaware of thefact that were they to cite this Convention against the Germans that,equally, it could be turned against the Soviet Union. The safe course wasnot to cite the Convention at all. The legal instruments referred to in theTribunal’s verdict are exclusively Soviet: Article 1 of the Decree of thePresidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 19 April 1943; andArticles 319 and 320 of the Criminal Procedural Code and the Decree ofthe Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 24 May 1944.56
The obvious point here is that two of the legal instruments which form
56See Ukaz Presidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR ‘O merakh nakazaniia dlia nemetsko-fashistskikh zlodeev, vinovnykh v ubiistvakh i istaizaniiakh sovetskogo grazhdanskogo nasele-niia i plennykh krasnoarmeitsev, sphionov, izmennikov Rodine iz chisla sovetskikh grazhdan iikh posobnikov’, 19 aprelia 1943 g and Ukaz Presidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, 24 maia1944 g. These decrees are not included in Sbornik zakonov SSSR i Ukazov presidiumovVerkhovngo Soveta SSSR (1938–iiul’ 1956 gg.), Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo iuridicheskoi lit-eratury, Moscow, 1956. Such omissions would be consistent with Stalin’s habit of restrictingthe circulation of documents to the higher levels of command and disseminating the contentsto lower subordinate formations in either bowdlerized form or orally. This was the procedureadopted with Orders No 270 and No 227. As Christian Streit has pointed out, written copies ofthe Kommissarbefehl were confined to Army headquarters (see Keine Kameraden, p. 49). Thescope of the decree promulgated on 19th April 1943, but not the contents, is cited in A. G.Bezverkhnii, ed., SMERSH: Istoricheskie ocherki i arkhivnye dokumenty. (Moscow: Izdatel’stvoGlavarkhiva Moskvy, 2003), p. 73.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
142 F. Ellis
the basis of the indictment were promulgated after the crimes were com-mitted, a point that Mäder highlighted during the final hearing:
I am a lawyer and I understand something of legal matters. I considerthat a German or international court would have legal jurisdictionover me. We have been tried on the basis of a law passed in 1943 andwhat took place happened in 1942. I doubt that the law has retrospec-tive force.57
The Criminal Procedural Code used in the Körpert case was reissued in1947 and includes amendments up to 1st November 1946.58 Articles 319and 320 deal with the specific procedures to be adopted in sentencing, butother Articles have a direct bearing on the case. For example, Article 2states that criminal behaviour and any punishment shall be determined inaccordance with the law in force at the time the crime was commissioned.Only laws which remove a criminal sanction shall have retrospectiveforce. Now this is the very point—and one that is clearly critical—madeby Mäder. As a matter of fact the alleged crime occurred after the lawswere enacted. Nor do these legal instruments have retrospective force.The provisions of the Criminal Procedural Code support Mäder not theTribunal. The chances are that a German translation of the Code was notavailable or that the provisions of the Code were not indicated to Mäderthrough a competent interpreter. This hardly constitutes respect for dueprocess.
According to Article 319, the court verdict shall be based exclusivelyon the evidence presented at the hearing. An obvious point here is theabsence of photographic evidence in the case file, a remarkable omissiongiven, one assumes, the evidence which would have been readily avail-able and preserved at the time the Red Army took control of Dulag-205 atthe end of January 1943.
In none of the Articles (162–174) dealing with the interrogation of wit-nesses and experts do we find any provision for a defense counsel (zash-chitnik) to be present during an interrogation or for the accused to haveaccess to the files and records of interrogation. Likewise, Articles 57–76,which deal with evidence, and Articles 77–81, which deal with the man-ner of keeping records, have nothing to say on either the defendant’s orhis zashchitnik‘s access to the file. Article 59 refers to the “procedureof collecting, storing and inspecting of material evidence and written
57FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 209.58Ugolovno-protsessual’nyi Kodeks RSFSR, ofitsial’nyi tekst s izmeneniiami na 1 noiabria
1946 g. i s prilozheniem postateino-sistematizirovannykh materialov, IUridicheskoe izda-tel’stvo Ministerstva IUstitsii SSSR, Moscow, 1947.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
Dulag-205 143
documents” and later Articles (66, 67, 68, 70, 71) deal in some detail withthese artifacts, yet omit any corresponding detail regarding “written docu-ments.” Stipulations to thwart tampering with evidence, indeed, any rec-ognition that this might be a serious consideration, are absent. Oneparticular anomaly must be highlighted. Article 57 forbids the use of anoath as evidence yet raises no concerns over documentary evidence theveracity of which relies exclusively on a witness’s signature, his writtenoath, as it were.
One is also entitled to question a verdict that relies on prisoners’ state-ments to achieve a conviction. In view of the conditions of their captivityand the very nature of the Soviet Union, a totalitarian, closed state in astruggle for survival against an equally ruthless enemy, assurances thatthe German officers would be allowed to summon witnesses strike one asutterly cynical. Nor are they worth much. For example, an investigatorcan refuse to hear expert witnesses if this means that the case will beunduly prolonged (Article 169).
Körpert and his officers had no real chance of mounting an effectivedefence, something that Mäder, a lawyer by training hinted at. There is noevidence in the file that violent and coercive methods were deployedagainst the Germans—beatings, sleep deprivation, relay interrogations—yet given that the NKVD and SMERSH used such methods we are notentitled to give these organizations the benefit of the doubt in this case.Such behavior is well documented and not in dispute. Nor can the possi-bility be discounted, as noted above, that some of the German captiveswere being prepared for a show trial, a standard Soviet procedure, whichmight have influenced their testimony. Abakumov’s memorandum toVyshinksii, the same judge, it should be recalled, who presided over theshow trials in the 1930s, should also be borne in mind.
A key point here is whether the German camp staff, who probably didencourage or permit arbitrary and brutal treatment of individual Soviet pris-oners, can be held responsible for the ensuing famine. During the Tribunalhearing Seidlitz argued that there were three options for saving the prisoners:
(i) to hand them over to the Soviet command;(ii) to leave the prisoners with the units that captured them;
(iii) to reduce by several grams the rations of German soldiers.59
As he noted, none of these options could be carried out by him. TheSoviet Tribunal’s view was that all the German officers, regardless ofrank and responsibilities, were guilty. This is the application of collectiveguilt, based on the construct of class war and class struggle, providing
59FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 209.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
144 F. Ellis
another reason, one among many, why the Soviet Union did not accede tothe Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners. Article 46 of thisConvention expressly prohibits collective penalties for individual acts.
The Soviet Union, according to one view, did not accede to the Con-vention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners because “the documentdispensed with any form of punitive measures with regard to prisoners”and, secondly, because the document “accords a privileged position tocaptured officers.”60 Stalin’s regime preferred to be bound by the HagueConvention since it was less prescriptive regarding the treatment of pris-oners. Moreover, at the time when the question of the Soviet Union’saccession to this Convention was back on the Soviet agenda, Stalin hadjust prepared and was about to issue an order [No 270], “which wouldsoon declare almost all Red Army soldiers and commanders who endedup in enemy hands to be traitors and betrayers of the Motherland.”61
Much more in the Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisonerswould have made it unacceptable to the Soviet Union. For example, Chapter4 provided for the intellectual and moral needs of prisoners of war whichwould have been most unwelcome. Freedom of conscience—required byArticle 16—was of course absent in the Soviet Union, so a situation wouldhave arisen in which prisoners of war under the control of the Red Armywould have enjoyed greater freedoms than their captors(!). Likewise Article17 instructs signatories that belligerents are to encourage “intellectual andsporting pursuits by the prisoners of war.” Given the way the Red Army andNKVD formations behaved in Poland and the Baltics, then Article 46 wouldhave posed a legal challenge for the execution of Körpert et al.: “Prisoners ofwar shall not be subjected by the military authorities or the tribunals of thedetaining Power to penalties other than those which are prescribed for simi-lar acts by members of the national forces.” In other words, if the NKVD andRed Army can execute Polish officers and escape punishment, there wouldbe no basis for executing Körpert and his officers. This idea is reinforced inArticle 63: “A sentence shall only be pronounced on a prisoner of war by thesame tribunals and in accordance with the same procedure as in the case ofpersons belonging to the armed forces of the detaining Power.” Sentencesinvolving the death penalty were often carried out immediately or with verylittle delay (as in the case of Körpert et al.) with no right of appeal whichwould have been violations of the Convention. Any death sentence must notbe carried out before the expiry of “at least three months” (Article 66).
60Major-General Zolotarev, ed., Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, vol. 13(2), Nem-etskie voennoplennye v SSSR 1941–1955 gg., Sbornik dokumentov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA,Moscow, 1999, p. 14.
61Major-General Zolotarev, ed., Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, vol. 13(2), Nem-etskie voennoplennye v SSSR 1941–1955 gg., Sbornik dokumentov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA,Moscow, 1999, p. 14.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
Dulag-205 145
Article 69 provides for medical commissions to inspect the prisoners.The commissions are to consist of representatives from two neutral statesand one from the detaining power. These inspections would have enabledthe commissions to travel widely throughout the Soviet Union, albeitunder supervision, and would have been regarded by the Soviet side as amajor security problem. Had the Soviet Union signed the Annex to theConvention, there would have been no basis for keeping Germans cap-tured at Stalingrad and elsewhere until 1956.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that by not signing the remainingGeneva Convention concerning the Treatment of Prisoners the Soviet Unionsought to secure unilateral advantages. In a diplomatic note to the Americanembassy in November 1941 the Soviet side rejected the American posi-tion—that the reason the Germans are flouting international norms andtreaty obligations—is because the Soviet Union has not ratified the remain-ing Geneva Convention of 1929. The Soviet side argued that the provisionsof the 4th Hague Convention (1907) coincide “with the fundamental princi-ples and statutes in relation to prisoners of war of the 1929 Geneva Conven-tion.”62 The note also pointed out—correctly—that regardless of whetherbelligerents had signed the Geneva Convention the fact that Germany hadparticipated in the Convention meant that Germany was obliged regardlessof whether the Soviet Union was a participant in the Convention or not
“… fully to observe all the rules and statutes on the strength of Article82 contained therein, which establishes that during war that if one ofthe belligerents is not a signatory to the Convention the statutesthereof shall nevertheless remain obligatory as between the belligerentcountries which participate in the Convention.”63
Article 9, which provides for the segregation of prisoners along raciallines, is another reason cited for the Soviet Union’s refusal to sign up tothe Convention. This, it is argued, would be a violation of Article 123 ofthe Soviet Constitution. Given that ethnic identity and racial criteriaplayed a crucial role in Stalin’s plans—one thinks here of the fate of Pol-ish officers and later that of the Chechens between November 1943 – June1944—this objection is hardly convincing.64
62‘Otvetnaia nota narkomata inostrannykh del SSSR posolstvu SShA v Sovetskom soiuze sraz’iasneniem pozitsii v otnoshenii zhenevskoi konventsii 1929 g., 25 noiabria 1941 g.’ Zolo-tarev, ed., Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, vol. 13(2), Nemetskie voennoplennye v SSSR1941–1955 gg., Sbornik dokumentov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA, Moscow, 1999, p. 33.
63Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, vol 13(2), Nemetskie voennoplennye v SSSR 1941–1955 gg., Sbornik dokumentov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA, Moscow, 1999, p. 34.
64Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, vol 13(2), Nemetskie voennoplennye v SSSR 1941–1955 gg., Sbornik dokumentov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA, Moscow, 1999, p. 34.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
146 F. Ellis
Of considerable relevance for the procedures employed in the Körpertcase are the points raised by Andrei Vyshinskii in a memorandum toMolotov in December 1942. The memorandum dealt with the cases offive German prisoners who were executed, variously, for counter-revolu-tionary agitation, sabotage, failure to meet work norms, preparing toescape and in one case an escape attempt. In the memorandum it isacknowledged that both Soviet law and the IV Hague Convention requirethat belligerents whose soldiers have been executed be notified. Eventhough the Soviet Union did not sign the Geneva Convention dealing withthe Treatment of Prisoners, there is a requirement to pass news of deathsentences to the state protecting the interests of the belligerent (Article66). (Vyshinskii recommended not informing Bulgaria, the state lookingafter Germany’s interests). The real cause for alarm is not that Germansoldiers were executed but that any third, neutral party which scrutinisedthe records might not be convinced:
Regarding the above-mentioned cases it is necessary to point out thatthe verdicts have been put together unsatisfactorily, superficially andare barely convincing. Were these verdicts to become known beyondthe borders of the Soviet Union, then it would be possible to use themfor the basis of propaganda hostile to the Soviet Union.65
Decoded, Vyshinskii’s message is clear: by all means execute Germanprisoners when necessary but make sure that the paperwork is in order.
Crucial to the defense was the fact that German soldiers were alsodying of starvation; that, remarkably, the camp staff were ignorantthereof; and that the prosecution clearly withheld this information. Evenif he wanted to ameliorate the famine raging among the prisoners inDulag-205—and Körpert seemed to have been indifferent to their fate—there was not much that he could have done. The food was not available.Moreover there is documentary evidence that Soviet soldiers serving inthe 66th Army at Stalingrad, a formation under Rokossovskii’s command,were dying of starvation.66 Not on the scale of the famine in Dulag-205,such cases—32 recorded in all—reflect a profound contempt on the partof senior Soviet officers for the well-being of their own men. Exploiting thefact that Körpert had been kept in the dark about the death by starvation of
65‘Sluzhebnaia zapiska zamestitelia narodnogo komissara inostrannykh del VyshinskogoNo 707-v narodnomu komissaru inostrannykh del SSSR Molotovu o problemakh, voznikshikhv rezultate vynesenii smertnykh prigovorov riadu voennoplennykh, 5–6 dekabria 1942 g.’ SeeZolotarev, ed., Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, vol. 13(2), Nemetskie voennoplennye vSSSR 1941–1955 gg., Sbornik dokumentov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA, Moscow, 1999, p. 49.
66‘Dokladnaia zapiska OO NKVD DF v UOO NKVD SSSR o nastupatel’nykh operatsiiakh66-i armii, 30 oktiabria 1942 g., Stalingradskaia epopeia, p. 259.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
Dulag-205 147
German soldiers and aware that such things had occurred in the RedArmy, a determined and aggressive defense counsel could have turned thetables on the prosecution.
CONCLUSION
Even now, many decades after the end of World War Two, one detects areluctance on the part of German veterans to acknowledge the complicityof the Wehrmacht in the abominable treatment of Soviet prisoners of war.In, for example, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier onthe Eastern Front, a memoir based on his experiences as a machine-gun-ner at Stalingrad which was published as recently as 1998, the author,Günter Koschorrek, tried to dissociate himself and his comrades from thebrutal treatment of Soviet prisoners of war. Koschorrek would have thereader believe that tales of such treatment at the hands of Germans werelargely Soviet horror propaganda, designed to deter Red Army soldiersfrom deserting. Moreover, he implied that where brutal treatment ofSoviet prisoners of war did occur, it was carried out by the SS, or even theunits in the rear: “We had no idea what the drill was in the rear areas: onthe front line it was all you could do to stay alive.”67 In the context ofStalingrad Koschorrek’s reference to the SS is in any case misleading forthe simple reason that no SS units served in 6th Army. On the wider issue,the treatment of Soviet prisoners generally, then what took place inDulag-205, nominally a transit camp, in effect a death camp, in 6thArmy’s “rear area,” makes a mockery of Koschorrek’s claims.
Any historian who studies the organised bestiality which was the basis ofNazi policies towards Soviet soldiers and civilians on the Eastern front runsthe risk of becoming inured, almost desensitised, to the endless testimonyof mass executions, starvation, casual beatings and countless other ways inwhich the invaders contrived to make the inhabitants of their new empiresuffer. Like a sentry whose senses are dulled by fatigue and cold but wasmust keep his watch, the historian is obliged to resist imagination fatigue.
Soviet prisoners in Dulag-205 were disposable slave labor. They weremade to work on rations so inadequate that with the onset of the steppewinter death by starvation was inevitable. They existed in unbelievablefilth and overcrowding. In winter drinking water was obtained frommelted snow which very soon became too dangerous to use because of thecontamination hazard posed by an accumulation of human excrement andurine. Prisoners were beaten by the guards, and terrorized by their dogs as
67Günter Koschorrek, Vergiß die Zeit der Dornen nicht (1998), published in English as BloodRed Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front, translated by Olav R. Crone-Aamot. (London: Greenhill Books, 2002), p. 229.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
148 F. Ellis
a matter of course. Dissenters, slackers, or prisoners too exhausted towork were shot on the spot. Bearing in mind that the Alekseevka campwas one very small island in the Wehrmacht’s DULAG-Archipelago, onegets some idea of the lot that befell Soviet prisoners. Truly, they were thelegions of the damned.
The legal instruments which were drafted in 1929 at Geneva by men ofgood will, some of whom we may assume had experienced the attritionbattles in World War One, could not have foreseen the nature of the1941–1945 war on the Eastern front. Hitler’s Vernichtungskrieg awak-ened a primeval desire for revenge that could not but be propitiated. How-ever incomplete, flawed, and arbitrary Soviet justice meted out to Körpertand his officers is, it nevertheless obeys the logic of the total war initiatedby the Nazis themselves. Could it have been otherwise?
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Penn
sylv
ania
Sta
te U
nive
rsity
] at
03:
27 1
6 M
ay 2
013
