HORRORS OF WAR

One of the many forgotten horrors of the Second World War is the fate of the Russian prisoners of war.

When Hitler launched operation “Barbarossa” (on the same date Napoleon started his Eastern campaign) in 1941, the “Wehrmacht” surprised the Soviet forces completely. Stalin could not understand, that the Nazis, would make a move like that. He even seemed to have forbidden to fire back. It was probably a solo-act of an ambitious general, to provoke the Soviet-Union, so the dictator thought. The Red Army was not ready for war. It would take at least a year to complete the defenses, build tanks and arm the soldiers.

The regiments were badly equipped and lacked leadership. Stalin has killed most army officers and generals to eliminate any opposition. Josef Stalin was the sole leader and dictator. Like Adolf Hitler, Stalin became the chief-commander of the Russian military forces.

In the first months of the German campaign millions of Russian soldiers surrendered and became a prisoner of war. According to the “Geneva Convention”, they have certain rights and have to be treated humane, sheltered and fed.

Nothing of the sort happened. The Wehrmacht had made no plans for camps, food and guards. Split up into groups of up to twenty thousand, they were left to die of starvation or of typhoid, dysentery and other contagious diseases.

Estimations: before the Germans had solved the problem, more than 2 million soldiers have died. The remaining ones are transported to Germany and used for slave-labor. This too resulted in death, but slowly. In the end about 5 to 6 million Russian prisoners-of-war fell victim to the German war machine.

And even those, who survived all this and were liberated somewhere, went back to a land in ruins, that had suffered millions of civilian death. And even if our survivor reaches his home-town, the chances were great, that his surrender was seen as an act of treason. Punishable by death.