One of the most terrible pages in the history of the Great Patriotic War is the fate of Soviet prisoners. In this war of extermination, the words "captivity" and "death" became synonymous. Based on the goals of the war, the German leadership would prefer not to take prisoners at all. The officers and soldiers were told that the prisoners were "subhuman", the eradication of which "serves progress", moreover, there will be no need to feed extra mouths. There are many indications that the soldiers were ordered to shoot all Soviet soldiers, with rare exceptions, not to allow "human relations to the prisoners." The soldiers carried out these instructions with German pedantry.
Many unscrupulous researchers accuse the Soviet army of low combat effectiveness, comparing the losses of the sides in the war. But they overlook or specifically do not pay attention to the fact of the scale of the killings of prisoners of war directly on the battlefield and later, during the drive of people to concentration camps and their detention there. They forget about the tragedy of the civilians who walked from east to west, who went to their recruiting stations, to the place where the units were assembled. The mobilized did not want to be late, did not know anything about the situation at the front, many did not believe that the Germans could penetrate so deeply into Soviet territory. Thousands and thousands were destroyed by the German Air Force, tank wedges, were captured and were shot without even receiving weapons.
According to the professor at the University of Heidelberg Christian Streit, the number of Soviet prisoners of war killed by the Wehrmacht formations immediately after the capture is measured by "five, if not six figures." Almost immediately, the Germans destroyed political instructors ("commissars"), Jews, and the wounded. The wounded Red Army soldiers were killed right on the battlefield or in hospitals, which they did not manage to evacuate.
Women soldiers were subjected to a terrible fate. The Wehrmacht soldiers received instructions in which they were ordered to destroy not only "Russian commissars", but also Soviet female military personnel. The women of the Red Army were outlawed. De facto, in terms of their harmfulness, they were equated with the "embodiment of evil" - the commissars and the Jews. For Soviet girls and women who wore military uniforms - nurses, doctors, signalmen, etc., being captured by the Nazis was much worse than death. The writer Svetlana Alekseevich collected testimonies of women who have gone through the war in her work "The face of the war is not a woman." In her book, there are many testimonies about this terrible truth of the Great Patriotic War. “The Germans did not take military women prisoner … we always kept the last cartridge for ourselves - to die, but not to surrender,” said one of the witnesses of the war. - We have a nurse captured. A day later, when we recaptured that village, we found her: her eyes were gouged out, her chest was cut off … She was impaled … Frost, and she is white and white, and her hair is all gray. She was nineteen years old. Very beautiful…".
Only in March 1944, when it became clear to many in the generals of the Wehrmacht that the war was lost and they would have to answer for war crimes, an order was issued by the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces (OKW), according to which the captured "Russian women prisoners of war" should be sent after checking in the Security Service in concentration camps. Until that moment, women were simply destroyed.
The method of destroying the commissars was planned in advance. If political workers were captured on the battlefield, they were ordered to be liquidated “no later than in transit camps,” and if in the rear, then they were ordered to be handed over to the Einsatzkommando. Those Red Army men who were "lucky" and were not killed on the battlefield had to go through more than one circle of hell. The Nazis did not provide assistance to the wounded and sick soldiers, the prisoners were driven in columns to the west. They could be forced to walk 25-40 km a day. Food was given extremely little - 100 grams of bread a day, and even then not always, not everyone had enough of it. They shot at the slightest disobedience, killed those who could no longer walk. During the escort, the Germans did not allow the local residents to feed the prisoners, they beat people, the Soviet soldiers who tried to take bread were shot. The roads where the columns of prisoners passed were simply strewn with their corpses. These "death marches" fulfilled the main goal - to destroy as many "Slavic subhumans" as possible. During successful campaigns in the West, the Germans transported numerous French and British prisoners exclusively by rail and road.
Everything was thought out very well. In a fairly short time, healthy people turned into half-corpses. After the capture of the prisoners, they were kept in a temporary camp for some time, where selective executions, lack of medical care, normal nutrition, overcrowding, illness, weakened people, broke their will to resist. Exhausted, broken people were sent further along the stage. There were many ways to "thin out" the ranks of prisoners. Before the new stage, the prisoners could be forced to make a "march" several times at any time of the year and weather. Those who fell and could not stand the "exercise" were shot. The rest were driven further. Mass executions were often organized. So, in mid-October 1941, there was a massacre on the section of the Yartsevo-Smolensk road. The guards began to shoot the prisoners for no reason, others were driven into the wrecked tanks standing by the road, which they poured with fuel and set on fire. Those who tried to jump out were immediately shot. Near Novgorod-Seversky, while escorting a column of captured Red Army soldiers, the Nazis separated about 1,000 sick and weakened people, placed them in a shed and burned them alive.
People were killed almost constantly. They killed the sick, the weak, the wounded, the rebellious, to reduce the number, just for fun. The Einsatzgruppen and the SD Sonderkommando carried out the so-called. "Selection of prisoners of war". Its essence was simple - all the recalcitrant and suspicious were destroyed (subjected to "executions"). The selection principles for "executions" were different, often differing from the preferences of a particular Einsatjkommando commander. Some made a selection for liquidation on the basis of "race". Others were looking for Jews and Jewish people. Still others killed representatives of the intelligentsia, commanders. For a long time, they killed all Muslims, circumcision did not speak in their favor either. The officers were shot because the overwhelming majority refused to cooperate. There were so many to be destroyed that the guards of the camps and the Einsatzgruppen could not cope with the "work". Soldiers from nearby formations were involved in the "executions". And they gladly responded to such proposals, there was no shortage of volunteers. The military were encouraged in every possible way for the executions and murders of Soviet citizens. They were given vacations, promoted, and even allowed to celebrate with military awards.
Some of the prisoners were taken to the Third Reich. In stationary camps, new methods of mass extermination of people were tested on them. The first several hundred prisoners arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp in July 1941. These were tankers, they were the first to be destroyed in the German death camps. Then new games followed. In the fall of 1941, the technology of assassination using the Cyclone-B gas was tested for the first time on captured Soviet soldiers. There is no exact data on how many prisoners of war were liquidated in the Reich. But the scale is terrifying.
Arbitrary killings of Soviet prisoners were legalized. The only one who rebelled against these actions was the head of the intelligence and counterintelligence department, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. At the end of September 1941, the chief of staff of the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces, Wilhelm Keitel, received a document where the admiral expressed his fundamental disagreement with the "Rules" in relation to prisoners of war. Canaris believed that the order was drawn up in general terms and leads "to arbitrary lawlessness and murder." In addition, this situation contradicted not only law, but also common sense, and led to the disintegration of the armed forces. Canaris's statement was ignored. Field Marshal Keitel superimposed the following statement on him: “Reflections correspond to the soldier's notions of knightly war! Here we are talking about the destruction of the worldview. Therefore, I approve of these events and support them."
Hunger was one of the most effective methods for massacring people. It was only in the fall that barracks began to be built in prisoner-of-war camps; before that, most were kept in the open air. At the same time, on September 19, 1941, at a meeting with the chief of supply and equipment of the army, it was established that 840 prisoners could be accommodated in the barracks, designed for 150 people.
In the fall of 1941, the Nazis began to transport masses of prisoners by rail. But this only increased mortality. The mortality rate in traffic reached 50-100%! Such a high efficiency in the destruction of "subhumans" was achieved by the basic principle of transportation: in the summer - people were transported in tightly closed wagons; in winter - on open platforms. The cars were packed to the maximum, they were not supplied with water. A train of 30 cars arrived at Most station in November, when they were opened, not a single living person was found. About 1,500 corpses were unloaded from the train. All the victims were in the same underwear.
In February 1942, at a meeting in the military economy department of the OKW, the director of the department for the use of labor force in his message reported the following figures: out of 3, 9 million Russians who were at the disposal of the Germans, about 1, 1 million remained. 1941 - January 1942 about 500 thousand people died. These are not only Red Army men, but also other Soviet people who were herded into prisoner-of-war camps. In addition, one must take into account the fact that hundreds of thousands were killed immediately after the battle, died while being escorted to the camps.
