Drozdy prison camp
The Drozdy prison camp was a transit camp of the Wehrmacht for the internment of civilians and prisoners of war in Drasdy near Minsk in 1941. Up to 100,000 prisoners of war and 40,000 civilians were held there under catastrophic conditions and a large number of Jews, officials, agents, and criminals Asians were singled out and shot by Einsatzgruppe B but also by the Secret Field Police .
camp
On the orders of the field command, a camp for Soviet prisoners of war was built 5 km northeast of Minsk near the former hamlet of Drozdy on the Svislošč river. It was initially subordinate to Panzer Group 3 and on July 6th was taken over by transit camp 127, which was subordinate to the 286th Security Division and this to Korück 559. On July 17th, responsibility was transferred to the quartermaster of the 2nd Army . The camp was initially only provisionally demarcated with ropes and surrounded by guards. Barbed wire fences and watchtowers were later erected.
Prisoners
Prisoners of war
During the Battle of Białystok-Minsk Red Army soldiers were captured more than 300,000, and on July 4 reported Panzer Group 3 that the prison population had swelled in Drozdy of mornings 10,000 to 65,000. On July 8, around 100,000 prisoners of war were confined there in a confined space. They had to relieve themselves where they were standing, lived without shelter and received no food for the first six to eight days. When the first field kitchens were set up, there were tumults and hundreds were shot by the guards.
Civilians
Shortly after the Wehrmacht captured Minsk on June 28, 1941, the site commandant interned all men who were fit for military service. Such total internment of male civilians had a tradition in military history, but took on extreme forms in the occupied Soviet Union. In the Minsk case, it was probably a spontaneous initiative by Army Group Center to protect against the allegedly hostile and well-defended Soviet population. The Wehrmacht entrusted the inspection of these civilians to Einsatzgruppe B.
Selections and assassinations
Since the 40,000 interned civilians were supplied little and were required to maintain the economy, the competent High Command asked the 4th Army Einsatzgruppe B to 10 July around the camp together with the secret military police combing through and dismiss only those could identify themselves and were neither politically nor criminally charged. A total of around 20,000 civilians were released by mid-July. Large numbers of prisoners of war had already been deported to the West on July 7th. The remainder was carefully scrutinized, then the liquidation of Jews, criminals, functionaries, Asians , etc. began. In July, the head of the Einsatzgruppen, Arthur Nebe , reported to Berlin that the entire Jewish intelligentsia had been liquidated. Jewish workers were also murdered if they were not indispensable for the German war economy.
The exact number of those killed is unknown. At the execution site, a trench near Minsk, 10,000 bodies were found after the war.
literature
- Petra Rentrop: Crime scenes of the "final solution" . Metropol 2011, ISBN 978-3-86331-038-7
- Petra Rentrop: Belarus . In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 9: Labor education camps, ghettos, youth protection camps, police detention camps, special camps, gypsy camps, forced labor camps. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-57238-8 , p. 373 ff.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Petra Rentrop: Crime scenes of the "final solution" . P. 68.
- ↑ Petra Rentrop: Crime scenes of the "final solution" . P. 69.
- ↑ Johannes Hürter : Hitler's Army Leader . Oldenbourg 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58341-0 , p. 551
- ↑ Petra Rentrop: Crime scenes of the "final solution" . P. 70 f.
- ↑ Petra Rentrop: Crime scenes of the "final solution" . P. 73.
- ↑ Johannes Hürter: Hitler's Army Leader . P. 552
- ↑ Petra Rentrop: Crime scenes of the "final solution" . P. 73 f.
- ↑ Johannes Hürter: Hitler's Army Leader . P. 552
Coordinates: 53 ° 56 ′ 24 ″ N , 27 ° 32 ′ 4 ″ E
