Stalag 350

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Stalag 350 is an abbreviation for Stammlager 350, a prisoner-of-war camp of the German Wehrmacht during the German-Soviet War based in Riga .

Emergence

The Stalag 350 for the detention of Soviet prisoners of war existed from the summer of 1941 to August 1944 with a total of 6 departments. The head office was located in the Grīziņkalns district (Pērnavas Street). The commandant was a Majors Sulzberger. Branch camps were also located at Jelgava and Salaspils . Due to poor treatment of inmates, the death rate was very high. By deliberately withholding the necessary food, according to calculations by Army Group North, up to 17.4% of the approximately 200,000 prisoners in the area of ​​the Reichskommissariat Ostland were killed every month in the winter months of 1941/1942 . It wasn't until January 1942, when it was decided to exploit the labor of the prisoners of war, that the food situation improved. Up to 35,000 soldiers (winter 1941) were held captive in the entire Stalag 350 complex . This number was later reduced by death and deportation into the Reich.

Branch camp at Salaspils

Soviet soldiers prisoners of war, who until then had to camp in the open fields next to the railway line in self-dug holes in the ground, set up two camps near Salaspils in September 1941. The larger one (Stalag 350 / Z1) on a former summer camp of the Latvian army on the outskirts of Salaspils. Like a smaller one (Stalag 350 / Z2) south of the railway line. The capacity of both camps was about 3500 people. In 1942, Soviet prisoners were used to work on the construction of the Salaspils camp . When the Red Army approached Salaspils in the summer of 1944 , another war crime occurred : around 500 disabled prisoners of war who were unable to march were transferred to the neighboring civilian camp when the branch camps were closed and later shot there.

After the war, the NKVD continued to operate the camp as a camp for German prisoners of war.

In 1969 a memorial was built on the site of the former prison camp. Several curved panels are reminiscent of the pits for the prisoners. One stele is supposed to symbolize the steadfastness of the survivors and another curved stele stands for the sufferings of the prisoners. A tablet at the foot of this stele ends with the words - written in Russian:

We fought without hiding from the bullets.
However, the bullets couldn't kill us.
We died in bondage,
exhausted from hunger and torture
in Nazi detention.

In 2004, the Salaspils authority granted permission to build residential houses on the southern part of the camp in the immediate vicinity of the memorial. Citizens' protests and bone finds during the excavation work then prompted construction activities to be relocated to the north. Newly laid streets now cut through the former storage area and separate the memorial from the new building area.

Coordinates: 56 ° 51 ′ 34.6 "  N , 24 ° 19 ′ 45.7"  E

literature

  • Kārlis Kangeris, Uldis Neiburgs, Rudīte Vīksne: Aiz šiem vārtiem vaid zeme. Salaspils nometne, 1941 - 1944 Riga, 2016 ISBN 978-9934-15-128-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dr. hist. Dzintars Ērglis: 'Tragedy of the traitors to the fatherland' (Lat.)
  2. ↑ Kārlis Kangeris, Uldis Neiburgs, Rudīte Vīksne: Aiz šiem vārtiem vaid zeme. Salaspils nometne, 1941 - 1944 page 286
  3. ↑ Kārlis Kangeris, Uldis Neiburgs, Rudīte Vīksne: Aiz šiem vārtiem vaid zeme. Salaspils nometne, 1941 - 1944 page 287
  4. ↑ Kārlis Kangeris, Uldis Neiburgs, Rudīte Vīksne: Aiz šiem vārtiem vaid zeme. Salaspils nometne, 1941 - 1944 page 288
  5. ^ Memories of an inmate ; the section on Salaspils is in progress