Stalag XI A

Memorial to the prisoner-of-war camp Stalag XI A (2015)

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The main camp XI A (short: Stalag XI A, Stalag 341) in Dörnitz or Altengrabow was a prisoner of war camp of the German Wehrmacht in World War II , which was located on the area of today's Altengrabow military training area in Fläming. The prisoners-of-war crews and NCOs were registered in this camp and assigned to work detachments.

prehistory

The main camp XI A was the first Stalag in military district XI (Braunschweig - Anhalt - Hanover). As early as 1894, the area had been used as a Gloine firing range or, later, Loburg military training area , for military use by the Imperial German Army.

First World War

In the time of the First World War , a prison camp was set up little outside the limits of the military training area near Dörnitz . 1200 prisoners were held here. With the end of the First World War, the prison camp was closed.

Forced labor camp

With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, a labor camp was set up. These workers worked in the nearby munitions factory .

Main camp

In September 1939, the prisoner-of-war camp, Stalag XI A, was set up next to the labor camp and initially housed prisoners from Poland. Horse stables were initially used as accommodation. In line with the course of the war, the Dutch, Belgians and French arrived in the spring of 1940, and a year later Croatians, Serbs and, for the first time, the British. From the autumn of 1941, the Red Army soldiers were interned in separate accommodations after some of them had been shot in accordance with the commissioner's orders. With the capitulation of Italy in autumn 1943, Italians were also brought here. In total, members of 13 nations were imprisoned in the 11 A main camp.

With an average occupancy of 55,000 prisoners of war, the prison camp was one of the largest prison camps in northern and central Germany. In the surrounding agriculture, but also in the ammunition factory, more than 1,700 work details had to do forced labor. Due to unsanitary conditions and lack of food, epidemics occurred several times in the camp, claiming many victims.

The prison camp was liberated on April 13, 1945 by the 83rd US Infantry Division ; the camp was occupied by Soviet troops in May 1945 . Until August 1945, the accommodations on the site of the military training area were used as a collection and transit camp for Soviet prisoners of war. From August 1945 the Red Army officially took over the site and used it until it was handed over to the Bundeswehr in 1991.

The Association for the Promotion of the Memorial to the Prisoner of War Camp Stalag XI A Altengrabow eV erected a memorial at the entrance to the military training area, which was inaugurated on September 1, 2009.

Known prisoners

Erwin Axer (1944–1945)
Andrew Borowiec (1944-1945)
Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński (approx. 1940–1945)

such as

Maurice Chevalier (1914-1917)