SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Leibstandarte SS and Das Reich were the most successful units on the German southern wing on the first day of the
Citadel offensive. The Leibstandarte SS were overrunning the first Soviet defensive belt in heavy fighting against Soviet Paratroops of 9th Guards Airborne Division. The Das Reich tore through the Soviet defences and pushed upwards of 65 kilometers into the southern sector of the bulge and captured numbers of Soviet troops, but the Wehrmacht got bogged down. The German High Command (OKW) hoped that large numbers of Soviet prisoners would be captured during Citadel to be used as slave labour in the German armaments industry. More than three million Soviet prisoners died in German prisoner-of-war camps during World War II, about 60 percent of all Soviet prisoners. Similar death rates prevailed among German soldiers in Soviet captivity. German Wehrmacht prisoners had of course much higher survival rate than volunteers and conscripts of the Waffen-SS and other elite units. It was actually more dangerous to be in a prisoner-of-war camp than to be on the Eastern front line as an infantryman. In fact, the poor conditions were not caused primarily by incompetence or lack of preparation: harsh treatment of prisoners was a matter of policy. The capturing government itself, not the Waffen-SS nor any other frontline organization, was responsible for what happened behind the front lines. The top photo shows a wounded sergeant of the Soviet Red Army lying on the ground. A Waffen-SS Panzergrenadier with a Soviet PPSh-41 submachine-gun slung across his back is apparently calling the medics to see his condition. The middle and bottom photos from the same occasion show Soviet prisoners captured by tankers of the Waffen-SS being treated on the battlefield by an SS-Scharführer of Das Reich. Photos by war correspondent SS-Kriegsberichter Hermann Grönert. Grönert served with Das Reich at Kharkov and Kursk. U.S. National Archives.
Soviet PoWs faired better than German Pows in Russian hands, who were kept in appalling conditions and died of typus in huge numbers. Many Russian Pows managed to return to their Motherland only to be treated an Enemy's of the State for surendering and sent to Siberia and the Gulags.
ReplyDeleteThe mortality rate for POWs in Russian camps was 85%.
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