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Dulag-205: The German

Army’s Death Camp for Soviet
Prisoners at Stalingrad
Frank Ellis
Published online: 23 Sep 2006.
To cite this article: Frank Ellis (2006): Dulag-205: The German Army’s Death Camp for
Soviet Prisoners at Stalingrad, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 19:1, 123-148
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Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 19: 123–148, 2006
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DOI: 10.1080/13518040500544600
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Studies Vol. 19, No. 01, January 2006: pp. 0–0
DULAG-205: THE GERMAN ARMY’S DEATH CAMP FOR

SOVIET PRISONERS AT STALINGRAD
Frank Ellis
F. Ellis
Dulag-205
Downloaded by [Pennsylvania State University] at 03:27 16 May 2013
Ration return documents in the archive of the German 6th Army reveal
that approximately 30,000 Soviet soldiers were conscripted or volun-
teered to work for their German captors at Stalingrad. Their fate after
the German capitulation remains unknown, though it seems likely that
the bulk of them fell into the hands of the NKVD and SMERSH, undergo-
ing a lengthy process of filtration and interrogation. The precise details
of what befell these Hilfswillige or Hiwis remain one of the major unre-
solved questions concerning the battle of Stalingrad. Those Soviet prison-
ers who were deemed by German intelligence to be unreliable or simply
too loyal to the Soviet regime were incarcerated in Dulag-205. After the
capitulation of 6th Army the officers responsible for the running of
Dulag-205 were captured and interrogated so revealing a regime of star-
vation, beatings, and forced labor inflicted on Soviet troops. In this arti-
cle, which is based on access to the original interrogation files of the
German officers, the author traces the history of this forgotten death
camp inside the Kessel.
The existence of Dulag-205 was one of the more gruesome discoveries
made by the Red Army after the capitulation of 6th Army. The officers
responsible for the running of Dulag-205 were captured and interrogated
so revealing a regime of starvation, beatings, and forced labor inflicted
on Soviet prisoners. In this article, which is based on access to the origi-
nal interrogation files of the German officers, the author traces the his-
tory of this forgotten death camp inside the Stalingrad Kessel.
On the basis of German 6th Army’s Tagesmeldungen and Lagemeldungen

and on some of the extant divisional documents we know a great deal about
the day-to-day routine of life inside the Stalingrad Kessel. We have plenty
of detail about the bitter nature of the fighting, the creation of quick-reac-
tion units (Alarmeinheiten), rationing, and the onset of starvation. As for the
final German surrender itself, this will be forever linked with the newsreel
Address correspondence to Dr. Frank Ellis, Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies,
University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK. E-mail: rusnje@leeds.ac.uk
124 F. Ellis
footage of a long line of freezing and starving German soldiers, many

barely alive, resembling grotesque scarecrows in their improvised combina-
tion of military and civilian attire, as they stumbled into Soviet captivity.
Seriously weakened by the lack of food before the surrender—some had
already died of starvation inside the Kessel—German soldiers were physi-
cally ill-prepared to endure Soviet captivity. The majority died of exhaus-
tion, hunger, and disease or simply lost the will to live and would never see
their homeland again. For the small group who did survive and who
returned, about 5,000 in all, there was a 13-year wait before final liberation.
There is, however, one aspect to the German presence at Stalingrad
that has only very recently been acknowledged in published, declassified

archive material for the first time,1 and that concerns the existence of
Dulag-205. Dulag-205 (Dulag is derived from Durchgangslager, a transit
camp) was set up to hold Soviet prisoners. It was located about 500
meters from the village of Alekseevka in the Stalingrad district and some
three miles from Gumrak, the location of one of 6th Army’s airfields.
From the outset the camp’s regime was punitive and typical of the Wehr-
macht’s general behavior towards Soviet prisoners on the Eastern front.
The fate of Soviet soldiers captured by the Germans reflected one of the
central tenets of Nazi race ideology; that Soviet soldiers were racially
degenerate. The norms of captivity which applied to Anglo-American pris-
oners carried no weight on the Eastern front. Nor, as Christian Streit has
pointed out in Keine Kameraden,2 was this brutal treatment the sole prerog-
ative of the ad hoc anti-partisan units, Einsatzgruppen and the SS. The
ethos of casual brutality towards Soviet prisoners pervaded the Wehrmacht.
The archive material on Dulag-205 is consistent with Streit’s thesis.3
Any discussion of German treatment of Soviet prisoners must also take
note of the Soviet response to the ordeal these men endured at the hands
of the Germans. The official Soviet attitude towards liberated Red Army
soldiers was harsh, almost contemptuous of their suffering. During World
War Two the Western belligerents, having signed and ratified the various
instruments governing the treatment of prisoners of war, made every
effort through the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross
1
See ‘Dokladnaia zapiska V. Abakumova A. Vyshinskomu o zverskom otnoshenii nem-
etskikh voennosluzhashchikh k sovetskim voennoplennym, 2 sentiabria 1943 g.’in Stalingradskaia
epopeia: Materialy NKVD SSSR i voennoi tsenzury iz Tsentral’nogo arkhiva FSB RF, Ya. F. Pagonii i
dr., Zvonnitsa-MG, Moscow, 2000, pp. 356–363.
2
Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen
1941–1945 (1978), (Bonn: Verlag J.H.W.Dietz Nachf. GmbH), 1991.
3
Federalnyi Arkhiv, Federalnaia Sluzhba Bezopasnosti Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Ugolovnoe Delo Po
Obvineniiu Kerperta i dr. Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159 (hereinafter cited as FA FSB, Arkhiv No
K-99468, delo 159). List/listy refers to the individual sheets of paper and their numbers in the
file (delo).
Dulag-205 125
to ensure the best treatment for their service personnel in German and
Japanese captivity. Red Army soldiers enjoyed no such legal protection
and derived no moral or practical succour from the hope that Soviet diplo-
mats and other agencies were actively trying to ameliorate their lot in
German captivity. Once captured by the German army, they were effec-
tively abandoned by the Soviet state. The Germans exploited them as
slave labor or simply allowed them to die of cold and exhaustion, espe-
cially in the 1941–1942 winter. Those Soviet soldiers who managed to
escape—and some did—could expect to be regarded with extreme suspi-
cion by the operatives of the NKVD, and after April 1943, SMERSH, on
returning to Soviet lines. The operational presumption on the part of the

NKVD and SMERSH was that until these organizations’ interrogators
could satisfy themselves otherwise, all Red Army prisoners passing
through the special filtration camps and transit camps, whether they be
escapees or liberated soldiers, had been recruited by German intelligence
or had some other dark secret to hide.
In 1943 and from thereafter to the war’s end, as the Red Army liberated the
German-occupied territories, the process of interrogating and filtering the
hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers who had spent long periods in
German captivity became a high priority for SMERSH, as is clear from that
organization’s founding document.4 In any case, the detailed tasks which Sta-
lin set for SMERSH and the harsh treatment meted out to Soviet returners and
escapees were firmly established norms well before the SMERSH decree.
Indeed, two of Stalin’s orders set the tone: Order No 270 issued on 16
August 1941, as the Germans were sweeping all before them; and his
famous (or infamous) Order No 227 issued on 28 July 1942 after the fall
of Rostov, the essence of the latter being known under the slogan of “not
a step backwards” (ni shagu nazad), in which Stalin demanded executions
for panic mongers, deserters and retreating units.5 The NKVD needed no
4
A high priority is “the checking of military-service personnel and other persons who have been
in enemy captivity or encircled by the enemy”. See Section II, paragraph (e), ‘Polozhenie o
Glavnom Upravelenii kontrrazvedki Narodnogo Komissariata Oborony (“SMERSH”) i ego orga-
nakh na mestakh’, 21 aprelia 1943 goda. The full text of this decree is in A. N. Yakovlev, ed. et al.,
Lubianka: organy VChK-OGPU-NKVD-NKGB-MGB-KGB 1917–1991 spravochnik, in the series
“Demokratiia”, Rossiia. XX VEK, Dokumenty, Mezhdunarodnyi fond, Moscow, 2003, pp. 623–626.
5
See ‘Prikaz Stavki verkhovnogo glavnogo komandovaniia Krasnoi armii’, No 270, 16
avgusta 1941 goda’, Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, 9, 1988, pp. 26–28 and I. Stalin, ‘Prikaz
Narodnogo komissara oborony Soiuza SSR, No. 227, 28 iiulia 1942 g.’ in Voenno-istoricheskii
zhurnal, 8, 1988, pp. 73–75. This is the first time that the full text of both orders was published.
The Germans soon become aware of the savage penalties provided for by Order No 270. A few
days after the 16th August 1941, the German ambassador in Ankara, von Papen tried, through
a third party while making enquiries concerning the fate of German prisoners, to ascertain
whether it was true that Stalin had threatened the families of Soviet soldiers who were captured
by the Germans with repressive measures. See Keine Kameraden, p. 229.
126 F. Ellis
encouraging. Caught between the racial ideology of the Nazi invader

which accorded them sub-human status and Stalin’s paranoia about the
loyalty of Soviet soldiers, who had been captured, Red Army soldiers
endured a uniquely dreadful fate.
DULAG-205
On 31 January 1943 the German officers responsible for running Dulag-205

were captured by the Red Army: the camp commandant, Oberst Rudolf
Körpert (1886–1944); the deputy camp commandant, Hauptmann Carl
Frister (1896–1944); the officer responsible for work details, Hauptmann

Kurt Wohlfarth (1893–1944); the officer in charge of the camp’s construction
group, Hauptmann Richard Seidlitz (1887–1944); head of camp security,
Rotmeister Fritz Müsenthin (1889–1944); and adjutant to the commandant,
Oberleutnant Otto Mäder (1895–1944). All were interrogated by SMERSH.
The initial Soviet investigation concluded that in Dulag-205 the German
camp administration presided over “the mass killing of Soviet military pris-
oners as a result of which more than 3,000 were exterminated.”6 On the
basis of material gathered from the interrogations of both the officers them-
selves and former Soviet prisoners, Körpert and his staff were formally
arrested on 18th September 1944. In the arrest document it was noted:
[ … ] that over a long period of time Soviet military prisoners, located

in Dulag-205 were given no food whatsoever which led to the prison-
ers’ being forced to eat the corpses of their comrades. Soldiers in the
camp were shot without any reason, tormented by dogs and condi-
tions were created which were totally unsuited for human habitation.7
The considerable delay between the capture of the German officers

directly involved with running Dulag-205 and their interrogations hints at
two things. First, NKVD and SMERSH interrogators were simply over-
whelmed by the numbers of German prisoners of interest to them. For
obvious reasons the highest priority was given to von Paulus himself and
his immediate entourage as well as the divisional commanders and their
staff officers who had been captured. Other areas and personalities would
also have been of great interest to Soviet military intelligence: the state of
German knowledge of Red Army intentions; the success or otherwise of
German intelligence in recruiting civilians and Red Army soldiers (and
their identity); and the effectiveness of German radio monitoring. Second, 6th
Army archives, mainly ration returns, reveal, that there were approximately
6
FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 1.
7
Dulag-205 127
30,000 Soviet prisoners, Hilfswillige or Hiwis for short, who were work-
ing for the Germans in the Kessel. The possibility cannot be excluded that
they fell victim to instant retribution after the German surrender; that
these men were rounded up by the NKVD, shipped off to some location in
the steppe and executed en masse.
While it is entirely possible that spontaneous retribution fell upon these
Soviet soldiers after their capture, I am of the opinion that the key to the fate
of these Red Army men is to be found in the archives of SMERSH not the
NKVD. Retribution featured prominently in the work of both organisations,
as Körpert and his fellow officers were eventually to discover, but securing
information and hard intelligence would be of greater importance for any

counter-intelligence organisation. Instant retribution on the scale of Katyn
or even greater, would have drastically eliminated the pool from which
valuable intelligence could be derived. This would hardly have been a ratio-
nal or desirable outcome. Delayed retribution on the other hand would have
satisfied both the need for hard intelligence and the desire of the ideological
sadists for blood. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.
THE INTERROGATION OF OBERST KÖRPERT ET AL.
Körpert, the camp commandant, was first interrogated on 23 June 1943.

Körpert told his interrogator, Captain Prikhodin, a senior SMERSH investi-
gator, who was attached to the 3 Baltic Front, that the prisoners lived in dug-
outs which measured 60 × 3 meters and that 150 men were allocated to each
dugout. The total size of the camp was 200 × 200 meters. By the beginning of
December 1942, a camp that had been designed for 1,200 prisoners, was now
holding 3,400.8 Körpert said that up until 5 December 1942 sparse rations
were available for the Soviet prisoners, thereafter there was nothing and he
acknowledged that “real starvation started.”9 From 10 December 1942 the
death rate due to starvation was running at about 50 prisoners per day.10
According to the record of Körpert’s interrogation, “The corpses of
military prisoners who had died in the night were taken out of the dugouts
every morning and carted off beyond the camp boundary and buried.”11
At this stage the figure of Soviet dead from famine is given as 2,000.12
One of the main lines of attack deployed against Körpert by the interro-
gator was to highlight the fact that the Germans were obliged to adhere to
the terms of The Hague (1907) and Geneva Conventions (1929). There
8
9
10
11
12
128 F. Ellis
were in fact two conventions signed by a number of states at Geneva on

27th July 1929: the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of
the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field.13; and the Convention Rela-
tive to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, with Annex.14
The Soviet Union eventually acceded to the Convention for the Ame-
lioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field
(26 March 1932), but not to the Convention Relative to the Treatment of
Prisoners of War.15 This posed something of a problem for the Nazi lead-
ership. For it meant quite clearly that Germany was obliged to care for
Soviet sick and wounded. The solution here was a typical sleight of hand
on the part of the Nazi administration: to argue that since the Soviet
Union had not acceded to the first Convention this, in effect, negated any
obligations that Germany had under the latter.16
Körpert was obviously unaware that the Soviet Union had refused to
ratify one of the 1929 Geneva Conventions. Stalin’s refusal to ratify both
1929 Conventions, thereby denying Soviet prisoners the protection of the
full range of internationally agreed norms helped to fuel German con-
tempt for Soviet soldiers, making it easier for all ranks in the German
army to justify their barbarity. German soldiers were able to convince
themselves that if the Soviet authorities were indifferent to the conditions
of their own men, then it was hardly incumbent upon the German Army to
worry about them either. On this latter point one can cite Major-General
Zolotarev’s assessment of the fate of Soviet prisoners in German captiv-
ity, which by comparison with the views prevailing throughout the Soviet
period, represents a remarkable volte-face:
Today historians acknowledge that of the 5.7 million Soviet prisoners of

war who ended up in Germany, nearly 3.3 million perished. It would be
wrong to attribute these terrible figures exclusively to the evil deeds of the
fascist regime. Responsibility for the death of prisoners from famine, ill-
ness and other privations also lies with the Stalin government which dem-
onstrated a criminal indifference to the fate of its fellow countrymen.17
13
See, League of Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 118, No 2733, pp. 303–341.
14
See League of Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 118, no 2734, pp. 343–409.
15
In a draft decree intended for the Supreme Soviet which was dated 17th July 1941 it was
proposed that the Soviet Union observe the provisions of the Hague Convention (1907), the
Geneva Protocol which proscribed the use of gas and bacteriological warfare (1925) and the
two Geneva Conventions of 1929. The decree was not enacted. See Major-General Zolotarev,
ed., Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, vol 13(2), Nemetskie voennoplennye v SSSR 1941–
1955 gg., Sbornik dokumentov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA, Moscow, 1999, pp. 17–18.
16
See Keine Kameraden, p. 183.
17
See Major-General Zolotarev, ed., Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, vol. 13(2),
Nemetskie voennoplennye v SSSR 1941–1955 gg., Sbornik dokumentov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA,
Moscow, 1999, p. 15.
Dulag-205 129
Körpert admitted that two prisoners were shot and conceded that pris-
oners were harried by dogs, the latter concession prompting the following
question from his interrogator: “Which paragraph of the Geneva Conven-
tion envisages the method of ‘establishing of order’ among starving mili-
tary prisoners with the help of dogs?”18
The sequence of interrogations, as recorded in the file, now leads us to
Oberleutnant Mäder who was interrogated on 18 June 1943. Examining the
same ground as covered in Körpert’s interrogation, the SMERSH officer
obviously tried to identify contradictions and discrepancies in the officers’
testimonies which could then be used in subsequent interrogations.
One remarkable aspect of Mäder’s testimony was that he makes no

mention at all or shows any awareness of the fact that German soldiers
had starved to death inside the Kessel.19 This would have been highly rel-
evant for his defence, since he could have argued that although Soviet
prisoners were indeed dying of starvation, they were no worse off than
German soldiers. In the final Military Tribunal hearing after the officers
were formally arrested and charged, Oberst Körpert was specifically
asked whether German soldiers were dying of starvation to which he
replied, “There was none of that.”20 This is an extraordinary admission on
the part of a senior German officer.
First, and most obviously, it is not true. We know that German soldiers
were dying of starvation and that the death rate accelerated after
19 November 1942 (the start of the Soviet counter-offensive), as resupply
from the air failed to bring in sufficient food. Second, it suggests that even
fairly senior German officers such as Körpert who would have had con-
tact with German 6th Army headquarters, with Major, later Colonel, von
Kunowski, for example, were not aware of just how bad conditions were
for the German infantry. In other words, and for quite understandable rea-
sons, 6th Army Headquarters forbade any mention of starvation. Third, a
central plank in the capitulation terms offered by Voronov and Rokossovskii
to 6th Army on January 8th 1943, and, indeed, of most of the loudspeaker
propaganda directed at German troops, was an offer of food if they
surrendered. SMERSH interrogators knew full well that German soldiers
were dying of starvation, and to the clear detriment of the defense
18
19
Some support for Körpert’s extraordinary ignorance can be found in Oberleutnant Georg
Michael’s experiences in the Kessel. “Many officers told their subordinates nothing about being
surrounded (Even in January I came across officers who knew nothing about any “cauldron” and
still hoped to be the next in line for leave) and on the other hand by means of deliberately false
statements tried to raise morale. [ … ] Right from the beginning the mass of NCOs and soldiers
were not aware of just how serious the situation was.” Erfahrungen in den Wintermonaten innerh-
alb der Festung Stalingrad 1942/1943, (Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv/RH 27–24/27).
20
130 F. Ellis
withheld vital and material information.21 Had Körpert and Mäder been
aware of the parlous state of rationing for German soldiers, they could
have argued that priority had to be given to the German infantry. They
could also have pointed out that such a decision would not have been
taken by them. Would the Red Army have behaved any differently in sim-
ilar circumstances? Mäder stated in his interrogation that von Kunowski
proposed shooting the starving Soviet prisoners. A solution that would,
one suspects, have received nods of approval from his Soviet opposite
numbers had the roles been reversed.
Mäder was interrogated again on 27 August 1943. He confirms the use
of dogs against the Soviet prisoners who were losing their minds through
hunger.22 The interrogator noted that in the previous interrogation Mäder
had referred to a number of “mutineers” (miatezhniki). Mäder was then
asked why they had caused problems (the interrogator would appear to be
using the results of Körpert’s interrogation against Mäder). Mäder
rejected the notion, advanced by Körpert, that prisoners were plotting
some kind of insurrection. Prisoners were shot, insisted Mäder, not
because they attempted to escape but because they had merely talked
about it.23 The following statement was especially damning for Körpert:
There was no trial of any kind, they [prisoners] were shot without any
trial on the order of Colonel Körpert. I am a lawyer by education and
I understand perfectly that this these shootings were illegal, simply
murder in fact.24
21
As early as September rations emerged as a factor in German morale. Major Menzel, a
staff officer attached to 6th Army Headquarters, noted that there was considerable bitterness
on the part of the infantry regarding what was to be perceived unfair distribution of rations
(Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv/RH 20–6/213/174). Three months later, as stated in a staff report
dated 22nd December 1942, German soldiers are dying of starvation:
Situation with regard to health. Food for troops unsatisfactory to bad. Half rations
since the 26th November and since 8th December only 200 gr. of bread a day. Con-
sequently bodily strength weakening. The troops because of lack of bodily reserves
are unable to undertake long marches and assault operations without large numbers
dropping out. Since 21st November there have been 56 deaths in the Army’s area
which in the judgement of military doctors are directly due to the effects of the
ration situation. (Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv/RH 20–6/238/5)
Von Paulus himself noted that captured German soldiers of the 44th Infantry Division were
making statements over Soviet radio about the lack of rations (Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv/RH
20–6/240/77). Soviet military intelligence would have been very well informed concerning the
state of rationing inside the Kessel.
22
23
24
Dulag-205 131
In a third interrogation which took place on 18th September 1944 Mäder

commented on the high mortality rates, implying that the regime was
intended to kill prisoners, so implicating Körpert in this plan, “Up to 50
prisoners died every day. Such a mortality rate existed because the condi-
tions created for the prisoners were intended to kill them.”25
On the basis of the material in the file most of the interrogators’ efforts
seem to have been concentrated on Körpert and Mäder. The first date of
Frister’s interrogation was given as 27 June 1944 which is late by com-
parison with the other officers. There were no obvious explanations for
this delay. In both Frister’s and in Müsenthin’s interrogations there were
no references to the Hague or Geneva Conventions. Again, as in the case

of Mäder, Müsenthin’s testimony was highly damaging for Körpert.
Körpert, according to Müsenthin, ordered that a Soviet Senior Lieutenant
be shot for talking about escape.26 The interrogations of Wohlfarth and
Seidlitz added nothing substantial to the testimony of Mäder.
THE INTERROGATION OF FORMER DULAG-205 SURVIVORS
At the same time as Körpert and his fellow officers were being interro-
gated, other SMERSH operatives were diligently gathering witness state-
ments from Soviet prisoners who had been in Dulag-205.
Now there is a specific Soviet context to the interrogations of these
men which must be borne in mind. The mere fact that they had been cap-
tured by the Germans rendered them objects of deep suspicion on the part
of the NKVD’s Special Sections and SMERSH. Their subsequent interro-
gation was not just an opportunity for SMERSH officers to gather evi-
dence which could be used against Körpert, it was also an attempt by
SMERSH to ascertain the circumstances of their capture and behaviour in
German captivity. Soviet soldiers who had been liberated from German
captivity and were then dragged through the gruelling rituals of NKVD/
SMERSH filtration were well aware of the Red Army’s attitude to those
who were captured.
In the interrogation record of Red Army soldier, Kirill Kirillovich
Pisanovskii who when captured by the Germans was serving in 883 Rifle
Regiment, 193 Rifle Division, we find the following entry regarding
his service history: “In the Red Army from 1939 to the day of his capture
on 28th October 1942.”27 The interrogator’s assumptions are clear:
25
FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 84. An acknowledgement from Mäder that
the German camp authorities were deliberately violating their obligations under the Geneva
Convention (No 2734) regarding the maintenance of hygiene and the provision of food, water
and warmth as stipulated in Articles 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15.
26
27
132 F. Ellis
Pisanovskii ceased to be a Red Army soldier from the moment he was

captured. No American or British pilot shot down over Germany would
cease to be in the USAAF or RAF merely because he was captured.
Another clue is the frequent use of byvshii (former) to describe Red Army
soldiers under interrogation. In the period between being liberated, or
rather being transferred from German captivity to a Soviet filtration
camp, which is what liberation means here, and cleared of any wrong-
doing (as defined by Stalinist-inspired suspicion) Red Army soldiers
existed in a legal no-man’s land. This state of affairs is critical when
evaluating the quality of the evidence against Körpert et al., provided by
Red Army soldiers. Former prisoners of the Germans, these men had a
vested interest in painting as black a picture as possible so as to impress
their interrogators and so mitigate any perception that they had betrayed
the Motherland.
Another factor that must be taken into account is the possibility that
interrogators adapted the statements to suit their own purposes. They
were after all under enormous pressure to get results and one can assume
that the rules regarding the acquisition and use of evidence were some-
what flexible. There is a hint of such behavior in the witness statements.
In his testimony Red Army soldier Anatolii Alekseev stated that:
There were public executions in the camp. In January 1943 on about

the 10th–11th a former senior Lieutenant of the Red Army, his sur-
name I don’t know, was executed for allegedly organising an escape
attempt.28
The use of “former” in this soldier’s testimony, with all its implications, is
suspicious. It is ideological jargon that would come naturally to an inter-
rogating officer but not a “former” soldier. Moreover it is the sort of
nuance that Red Army soldiers would miss and would probably not be too
willing to challenge when ordered to sign their statements.
The file contains the interrogation records of other Red Army soldiers
who had spent time in Dulag-205, Pisanovskii, already noted, Ivan Kosi-
nov, Konstantin Krupachenko, Stepan Kucheriaev and Anatolii Alekseev.
All the prisoners confirmed the exceptional filth and appalling conditions
in which they were kept, the general and arbitrary brutality employed by
the Germans and, as food ran out, the onset of cannibalism. One prisoner,
according to Pisanovskii, asked a guard for permission to relieve himself.
While the prisoner was squatting down, he was shot in the back of the
head by the German.29 In a subsequent interrogation (8 August 1943), in
28
29
Dulag-205 133
response to a question from SMERSH officers, Pisanovskii confirmed

that Soviet prisoners were beaten in the presence of German officers. The
testimony of Kosinov suggested that the German guards shot prisoners on
any pretext:
In all cases the Germans would shoot prisoners without any warnings at
all. In the month of October 1942 I personally saw up to 30 prisoners
shot. They shot people every day for falling behind to and from work,
and sometimes for breaking ranks. I am unable to give the surnames of
the prisoners shot by the Germans. Moreover, when we were herded
from the Alekseevka camp to the area of Karpovka village, then several
prisoners were shot dead by German officers for the fact that when we
were working we were bombarded by Soviet troops and several prison-
ers took cover. After the firing had stopped the officers came out of their
trench dug-outs and shot them on the spot. Three prisoners were shot
dead for taking some tobacco while working on a dump.30
Krupachenko, already cited, added to this picture of arbitrary execution:
In a corner behind the dugouts there was toilet – just an ordinary pit.
Guard duties were carried out by the Polizei, former soldiers of the
Red Army, mainly Ukrainians and German dog handlers […] The
guards were allowed to shoot without any warning at prisoners who
approached the barbed wire barrier, who tried to jump the queue for
food and at prisoners who tried to have a piss in the wrong place […]
In the camp the prisoners were fed horse meat, regardless of the state
of the flesh. The meat was cooked and every prisoner was given two
bowls of about half a litre of watery soup a day which had been made
with the horse meat, moreover there was not much meat. Hardly any
water or bread was given to the prisoners. The prisoners slept in the
dugouts without any bedding, jammed tight. The prisoners were never
able to rest since they had to sleep standing and sitting. There was not
room for everyone. Many lice came into the dugouts. Lice covered the
prisoners’ clothing and bodies and as a result of the bites the prisoners
had wounds and scabs on their bodies. There were no baths in the
camp. During my whole time in the camp – about 5 months – I did not
wash once. Prisoners did not wash themselves in the camp since there
was no water. As a result of such inhuman conditions which were cre-
ated in the camp some 10–15 prisoners died every day and in the last
days of December 1942 and the beginning of January 1943 the rate
was about 20–30 a day caused by famine, cold, the degrading and
30
A FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, listy 138–139.
134 F. Ellis
cruel treatment of the prisoners on the part of the camp administra-

tion and the Polizei.31
Krupachenko also provided detailed testimony on arbitrary shootings,

death by exhaustion, and the use of dogs to terrorise prisoners. Here are
some examples from his interrogation statement:
On about the 25th November 1942 while working on a road which led
to Gumrak three kilometres from the camp a group of prisoners of
about 50–60 was levelling and clearing the road. One prisoner whose
name I don’t know collapsed from tiredness and exhaustion and

couldn’t work. The guard tried to force the exhausted man to stand
and work but the prisoner couldn’t get up. Then the guard shot the
prisoner dead with a sub-machine gun and ordered that he be buried
in a ditch at the side of the road.32
and:
On about the 18th December 1942 a group of about 6 prisoners

intended to escape but were betrayed by somebody. All six prisoners
were led out of the camp beyond the wire, taken about 20 metres to a
pit and shot without any hearing. Before the execution the interpreter
told the prisoners that the 6 men had wanted to escape from the camp
and for that they would be executed. This would happen to anyone
who tried to escape from the camp. The surnames of those who died
are not known to me.33
In his interrogation (8 August 1943) Kucheriaev asserted that officers

themselves beat prisoners:
Prisoners were not only beaten in the presence of German officers. I

myself saw several prisoners, mainly those who were ill, approach an
officer with a request that they not be sent to work. For this the officer
beat them with a stick. Most of all they beat those prisoners who were
exhausted and could not go to work.34
Wounded in an attack on the German lines in December 1942, Alekseev

did Körpert and his officers no favors:
31
FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, listy 144–145.
32
33
34
Dulag-205 135
I could not give you his surname but I know the German camp com-
mandant by sight, tall, stooping, thin and wore glasses, about 40–42
years old. He would always walk with a wooden stick and would mer-
cilessly torment the prisoners. He would force them to be harnessed to
a cart so as to remove the bodies of the dead prisoners. The senior
German in the camp was about 35 years old of medium height, broad-
shouldered and maintained order in the yard where I got my food. He
would walk about with a rubber whip on the tip of which there was a
metal mounting. He would beat the prisoners on the slightest pretext
for anything which seemed to him to be an infringement of camp
discipline.35
As 1942 moves to its conclusion and the cold starts to bite the domi-
nant theme in all the prisoners’ testimony is starvation and cannibalism.36
In fact one of the best sources is the testimony of Körpert himself, as can
be seen from the record of a later interrogation which took place on 19th
September 1944:
On 15th December [1942] several corpses were discovered from which

parts of the body had been cut out: the heart, liver, the cheeks and
other parts. Other corpses had opened skulls and the brains removed.
These episodes consequently became more and more frequent,
becoming almost a mass phenomenon. Clothing and footwear were
also removed from the prisoners, which were used for fuel in order
to prepare water from snow collected in the camp […] Although I
warned the prisoners that for cases of cannibalism the penalty was the
firing squad, I personally nevertheless attached no serious significance
to this and considered that the prisoners would be sufficiently fed.37
Alekseev confirmed the gruesome picture:
35
FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 164. There are photos of the German officers
in the file. None is shown wearing glasses (FE).
36
Responding to assertions on the part of German historians that German prisoners of war
resorted to cannibalism in Soviet camps, Zolotarev insists on a tough evidentiary standard: ‘To
meet the standards of scholarly proof regarding cannibalism one requires exclusively documen-
tary, convincing and irrefutable confirmation’. See Zolotarev, ed., Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia
Otechestvennaia, vol 13(2), Nemetskie voennoplennye v SSSR 1941–1955 gg., Sbornik dokumen-
tov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA, Moscow, 1999, p. 9. The question here is whether the witness
statements of former Dulag-205 inmates and the circumstances in which they were compiled
meet the same standard. For Körpert and his fellow officers the rules of evidence were matters
of more than legal academic interest.
37
136 F. Ellis
I know of cases when the Red Army arrived on 22nd January 1943
and liberated us that corpses of prisoners were discovered with
smashed skulls from which the brains had been removed. The soft tis-
sue had been cut off the legs and the stomachs had been torn open, the
lungs and hearts removed.38
THE MILITARY TRIBUNAL
On 23 September 1944, General-Lieutenant Belkin, the head of SMERSH

on the 3rd Baltic Front upheld the charges of “mass extermination of
Soviet citizens.”39 Additionally, the German officers were accused of
“having implemented the policy of German fascism concerning the exter-

mination of the Soviet population.”40 The formal indictment was signed
by Belkin on 7th October 1944 and the case scheduled to go before a
Military Tribunal. The offer on the part of the court to allow the accused
to call expert witnesses in their defense was of no practical use to the
German officers. It must be seen as one of those cynical, theatrical
touches that accompanied the exercise of Stalinist jurisprudence.
The Protocol of the Court Session reveals that Seidlitz, Müsenthin,
Wohlfarth, and Frister were far more vocal than they were earlier. Their
stance towards Körpert was markedly hostile and one cannot exclude the
possibility, given the well established Stalinist precedents of grooming
prisoners for their role in court, that some or all of these officers, had been
promised their lives in return for the correct testimony in open court.
Some support for this claim can be found in Abakumov’s memorandum
to Vyshinskii dated 2nd September 1943, at a time when the interroga-
tions of the German officers were in progress. The head of SMERSH con-
cluded with the following point, “I have raised the question with the
government of whether it would be expedient to organise a public trial of
this case with coverage in the press.”41 Nothing came of Abakumov’s sug-
gestion, the most likely reason being the eventual liberation of Krasnodar
and Kharkov in 1943, which revealed German atrocities on a much
grander scale. In both these cities public trials of German officers along
the lines suggested for Körpert, though on a much bigger scale, took place
in 1943 (Krasnodar, 14 July 1943 and Kharkov 6–18 December 1943).
38
39
40
41
‘Dokladnaia zapiska V. Abakumova A. Vyshinskomu o zverskom otnoshenii nemetskikh
voennosluzhashchikh k sovetskim voennoplennym, 2 sentiabria 1943 g.’in Stalingradskaia
epopeia: Materialy NKVD SSSR i voennoi tsenzury iz Tsentral’nogo arkhiva FSB RF, Ya.
F. Pagonii i dr., Zvonnitsa–MG, Moscow, 2000, p. 363.
Dulag-205 137
During the hearing Seidlitz and Müsenthin seemed to have abandoned

any sense of solidarity with Körpert, seeking to lay the blame for the pris-
oners’ plight on their former superior: “In the camp I was a minor figure
and the commandant took no account of my opinion,” (Seidlitz42) and, “I
do not see that any guilt can be laid on me at all. I was a subordinate and
was unable to do anything to improve the situation in the camp at all.”
(Müsenthin43)
Müsenthin’s point was echoed by Frister in his final statement to the
court:
As soon as I ended up serving in the camp I understood that this was a

place unworthy of a soldier […] Yesterday it was noted that I was a mem-
ber of the National-Socialist Party. That does not mean that I was
enthused by National-Socialism. Being in government service in Germany,
I was compelled to become a member of the National-Socialist Party.
The whole time I considered that the war with Russia was a great mis-
fortune for Germany.
I request that you remove me from the ranks of the arrested and return
me to the prisoners so that I can return to my homeland after the war.44
Mäder put the blame on von Paulus:
My service in the Dulag was a great spiritual torment for me. It was
dreadful to see the terrible condition of Russian prisoners.
I stand before the court at that time when the main culprits responsi-
ble for the death of 3,000 Soviet prisoners – Field Marshall Paulus, the
army’s chief-of-staff, General Schmidt, Lieutenant-Colonel Kunowski
and the army quartermaster – do not stand before the court. They are
not only guilty of the death of Soviet prisoners-of-war, but have put us
on the accused’s bench!45
The court session ended at 1430 hrs on 10 October 1944, the court proto-
cols running to some sixteen pages. In reaching their verdict the presiding
officers, Colonel Antonov (legal section), Major Ivanov (legal section)
and Captain Mazikin (legal section) made the following findings of fact:
42
43
44
FA FSB, Arkhiv No K-99468, delo 159, list 208–209.
45
138 F. Ellis
(i) that a camp intended for not more than 500 prisoners eventu-
ally held some 4,000 prisoners;
(ii) that at its best food consisted of scraps from the German
kitchens and sometimes horse flesh;
(iii) that the prisoners were beaten and terrorized by dogs;
(iv) that the prisoners, exhausted, starving, and ill were made to
do work on defences and shot by guards when unable to work
any more;
(v) that two prisoners were executed merely for having talked of
escape and that more than 3,000 Soviet prisoners died from
starvation, beatings and executions.
Körpert, Frister, Müsenthin, Mäder, Seidlitz and Wohlfarth were sen-

tenced to be shot (rasstrel). No right of appeal was granted and Körpert
and his officers were executed on 13th October 1944.
REHABILITATION AND THE LEGAL PROCESS
In 1998 the Körpert file was reviewed by the Head Military Prosecutor in
accordance with the provisions of the Russian Federation Law Concern-
ing the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions (1991, Articles
2 & 8).46 None of the officers was rehabilitated, since, as the Military
Prosecutor pointed out:
The file was not submitted to a court in so far as there was an absence
of declarations on the part of any interested parties and is to be
returned to the Central Archive of the Federal Security Service of the
Russian Federation.47
Regarding, in the first instance, the absence of any declarations from an

interested party, it is not clear whether German embassy officials were
alerted and asked to notify any surviving relatives in Germany of the proce-
dure under way in the Russian Federation. This would not necessarily have
been a futile gesture. The file contains personal photographs belonging to
Frister some of which were taken in Germany before the start of the Rus-
sian campaign. In one there is a snow-covered street in Germany. He stands
with a woman, one assumes his wife. In the other photograph he is shown
standing with the same woman and a young man, most likely his son. The
street name—Friedrich-List-Strasse—is clearly visible. Assuming the boy
was not killed in the Allied bombing of Germany, the likelihood that he
46
Zakon Rossiiskoi Federatsii o reabilitatsii zhertv politicheskikh repressii, 1991.
47
23 July 1998, memorandum attached to the file, p. 2.
Dulag-205 139
survived, even that he is still alive, with family and grandchildren cannot be
ruled out. One can well understand that any surviving relatives may well
take the view that the clock cannot be turned back; that Frister and the oth-
ers were casualties of war; that the dead should be left in peace.
Another consideration, and one of relevance for any rehabilitation pro-
cess, since it relates to the conduct of the Tribunal itself, is the legal opin-
ion expressed by the Senior Military Prosecutor of the Rehabilitation
Section, M. P. Likhodii, during the case review. He argued that the guilt
of the condemned was established by their statements and those of former
(!) Red Army soldiers. The conviction was, he concluded, “lawful and
justified.”48 That assertion is by no means clear, as we shall see.
The Geneva Convention was mentioned in Körpert’s interrogation and its

application raises additional questions that can be addressed here. To begin
with, one might consider the Soviet Union’s accession to the Convention for
the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the
Field in 1932. There seems little doubt that the violations and the famine
detailed in the indictment took place under Körpert’s stewardship of Dulag-
205. All over the Eastern front Soviet prisoners received the same treatment
from their German captors. The Soviet position—the enumeration of multi-
ple violations by the Germans of the Convention—is, however, complicated
by the fact that Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Poland, Romania, and
Czechoslovakia also signed the Convention for the Amelioration of the Con-
dition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field.
Now all of these states suffered in varying degrees from the violations of
the Convention perpetrated by the Red Army and NKVD formations. An
infamous example was the mass execution of Polish officers and other “class
enemies” carried out by the NKVD, a direct consequence of the Soviet-Nazi
Non-Aggression Pact (1939). In 1940 in the Katyn forest, at the Starobelsk
and Ostashkovo camps, and in other sites throughout Western Ukraine and
Belorussia, 21,857 Polish prisoners and civilian and military personnel were
executed and buried in mass graves.49 These men did not die as a conse-
quence of the Red Army’s inability to feed or clothe them in harsh winter
conditions. On the contrary, these prisoners were deliberately and systemati-
cally selected and killed in accordance with the Soviet policy of exterminat-
ing “class enemies.” This is absolutely clear from Beria’s memorandum to
Stalin dated 5 March 1940 in which Beria describes the Polish prisoners as
48
23 July 1998, memorandum attached to the file, p. 2.
49
The figure of 21,857 is cited in a memorandum (dated 3 March 1959) sent to Khrushchev by
the head of the KGB, Alexander Shelepin. The document is reproduced in Wojciech Materski,
ed., KATYN: Documents of Genocide, Documents and Materials from the Soviet Archives
Turned over to Poland on October 14 1992, with an introduction by Janusz K. Zawodny, trans.
Jan Kolbowski and Mark Canning. (Warsaw: Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of
Sciences, 1993), pp. 26–29.
140 F. Ellis
“sworn enemies of Soviet power, consumed with hatred for the Soviet sys-
tem,” and recommends that they be shot.50
In 1997 an important collection of documents relating to the massacres
was published in Russia, supplementing those already published in
Poland.51 In the introduction to the Russian volume the authors record
instances of mass and arbitrary shootings of Polish soldiers which
occurred after the Red Army invaded on 17th September 1939 and which
predate the main massacres carried out at Katyn and other sites. For
example, immediately after the surrender of Grodno to the Red Army
some 300 of the Polish defenders were shot on the spot. In Poles’e 150
officers were executed without any trial and arbitrary executions were
carried out in at least 17 other sites.52 The authors state, incorrectly, that
the captured Polish officers were not protected by the Geneva Convention
since the Soviet Union had not signed it.53 Poland was one of the first
batch of signatories to both Geneva Conventions and the Soviet Union, as
we have seen, did eventually accede to the Convention for the Ameliora-
tion of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field.
As far as the treatment of Polish prisoners was concerned, the NKVD
decided quite deliberately to disregard the provisions of the Hague and
Geneva Conventions. This is revealed in a response to the head of the
Starobelsk camp, Captain Berezhkov, dated 10th November 1939.
Berezhkov had earlier requested a copy of the “doctors’ Geneva Conven-
tion” for guidance.54 In a terse reply from Moscow Berezhkov was left in
no doubt as to what jurisdiction should take precedence in dealing with
Polish prisoners: “The Doctors’ Geneva Convention is not the document
by which you should be guided in your practical work. In your work you
are to follow the instructions of the Directorate of the NKVD for Prison-
ers of War.”55 The basis for Berezhkov’s initial request is not stated,
though it seems likely that Polish prisoners, among whom were lawyers
and military doctors acquainted with the Geneva Conventions, had com-
plained to him, the camp commandant, who then sought guidance from
Moscow. The reference to “the doctors” ‘Geneva Convention’ may there-
fore be understood as referring to those parts of the Convention dealing
with medical matters.
50
KATYN: Documents of Genocide, p. 26.
51
A. N. Yakovlev, ed. et al., Katyn’: Plenniki neob”iavlennoi voiny, in the series
“Demokratiia”, Rossiia. XX VEK, Dokumenty, Mezhdunarodnyi fond, Moscow, 1997.
52
Katyn’: Plenniki neob”iavlennoi voiny, p. 14.
53
Katyn’: Plenniki neob”iavlennoi voiny, p. 15
54
Katyn’: Plenniki neob”iavlennoi voiny, p. 416.
55
“1939 g., noiabriia 10, Moskva. – Rasporiazhenie YPV NKVD SSSR A. G. Berezhkovu o
Zhenevskoi konventsii i neobkhodimosti rukovodstvovat’sia v prakticheskoi rabote direktivami
upravleniia,” Katyn’: Plenniki neob”iavlennoi voiny, p. 189.
Dulag-205 141
The Convention dealing with the wounded and sick imposes obliga-
tions on signatories to treat sick and wounded prisoners, and to allow
them to be treated. By no stretch of the imagination could the Convention
be interpreted to mean that sick and wounded prisoners are to be treated
but that healthy and sick prisoners can, at the discretion of the detaining
power, in this case the Soviet Union, be executed. Is this the ominous line
under consideration in Moscow and hence the irritated response to
Berezhkov?
The same policies of Sovietization, analagous to the Nazi policy of
Gleichschaltung, were implemented in the Baltic states. Forcibly incor-
porated into the Soviet Union in 1940, again under provisions of the
Non-Aggression Pact, Estonia and Latvia (and Lithuania) were purged of
hostile class elements. That Estonia and Latvia, and the invading power,
the Soviet Union, had signed the Convention meant nothing. The require-
ments of class war took precedence over any international obligations to
honour the Geneva Convention.
It is, I think, significant that the legal basis cited by the members of the
Tribunal in reaching their verdict in the Körpert case makes no reference
to any violations of the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition
of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field. Such an omission invites
speculation that the Soviet prosecutors were not exactly unaware of the
fact that were they to cite this Convention against the Germans that,
equally, it could be turned against the Soviet Union. The safe course was
not to cite the Convention at all. The legal instruments referred to in the
Tribunal’s verdict are exclusively Soviet: Article 1 of the Decree of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 19 April 1943; and
Articles 319 and 320 of the Criminal Procedural Code and the Decree of
the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 24 May 1944.56
The obvious point here is that two of the legal instruments which form
56
See Ukaz Presidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR ‘O merakh nakazaniia dlia nemetsko-
fashistskikh zlodeev, vinovnykh v ubiistvakh i istaizaniiakh sovetskogo grazhdanskogo nasele-
niia i plennykh krasnoarmeitsev, sphionov, izmennikov Rodine iz chisla sovetskikh grazhdan i
ikh posobnikov’, 19 aprelia 1943 g and Ukaz Presidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, 24 maia
1944 g. These decrees are not included in Sbornik zakonov SSSR i Ukazov presidiumov
Verkhovngo Soveta SSSR (1938–iiul’ 1956 gg.), Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo iuridicheskoi lit-
eratury, Moscow, 1956. Such omissions would be consistent with Stalin’s habit of restricting
the circulation of documents to the higher levels of command and disseminating the contents
to lower subordinate formations in either bowdlerized form or orally. This was the procedure
adopted with Orders No 270 and No 227. As Christian Streit has pointed out, written copies of
the Kommissarbefehl were confined to Army headquarters (see Keine Kameraden, p. 49). The
scope of the decree promulgated on 19th April 1943, but not the contents, is cited in A. G.
Bezverkhnii, ed., SMERSH: Istoricheskie ocherki i arkhivnye dokumenty. (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo
Glavarkhiva Moskvy, 2003), p. 73.
142 F. Ellis
the basis of the indictment were promulgated after the crimes were com-
mitted, a point that Mäder highlighted during the final hearing:
I am a lawyer and I understand something of legal matters. I consider

that a German or international court would have legal jurisdiction
over me. We have been tried on the basis of a law passed in 1943 and
what took place happened in 1942. I doubt that the law has retrospec-
tive force.57
The Criminal Procedural Code used in the Körpert case was reissued in
1947 and includes amendments up to 1st November 1946.58 Articles 319
and 320 deal with the specific procedures to be adopted in sentencing, but
other Articles have a direct bearing on the case. For example, Article 2
states that criminal behaviour and any punishment shall be determined in
accordance with the law in force at the time the crime was commissioned.
Only laws which remove a criminal sanction shall have retrospective
force. Now this is the very point—and one that is clearly critical—made
by Mäder. As a matter of fact the alleged crime occurred after the laws
were enacted. Nor do these legal instruments have retrospective force.
The provisions of the Criminal Procedural Code support Mäder not the
Tribunal. The chances are that a German translation of the Code was not
available or that the provisions of the Code were not indicated to Mäder
through a competent interpreter. This hardly constitutes respect for due
process.
According to Article 319, the court verdict shall be based exclusively
on the evidence presented at the hearing. An obvious point here is the
absence of photographic evidence in the case file, a remarkable omission
given, one assumes, the evidence which would have been readily avail-
able and preserved at the time the Red Army took control of Dulag-205 at
the end of January 1943.
In none of the Articles (162–174) dealing with the interrogation of wit-
nesses and experts do we find any provision for a defense counsel (zash-
chitnik) to be present during an interrogation or for the accused to have
access to the files and records of interrogation. Likewise, Articles 57–76,
which deal with evidence, and Articles 77–81, which deal with the man-
ner of keeping records, have nothing to say on either the defendant’s or
his zashchitnik‘s access to the file. Article 59 refers to the “procedure
of collecting, storing and inspecting of material evidence and written
57
58
Ugolovno-protsessual’nyi Kodeks RSFSR, ofitsial’nyi tekst s izmeneniiami na 1 noiabria
1946 g. i s prilozheniem postateino-sistematizirovannykh materialov, IUridicheskoe izda-
tel’stvo Ministerstva IUstitsii SSSR, Moscow, 1947.
Dulag-205 143
documents” and later Articles (66, 67, 68, 70, 71) deal in some detail with
these artifacts, yet omit any corresponding detail regarding “written docu-
ments.” Stipulations to thwart tampering with evidence, indeed, any rec-
ognition that this might be a serious consideration, are absent. One
particular anomaly must be highlighted. Article 57 forbids the use of an
oath as evidence yet raises no concerns over documentary evidence the
veracity of which relies exclusively on a witness’s signature, his written
oath, as it were.
One is also entitled to question a verdict that relies on prisoners’ state-
ments to achieve a conviction. In view of the conditions of their captivity
and the very nature of the Soviet Union, a totalitarian, closed state in a
struggle for survival against an equally ruthless enemy, assurances that
the German officers would be allowed to summon witnesses strike one as
utterly cynical. Nor are they worth much. For example, an investigator
can refuse to hear expert witnesses if this means that the case will be
unduly prolonged (Article 169).
Körpert and his officers had no real chance of mounting an effective
defence, something that Mäder, a lawyer by training hinted at. There is no
evidence in the file that violent and coercive methods were deployed
against the Germans—beatings, sleep deprivation, relay interrogations—
yet given that the NKVD and SMERSH used such methods we are not
entitled to give these organizations the benefit of the doubt in this case.
Such behavior is well documented and not in dispute. Nor can the possi-
bility be discounted, as noted above, that some of the German captives
were being prepared for a show trial, a standard Soviet procedure, which
might have influenced their testimony. Abakumov’s memorandum to
Vyshinksii, the same judge, it should be recalled, who presided over the
show trials in the 1930s, should also be borne in mind.
A key point here is whether the German camp staff, who probably did
encourage or permit arbitrary and brutal treatment of individual Soviet pris-
oners, can be held responsible for the ensuing famine. During the Tribunal
hearing Seidlitz argued that there were three options for saving the prisoners:
(i) to hand them over to the Soviet command;

(ii) to leave the prisoners with the units that captured them;
(iii) to reduce by several grams the rations of German soldiers.59
As he noted, none of these options could be carried out by him. The

Soviet Tribunal’s view was that all the German officers, regardless of
rank and responsibilities, were guilty. This is the application of collective
guilt, based on the construct of class war and class struggle, providing
59
144 F. Ellis
another reason, one among many, why the Soviet Union did not accede to
the Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners. Article 46 of this
Convention expressly prohibits collective penalties for individual acts.
The Soviet Union, according to one view, did not accede to the Con-
vention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners because “the document
dispensed with any form of punitive measures with regard to prisoners”
and, secondly, because the document “accords a privileged position to
captured officers.”60 Stalin’s regime preferred to be bound by the Hague
Convention since it was less prescriptive regarding the treatment of pris-
oners. Moreover, at the time when the question of the Soviet Union’s
accession to this Convention was back on the Soviet agenda, Stalin had
just prepared and was about to issue an order [No 270], “which would
soon declare almost all Red Army soldiers and commanders who ended
up in enemy hands to be traitors and betrayers of the Motherland.”61
Much more in the Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners
would have made it unacceptable to the Soviet Union. For example, Chapter
4 provided for the intellectual and moral needs of prisoners of war which
would have been most unwelcome. Freedom of conscience—required by
Article 16—was of course absent in the Soviet Union, so a situation would
have arisen in which prisoners of war under the control of the Red Army
would have enjoyed greater freedoms than their captors(!). Likewise Article
17 instructs signatories that belligerents are to encourage “intellectual and
sporting pursuits by the prisoners of war.” Given the way the Red Army and
NKVD formations behaved in Poland and the Baltics, then Article 46 would
have posed a legal challenge for the execution of Körpert et al.: “Prisoners of
war shall not be subjected by the military authorities or the tribunals of the
detaining Power to penalties other than those which are prescribed for simi-
lar acts by members of the national forces.” In other words, if the NKVD and
Red Army can execute Polish officers and escape punishment, there would
be no basis for executing Körpert and his officers. This idea is reinforced in
Article 63: “A sentence shall only be pronounced on a prisoner of war by the
same tribunals and in accordance with the same procedure as in the case of
persons belonging to the armed forces of the detaining Power.” Sentences
involving the death penalty were often carried out immediately or with very
little delay (as in the case of Körpert et al.) with no right of appeal which
would have been violations of the Convention. Any death sentence must not
be carried out before the expiry of “at least three months” (Article 66).
60
Major-General Zolotarev, ed., Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, vol. 13(2), Nem-
etskie voennoplennye v SSSR 1941–1955 gg., Sbornik dokumentov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA,
Moscow, 1999, p. 14.
61
Major-General Zolotarev, ed., Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, vol. 13(2), Nem-
etskie voennoplennye v SSSR 1941–1955 gg., Sbornik dokumentov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA,
Moscow, 1999, p. 14.
Dulag-205 145
Article 69 provides for medical commissions to inspect the prisoners.

The commissions are to consist of representatives from two neutral states
and one from the detaining power. These inspections would have enabled
the commissions to travel widely throughout the Soviet Union, albeit
under supervision, and would have been regarded by the Soviet side as a
major security problem. Had the Soviet Union signed the Annex to the
Convention, there would have been no basis for keeping Germans cap-
tured at Stalingrad and elsewhere until 1956.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that by not signing the remaining
Geneva Convention concerning the Treatment of Prisoners the Soviet Union
sought to secure unilateral advantages. In a diplomatic note to the American

embassy in November 1941 the Soviet side rejected the American posi-
tion—that the reason the Germans are flouting international norms and
treaty obligations—is because the Soviet Union has not ratified the remain-
ing Geneva Convention of 1929. The Soviet side argued that the provisions
of the 4th Hague Convention (1907) coincide “with the fundamental princi-
ples and statutes in relation to prisoners of war of the 1929 Geneva Conven-
tion.”62 The note also pointed out—correctly—that regardless of whether
belligerents had signed the Geneva Convention the fact that Germany had
participated in the Convention meant that Germany was obliged regardless
of whether the Soviet Union was a participant in the Convention or not
“… fully to observe all the rules and statutes on the strength of Article
82 contained therein, which establishes that during war that if one of
the belligerents is not a signatory to the Convention the statutes
thereof shall nevertheless remain obligatory as between the belligerent
countries which participate in the Convention.”63
Article 9, which provides for the segregation of prisoners along racial

lines, is another reason cited for the Soviet Union’s refusal to sign up to
the Convention. This, it is argued, would be a violation of Article 123 of
the Soviet Constitution. Given that ethnic identity and racial criteria
played a crucial role in Stalin’s plans—one thinks here of the fate of Pol-
ish officers and later that of the Chechens between November 1943 – June
1944—this objection is hardly convincing.64
62
‘Otvetnaia nota narkomata inostrannykh del SSSR posolstvu SShA v Sovetskom soiuze s
raz’iasneniem pozitsii v otnoshenii zhenevskoi konventsii 1929 g., 25 noiabria 1941 g.’ Zolo-
tarev, ed., Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, vol. 13(2), Nemetskie voennoplennye v SSSR
1941–1955 gg., Sbornik dokumentov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA, Moscow, 1999, p. 33.
63
Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, vol 13(2), Nemetskie voennoplennye v SSSR 1941–
1955 gg., Sbornik dokumentov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA, Moscow, 1999, p. 34.
64
Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, vol 13(2), Nemetskie voennoplennye v SSSR 1941–
1955 gg., Sbornik dokumentov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA, Moscow, 1999, p. 34.
146 F. Ellis
Of considerable relevance for the procedures employed in the Körpert

case are the points raised by Andrei Vyshinskii in a memorandum to
Molotov in December 1942. The memorandum dealt with the cases of
five German prisoners who were executed, variously, for counter-revolu-
tionary agitation, sabotage, failure to meet work norms, preparing to
escape and in one case an escape attempt. In the memorandum it is
acknowledged that both Soviet law and the IV Hague Convention require
that belligerents whose soldiers have been executed be notified. Even
though the Soviet Union did not sign the Geneva Convention dealing with
the Treatment of Prisoners, there is a requirement to pass news of death
sentences to the state protecting the interests of the belligerent (Article

66). (Vyshinskii recommended not informing Bulgaria, the state looking
after Germany’s interests). The real cause for alarm is not that German
soldiers were executed but that any third, neutral party which scrutinised
the records might not be convinced:
Regarding the above-mentioned cases it is necessary to point out that

the verdicts have been put together unsatisfactorily, superficially and
are barely convincing. Were these verdicts to become known beyond
the borders of the Soviet Union, then it would be possible to use them
for the basis of propaganda hostile to the Soviet Union.65
Decoded, Vyshinskii’s message is clear: by all means execute German

prisoners when necessary but make sure that the paperwork is in order.
Crucial to the defense was the fact that German soldiers were also
dying of starvation; that, remarkably, the camp staff were ignorant
thereof; and that the prosecution clearly withheld this information. Even
if he wanted to ameliorate the famine raging among the prisoners in
Dulag-205—and Körpert seemed to have been indifferent to their fate—
there was not much that he could have done. The food was not available.
Moreover there is documentary evidence that Soviet soldiers serving in
the 66th Army at Stalingrad, a formation under Rokossovskii’s command,
were dying of starvation.66 Not on the scale of the famine in Dulag-205,
such cases—32 recorded in all—reflect a profound contempt on the part
of senior Soviet officers for the well-being of their own men. Exploiting the
fact that Körpert had been kept in the dark about the death by starvation of
65
‘Sluzhebnaia zapiska zamestitelia narodnogo komissara inostrannykh del Vyshinskogo
No 707-v narodnomu komissaru inostrannykh del SSSR Molotovu o problemakh, voznikshikh
v rezultate vynesenii smertnykh prigovorov riadu voennoplennykh, 5–6 dekabria 1942 g.’ See
Zolotarev, ed., Russkii Arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, vol. 13(2), Nemetskie voennoplennye v
SSSR 1941–1955 gg., Sbornik dokumentov, Kniga pervaia, TERRA, Moscow, 1999, p. 49.
66
‘Dokladnaia zapiska OO NKVD DF v UOO NKVD SSSR o nastupatel’nykh operatsiiakh
66-i armii, 30 oktiabria 1942 g., Stalingradskaia epopeia, p. 259.
Dulag-205 147
German soldiers and aware that such things had occurred in the Red
Army, a determined and aggressive defense counsel could have turned the
tables on the prosecution.
CONCLUSION
Even now, many decades after the end of World War Two, one detects a
reluctance on the part of German veterans to acknowledge the complicity
of the Wehrmacht in the abominable treatment of Soviet prisoners of war.
In, for example, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on
the Eastern Front, a memoir based on his experiences as a machine-gun-

ner at Stalingrad which was published as recently as 1998, the author,
Günter Koschorrek, tried to dissociate himself and his comrades from the
brutal treatment of Soviet prisoners of war. Koschorrek would have the
reader believe that tales of such treatment at the hands of Germans were
largely Soviet horror propaganda, designed to deter Red Army soldiers
from deserting. Moreover, he implied that where brutal treatment of
Soviet prisoners of war did occur, it was carried out by the SS, or even the
units in the rear: “We had no idea what the drill was in the rear areas: on
the front line it was all you could do to stay alive.”67 In the context of
Stalingrad Koschorrek’s reference to the SS is in any case misleading for
the simple reason that no SS units served in 6th Army. On the wider issue,
the treatment of Soviet prisoners generally, then what took place in
Dulag-205, nominally a transit camp, in effect a death camp, in 6th
Army’s “rear area,” makes a mockery of Koschorrek’s claims.
Any historian who studies the organised bestiality which was the basis of
Nazi policies towards Soviet soldiers and civilians on the Eastern front runs
the risk of becoming inured, almost desensitised, to the endless testimony
of mass executions, starvation, casual beatings and countless other ways in
which the invaders contrived to make the inhabitants of their new empire
suffer. Like a sentry whose senses are dulled by fatigue and cold but was
must keep his watch, the historian is obliged to resist imagination fatigue.
Soviet prisoners in Dulag-205 were disposable slave labor. They were
made to work on rations so inadequate that with the onset of the steppe
winter death by starvation was inevitable. They existed in unbelievable
filth and overcrowding. In winter drinking water was obtained from
melted snow which very soon became too dangerous to use because of the
contamination hazard posed by an accumulation of human excrement and
urine. Prisoners were beaten by the guards, and terrorized by their dogs as
67
Günter Koschorrek, Vergiß die Zeit der Dornen nicht (1998), published in English as Blood
Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front, translated by Olav R. Crone-
Aamot. (London: Greenhill Books, 2002), p. 229.
148 F. Ellis
a matter of course. Dissenters, slackers, or prisoners too exhausted to

work were shot on the spot. Bearing in mind that the Alekseevka camp
was one very small island in the Wehrmacht’s DULAG-Archipelago, one
gets some idea of the lot that befell Soviet prisoners. Truly, they were the
legions of the damned.
The legal instruments which were drafted in 1929 at Geneva by men of
good will, some of whom we may assume had experienced the attrition
battles in World War One, could not have foreseen the nature of the
1941–1945 war on the Eastern front. Hitler’s Vernichtungskrieg awak-
ened a primeval desire for revenge that could not but be propitiated. How-
ever incomplete, flawed, and arbitrary Soviet justice meted out to Körpert
and his officers is, it nevertheless obeys the logic of the total war initiated
by the Nazis themselves. Could it have been otherwise?

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The Journal of Slavic Military

Dulag-205: The German

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DULAG-205: THE GERMAN ARMY’S DEATH CAMP FOR

On the basis of German 6th Army’s Tagesmeldungen and Lagemeldungen

footage of a long line of freezing and starving German soldiers, many

that has only very recently been acknowledged in published, declassified

returning to Soviet lines. The operational presumption on the part of the

encouraging. Caught between the racial ideology of the Nazi invader

On 31 January 1943 the German officers responsible for running Dulag-205

Frister (1896–1944); the officer responsible for work details, Hauptmann

[ … ] that over a long period of time Soviet military prisoners, located

The considerable delay between the capture of the German officers

information and hard intelligence would be of greater importance for any

THE INTERROGATION OF OBERST KÖRPERT ET AL.

Körpert, the camp commandant, was first interrogated on 23 June 1943.

were in fact two conventions signed by a number of states at Geneva on

Today historians acknowledge that of the 5.7 million Soviet prisoners of

One remarkable aspect of Mäder’s testimony was that he makes no

In a third interrogation which took place on 18th September 1944 Mäder

no references to the Hague or Geneva Conventions. Again, as in the case

THE INTERROGATION OF FORMER DULAG-205 SURVIVORS

Pisanovskii ceased to be a Red Army soldier from the moment he was

There were public executions in the camp. In January 1943 on about

response to a question from SMERSH officers, Pisanovskii confirmed

Krupachenko, already cited, added to this picture of arbitrary execution:

cruel treatment of the prisoners on the part of the camp administra-

Krupachenko also provided detailed testimony on arbitrary shootings,

name I don’t know collapsed from tiredness and exhaustion and

On about the 18th December 1942 a group of about 6 prisoners

In his interrogation (8 August 1943) Kucheriaev asserted that officers

Prisoners were not only beaten in the presence of German officers. I

Wounded in an attack on the German lines in December 1942, Alekseev

On 15th December [1942] several corpses were discovered from which

Alekseev confirmed the gruesome picture:

THE MILITARY TRIBUNAL

On 23 September 1944, General-Lieutenant Belkin, the head of SMERSH

“having implemented the policy of German fascism concerning the exter-

During the hearing Seidlitz and Müsenthin seemed to have abandoned

As soon as I ended up serving in the camp I understood that this was a

Mäder put the blame on von Paulus:

starvation, beatings and executions.

Körpert, Frister, Müsenthin, Mäder, Seidlitz and Wohlfarth were sen-

REHABILITATION AND THE LEGAL PROCESS

Regarding, in the first instance, the absence of any declarations from an

The Geneva Convention was mentioned in Körpert’s interrogation and its

I am a lawyer and I understand something of legal matters. I consider

(i) to hand them over to the Soviet command;

As he noted, none of these options could be carried out by him. The

Article 69 provides for medical commissions to inspect the prisoners.

sought to secure unilateral advantages. In a diplomatic note to the American

Article 9, which provides for the segregation of prisoners along racial

Of considerable relevance for the procedures employed in the Körpert

sentences to the state protecting the interests of the belligerent (Article

Regarding the above-mentioned cases it is necessary to point out that

Decoded, Vyshinskii’s message is clear: by all means execute German

the Eastern Front, a memoir based on his experiences as a machine-gun-

a matter of course. Dissenters, slackers, or prisoners too exhausted to

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