ARMEE-GEFANGENENSAMMELSTELLE (AGSSt) 40
The Germans established AGSSt 40 on September 20, 1944, from the staff of Dulag 314. It received field post number (Feldpostnummer) 41 454 on September 22.1 The unit was under the Second Army Rear Area Commander (Kommandant rückwärtiges Armeegebiet, Korück, 580). AGSSt 40 was deployed in various locations in central Poland and western Prussia.
AGSSt 40 held Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). Documentation regarding the conditions in the camp are not available. In general, by this late point in the war, conditions had improved over the terrible conditions that were prevalent in 1941 and 1942, but Soviet POWs were still not given housing, food, clothing, or medical care of sufficient quality or quantity, and certainly not of the quality that Western Allied prisoners received.
The date on which the Germans disbanded the camp is unknown; existing records indicate that it was still operating as of the end of 1944.
SOURCES
Primary source material about AGSSt 40 is located in BA-MA; WASt Berlin; and BArch B 162/28912: Ermittlungen gg. ehem. Angehörige der Armeegefangenensammelstelle 40 wg. des Verdachts der Beteiligung an NS-Verbrechen.
Additional information about AGSSt 40 can be found in the following publication: Gianfranco Mattiello and Wolfgang Vogt, Deutsche Kriegsgefangenen- und Internierten-Einrichtungen 1939–1945. Handbuch und Katalog: Lagergeschichte und Lagerzensurstempel, vol. 2 (Koblenz, self-published, 1987), p. 34.
NOTES
1. BA-MA, RH 49/3: Armee-Kriegsgefangenensammel-stelle; Mattiello and Vogt, Deutsche Kriegsgefangenen- und Internierten-Einrichtungen, p. 34.
