ARMEE-GEFANGENENSAMMELSTELLE (AGSSt) 48
The Wehrmacht ordered the establishment of AGSSt 48 on August 27, 1944. On September 29, 1944, it was assigned field post number (Feldpostnummer) 48 382.1 AGSSt 48 was deployed in various locations in the rear area of Army Group Center (Heeresgruppe Mitte).
The camp held Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). Documentation regarding the conditions in the camp is not available. In general, by this late point in the war, conditions had improved over those 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 POWs received.
The date on which the Wehrmacht disbanded the camp is unknown; existing records indicate that it was still in operation as of the end of 1944.
SOURCES
Primary source material about AGSSt 48 is located in BA-MA; WASt; and BArch B 162/28921: Ermittlungen gg. ehem. Angehörige der Armeegefangenensammelstelle 48 wg. des Verdachts der Beteiligung an NS-Verbrechen.
Additional information about AGSSt 48 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. 35.
NOTES
1. BA-MA, RH 49/3: Armee-Kriegsgefangenensammelstelle; Mattiello and Vogt, Deutsche Kriegsgefangenen- und Internierten-Einrichtungen, p. 35.
