ARMEE-GEFANGENENSAMMELSTELLE (AGSSt) 53
The Wehrmacht formed AGSSt 53 with an order dated August 27, 1944. On November 17, 1944, the camp was assigned field post number (Feldpostnummer) 66 819.1 AGSSt 53 deployed to various locations in Poland and Germany.
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 53 is located in BA-MA; WASt; and BArch B 162/28927: Ermittlungen gg. ehem. Angehörige der Armeegefangenensammelstelle 53 wg. des Verdachts der Beteiligung an NS-Verbrechen; and 28819–28820: Anforderung von Erkennungsmarkenverzeichnissen und Urlisten bei der Deutschen Dienststelle (WASt) zur Überprüfung von Armeegefangenensammelstellen.
Additional information about AGSSt 53 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. 36.
NOTES
1. BA-MA, RH 49/3: Armee-Kriegsgefangenensammelstelle; Mattiello and Vogt, Deutsche Kriegsgefangenen- und Internierten-Einrichtungen, p. 36.
