The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945

The Germans established Dulag 185 on March 23, 1941, from Frontstalag 185.¹ After Germany invaded the USSR on June 22, 1941, the unit was deployed to various locations in Belorussia and Russia. In the summer and fall of 1941, the camp deployed to Białystok (map 4c), Stolbtsy (9b), and Mogilev (9b). It was later stationed in Orël and Karachev (both 9c). Beginning in late 1943, the camp was deployed in various towns in Greece, and then in Zagreb (7). The unit received field post number (Feldpostnummer) 10 427 between July 15, 1942, and January 24, 1943. The number was struck on March 1, 1945. On November 15, 1944, the Germans ordered the camp to be disbanded.

Beginning in June 1941, the camp was under the 221st Security Division (Sicherungsdivision). As of February 1943, the camp was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War [End Page 102] in Operations Area III (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Operationsgebiet III), and as of November 20, 1943, to the Army Group F Rear Area Commander (Befehlshaber des rückwärtigen Heeresgebiets, Berück, F). Later it was under the Commander of the Rear Area of Army Group E.² The camp commandant, at least in 1941 and 1942, was Major Wittmer. In 1941 and 1942, the camp was guarded by the 302nd Reserve Battalion (Landesschützenbataillon).

While deployed in the occupied Soviet Union, the camp held Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). Conditions in the camp were similar to those in other camps for Soviet POWs. The prisoners were severely undernourished; according to one estimate in November 1941, the prisoners who were assigned to work received around 1,600 calories a day, while the prisoners who were not working received around 1,400. The food in the camp at that time consisted of potatoes, potato flour, millet, and salt. Medical care was also minimal. In November 1941, a delousing station was installed in the camp hospital (Lazarett) in an attempt to prevent the spread of typhus among the prisoners; however, its capacity was only about 360 prisoners per day, and therefore only a small percentage of the prisoners could be deloused.³ By the winter of that year, typhus was rampant. The prisoners’ housing was also substandard, and shortages of wood meant that the prisoners had no fuel available for heating during the coldest months of the year. Abuse by the German guards exacerbated their problems. This was especially true in the fall of 1941 and the winter of 1941–1942.⁴ For example, between October 21 and November 18, 1941, alone, 1,500 of the 30,000 prisoners died, a death rate of 50 prisoners per day.⁵

As in other camps, the Germans screened prisoners to weed out Jews and political commissars, who they then shot near the camp.⁶ For example, while the camp was deployed in Białystok, 3rd Company of the 322nd Police Battalion, which guarded the camp from July 9 to July 16, 1941, shot 64 Jewish prisoners who were “attempting to escape.” In another incident in July 1941, members of Police Battalion 309 shot five prisoners who were also allegedly “trying to escape.” On July 10, 1941, the head of the Order Police (Ordnungspolizei), Kurt Daluege, visited the camp, accompanied by Generalleutnant der Polizei Riege and SS-Gruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski. Daluege gave instructions to form a company of prisoners of Ukrainian nationality to assist in guarding the camp. At that time there were 14,000 prisoners in the camp; 11,000 more arrived on the night of July 12, 1941.⁷

While the camp was stationed in Mogilev in November 1941, “with the commandant’s consent,” the camp was inspected by Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst, SD) Einsatzkommando 8 “for the purpose of bringing to light Jews and active members of political organizations; 196 persons were unmasked and shot.”⁸ However, a conflict arose between the camp commandant and the SD as a result of the commandant’s reluctance to cooperate with the SD in the matter of handing over “undesirable” prisoners. After the SD lodged a complaint against the camp commandant, Heinrich Himmler ordered an investigation. This investigation, however, was unsuccessful, evidently because Wittmer was acquainted with Daluege and his wife. The investigation had no effect on Wittmer’s career; in 1943 he was already an Oberstleutnant and the deputy Prisoner of War District Commander P (Kriegsgefangenen-Bezirks-Kommandant P).

Little information came to light on the unit’s time in Greece, but from December 12, 1943, to March 26, 1944, it had a branch camp (Zweiglager) on the island of Leros.