DURCHGANGSLAGER (DULAG) VIII A
The Wehrmacht created Dulag VIII A on August 26, 1939, in Defense District (Wehrkreis) VIII and deployed it to Görlitz (map 4e). (Because of bureaucratic confusion, the designations “Dulag C” and “Dulag Reichenbach” are also associated with this camp.) On September 23, 1939, the camp was converted into a permanent enlisted men’s camp, Stalag VIII A.1 Dulag VIII A was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War in Defense District VIII (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Wehrkreis VIII).
Dulag VIII A held Polish prisoners of war captured during the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. Specific information about the conditions in this camp is not available. Generally speaking, Polish prisoners of war were treated poorly at this stage in the war; they often did not receive adequate food and were usually sent to work as agricultural laborers shortly after their arrival in the camps.
SOURCES
Primary source material about Dulag VIII A is located in BA-MA (RH 49), WASt Berlin, and the State Archive of Wrocław.
Additional information about Dulag VIII A can be found in the following publications: Stanisław Senft and Horst Więcek, Obozy jenieckie na obszarze śląskiego okręgu Wehrmachtu 1939–1945 (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1972); 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. 67; Juliusz Pollack, Jeńcy polscy w hitlerowskiej niewoli (Warsaw: MON, 1986); and Rüdiger Overmans, “Die Kriegsgefangenenpolitik des Deutschen Reiches 1939 bis 1945,” Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg Vol. IX/2 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2005), pp. 729–875.
NOTES
1. Mattiello and Vogt, Deutsche Kriegsgefangenen- und Internierten-Einrichtungen, p. 67.
