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

The Wehrmacht established Frontstalag 153 (see map 2) on July 20, 1940. It was headquartered in the city of Chartres (Eure-et-Loir Département), southwest of Paris. It absorbed Frontstalags 200 and 151 in the second half of 1941 and existed until August 12, 1943, when it was taken over by Frontstalag 133 (Rennes Département).

The main camps and commandos of Frontstalag 153 were located in Chartres and nearby Morancez; it also controlled three additional subcamps in Orléans, Salbris, and Bourges, which were inherited from Frontstalag 151.

Frontstalag 153 received field post number (Feldpostnummer) 27 278 between April 28 and September 24, 1940. The number was struck between July 31, 1942, and February 9, 1943. The branch field post number (Sammelfeldpostnummer) for Chartres, 18 129 E, issued between May 1 and October 19, 1942, and struck between January 10 and September 26, 1943, was also applicable.

Little is known about the first months of Frontstalag 153. The first round of inspections by the Scapini Mission occurred in March 1941 and revealed several problems. The camp in Morancez then held 1,112 North Africans and 267 Frenchmen working in agriculture and construction. Although the prisoners’ wooden barracks were in good shape, the camp had poor hygiene and insufficient food supplies, especially for the Frenchmen. The fact that the North Africans were receiving more aid packages created jealousy, and the inspector was alarmed by the strong tensions between the two groups. The morale of the North African prisoners was good, but the Frenchmen were unhappy.¹ A letter from a former man of confidence in Morancez, Sergeant-chef Durieux, offered more detail on the situation inside the camp. Durieux pointed out that the prisoners had no dishes and needed to eat their soup either out of metal boxes or out of the bowls that they also used as urinals. He confirmed that hygiene was very bad and that the barracks and sleeping bags urgently needed disinfection. Durieux put a different light on the animosity between French and North African prisoners by pointing out that the latter resented the fact that Frenchmen who were fathers of “children-rich” families were obtaining dismissal under the Agreement of November 16, 1940, whereas North Africans generally did not.²

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Frontstalag 153 at Chartres. Camp entrance, May, 1941.

COURTESY OF ICRC.

Further south, in Voves (Eure-et-Loir Département), a commando of 2,700 North Africans complained about insufficient food and tobacco deliveries. The camp inspector told the prisoners that their rations were not worse than in other camps and that they had no right to free tobacco (which was correct because Article 11 of the Geneva Convention of 1929 only stipulated that the use of tobacco must be allowed, not that the detaining power was responsible for providing it). The inspector acknowledged that the German camp authorities were highly committed to improving the prisoners’ situation.³ In general, the French camp inspectors were impressed by the Frontstalag commander, Major Schwabe, who received much praise for his efforts to improve the conditions in the Frontstalag.⁴ Another aspect noted by the inspector of Morancez and confirmed later on was the fact that the [End Page 164] high school (lycée) of Chartres was exceptionally helpful with the prisoners in Morancez and Chartres by sending them shipments of food and books.⁵

In May 1941, Frontstalag 153 received a transport of 800 prisoners from Montargis. The German administration felt overwhelmed because the ambiguous spelling of many prisoners’ names made their registration difficult. This was a frequent problem with colonial prisoners because most of them were illiterate and were registered under different spellings of their last names. The Frontstalag command suspected that the colonial prisoners deliberately used different spellings and names in order to fool the authorities and prevent potential punishments.⁶ A transport of 500 prisoners from Frontstalag 135 (Quimper) arrived a few weeks later, revealing that the German authorities perceived a major need for labor in the region of Chartres.⁷

An International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) inspection on May 21, 1941, noted that the Frontstalag had 3,375 prisoners, predominantly Algerians and some West Africans (144) and Madagascans (10). The ICRC inspectors noted that there were only 185 Frenchmen still in the camp. They did not work outside the camps but were mostly serving as cadres for the colonial prisoners.⁸ The next round of inspections by the Scapini Mission revealed that the number of prisoners in Frontstalag 153 was significantly higher, however (4,666 in July 1941, with 4,495 North Africans and 110 West Africans and a few prisoners from Madagascar, Indochina, and Martinique). The number of prisoners increased to 6,734 after the takeover of Frontstalag 151 in April 1942, including 2,885 Algerians, 1,350 West Africans, 1,137 Moroccans, 973 Tunisians, 214 Indochinese, and 113 Martinicans, but declined to 5,037 on December 1, 1942.⁹

By October 1941, the conditions in this Frontstalag had greatly improved, not least because of the efforts of Major Schwabe. The Frontstalag now controlled a vast number of small rural commandos (15–25 prisoners each) in the regions around Chartres, with some commandos up to 130 kilometers (81 miles) away. Conditions were good. Prisoners worked mostly for farmers, who also fed them. Sleeping quarters were in most cases simple but decent. The inspector noted the need for new shirts, underwear, socks, and sometimes shoes, and he heard many complaints from prisoners coming from the more distant areas of the French Empire about the lack of postal contact with their families. Only from one place (not visited in October) was the news not good. In Laverdines (Cher Département), a woman wrote to the Scapini Mission that the 28 West Africans in the local work unit had to do very hard work (tearing beets out of the ground) and were receiving too little food. The Scapini Mission started an inquiry, and conditions improved quickly.¹⁰ A large work detachment (1,000 prisoners, including 865 North Africans and 110 West Africans) existed in Chateaudun, a town northwest of Orléans that had a Luftwaffe base, but this work unit did not receive an inspection.¹¹

The camps in Orléans and Bourges, formerly part of Frontstalag 151, offered good conditions by the fall of 1941.

In November, Orléans had 1,426 prisoners, including 541 Moroccans, 312 West Africans, 206 Tunisians, 143 Algerians, 132 Indochinese, 59 Madagascans, and 15 Martinicans, who were working partly on the local airport, a major Luftwaffe base, or at a local silk factory. The barracks in which the prisoners slept were outdated but still serviceable. Religious services were available to Muslims and Christians. In Bourges, there were 985 prisoners, including 321 West Africans, 320 Algerians, 292 Tunisians, 32 Moroccans, 7 Frenchmen, 6 Martinicans, 5 Madagascans, and 2 people from Guadeloupe, working in agriculture around the town or in factories.¹² A fairly large commando existed also in Salbris (Loir-et-Cher Département). A woman driving trucks for an aid organization for African prisoners noted that the prisoners (149 Madagascans, 156 West Africans, 28 Martinicans, 13 Indochinese, and 1 Frenchman) had very good relations with their guards but seemed vulnerable to the cold and to diseases.¹³

A new round of inspections, in February 1942, revealed stable conditions but showed that the prisoners’ shoes were deteriorating rapidly and that replacements were urgently needed. The diet of the prisoners working for farmers remained excellent. In some places, the prisoners received meat three times a day at a time when the average meat ration of French civilians was less than 30 grams (1 ounce) a day.¹⁴ A few prisoners who were involved in drainage projects had a much poorer food supply, however, because they were not fed daily by the farmers and were dependent on less regular food shipments from the German army and from aid organizations. In the military hospitals of Orléans and Chartres, the inspectors also noted an alarming reduction in the food rations for sick prisoners.¹⁵ In Morancez, which held only 546 prisoners at this time (mostly North Africans as well as 10 Frenchmen and 5 West Africans), the food supply was still bad. The inspectors reported also that the prisoners received Arabic newspapers printed in Berlin.¹⁶ The food supply had improved in the camp of Orléans by January 1943, but it was still bad in Chartres as a consequence of the arrival of 800 prisoners from a camp in Charleville.¹⁷ In the course of a reorganization of camps aiming to concentrate prisoners from the same territories in the same camps (among other reasons to facilitate food supplies fit for certain ethnic cooking habits), the Germans assembled 1,165 Madagascans in Frontstalag 153 in June 1942. It is not clear whether the arrival of the prisoners from Charleville had anything to do with this effort. In any case, Frontstalag 153 never included all of the Madagascans in German captivity.¹⁸

A unique collection of German headquarters (Kommandantur) orders for the region of Chartres offers a glimpse into the lives of the guards in this Frontstalag in 1942 and 1943. Major Schwabe, who became military commander of the entire district, became increasingly irritated by the guards’ laxness. In many cases, guards either did not shoot at prisoners trying to escape or missed them from a short distance—perhaps deliberately. Schwabe repeatedly pointed out that regulations demanded that guards shoot immediately during escape attempts, and he punished several negligent guards [End Page 165] and ordered exercises to improve the guards’ poor marksmanship. In one case, a guard allowed five prisoners to urinate behind some bushes and thereby let them escape. Schwabe’s orders reveal countless problems with guards who drank too much and liked to play pranks. For example, several guards of Frontstalag 153 made a joke of putting fleas from POW camps into the letters to their families, causing alarm about the transfer of infectious diseases to Germany.¹⁹

Some orders offer insight into the guards’ leisure activities, such as going to the cinema and singing in a chorale, which were activities that also involved German women stationed in France (Fronthelferinnen). Orders even included advice on where to bathe and a warning not to eat bird eggs found in the wilderness; instead, the order in all seriousness suggested that one should send dubious eggs by mail to the Wehrmacht veterinary services in Paris for examination before consuming them.²⁰

In 1943, two changes affected Frontstalag 153. First, prisoners were performing significantly more war-related work than before; second, several work detachments came under the guard of French officers or noncommissioned officers (NCOs). While prisoners in the war-related commandos, as elsewhere, received much higher pay and were fed well, especially if they worked for the Luftwaffe, their tasks were more dangerous than other types of work. In Salbris, for example, a Madagascan prisoner work detachment was loading and unloading ammunition in early 1943. Their food supply was unusually good, but they slept in barracks close to an ammunition depot. One prisoner was killed during a bombing attack later, at a time when the camp belonged to Frontstalag 133.²¹ In Salbris and in La-Guerche-sur-l’Aubois, some prisoners under French guards were also working in factories producing pieces for cannons and tanks.²² In Bourges, a work detail had to handle mines at the local airport. Conditions were good, apart from the dangers associated with the work. The archival files contain several photos from this detail depicting prisoners with soccer balls, apparently playing for a camp championship.²³ In La Ferté-Saint-Aubin (Loiret Département), a detail of 24 Algerians worked in an ammunition factory. They had two French officers and one German officer as cadres. The prisoners were allowed to go to town unaccompanied after work. In Bourges, another commando of 35 West Africans also worked in an ammunition factory. They were “guarded” by one German NCO but were allowed to go to town on their own after work and on Sundays. The factory fed the prisoners well. In Vierzon (Cher Département), a work detail under French cadres also worked in an ammunition factory.²⁴

In several cases, the camp inspectors criticized the French cadres for being indifferent and for having no understanding of the needs and mentalities of the colonial prisoners. The inspectors often compared the French cadres unfavorably to the German guards. In several places, the presence of French cadres for the colonial prisoners triggered public hostility because of immoral behavior. In Guérigny (Nièvre Département), for example, civilians accused two French officers of exploiting and abusing the prisoners and of withholding tobacco from them. Possibly encouraged by outraged civilians, the prisoners went on strike, prompting the two French officers to arrest the suspected strike leaders and to call the Frontstalag command. Surprisingly, the Germans carefully investigated the case and, as a result, dismissed the French officers, sent German guards to the work detail, and restored order and propriety. Hearing about similar abuses in other work details, the Germans dismissed more French guards and replaced them with their own soldiers, much to the satisfaction of the prisoners and civilians. These cases were highly embarrassing for the reputation of the French army and caused concerns for the future of the French colonial empire.²⁵

The most notorious case of abuse by a French cadre happened in Salbris in the fall of 1943, when a French NCO named Desbois shot a prisoner named Abderhaman ben Amor. Desbois declared that he had felt threatened by the prisoner and that ben Amor had tried to escape. Desbois and another French NCO watched the wounded prisoner and then walked away, while ben Amor bled to death. The incident triggered an investigation during which the German authorities—as in similar cases involving German guards—supported Desbois, arguing that he had been right in suspecting an escape attempt and that he had warned ben Amor before firing. The Scapini Mission was outraged by Desbois’s behavior and tried to punish him, apparently without success.²⁶

In 1943, Frontstalag 153 also received some British colonial prisoners transferred from Italy. In the hospital of Orléans, the French inspectors found a large number of undernourished South African soldiers having just arrived from Italy. They were treated together with sick French colonial prisoners, with whom they established good relations. An officer camp in Orléans also housed some British colonial officers alongside French officers. The French officers were jealous, however, because the British received far more letters and aid packages from home than they did.²⁷

Frontstalag 153 was administratively dissolved on August 12, 1943. Frontstalag 133, formerly based in Rennes, took over the camps and work detachments of Frontstalag 153 and moved its headquarters to Chartres and Orléans.