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

The Wehrmacht established Oflag 55 (map 4f) in Offenburg, in Defense District (Wehrkreis) V, with an order March 23, 1941, of the General Army Office (Allgemeines Beeresamt, AHA). The order initially just designated the duty station of the “Commandant Oflag 55 (V D).”¹ The process of getting the camp organized and open took some time in this case; it began on April 1, 1941, and was completed on May 1, 1942.

The camp retained the dual designation “Oflag 55 (V D)” until it was shut down. This approach was not a common practice. It is probably accounted for by the fact that this camp, when it was organized, was intended also for deployment outside the territory of the Reich. Evidence of that is provided by the allocation of a field post number (Feldpostnummer): 10 154, issued between February 1 and July 11, 1941, and canceled again between January 27 and July 14, 1942.² Deployment outside Reich territory never took place, however; the camp never left Defense District V.

The camp began operation in Offenburg, at a site in the part of town known as Holderstock. Wooden barracks served as housing for the prisoners. On March 12, 1942, the camp was transferred to Biberach an der Riss. In the process, it took over the former camp area of Oflag V B, which had already been moved to Schaulen (today Šiauliai, Lithuania). The accommodations for the prisoners there consisted of wooden barracks on the grounds of a former military barracks facility on Birkenhardstrasse (also called “Camp Lindele” by the local residents).

Throughout, the camp was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen) in Defense District V. Oberstleutnant z.V. Alfred Teubner was commandant of the camp from April 12, 1941, to May 15, 1942. He was succeeded by Oberstleutnant z.V. Karl Gebhard who served from May 16, 1942, until September 1942, when he was replaced by Oberst Count Vitzum von Eckstädt.³

To date, little is known about the guard force. On the basis of the size of the camp, however, one must assume that it was carried out by one company of a reserve battalion (Landesschützenbataillon).

Oflag 55 (V D) was a decidedly small camp, on average, holding only around 1,000 officers and 100 orderlies (enlisted personnel), according to the monthly reports of the Armed Forces High Command (OKW) to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).⁴ For the most part, the prisoners of war (POWs) were Yugoslav nationals (from 1941 to 1942). In August 1942, they were joined by approximately 80 French officers with 40 enlisted men as well as 15 Greek officers from Crete.

The majority of the Yugoslav officers were transferred in from Oflag XIII B on May 28, 1941. These were so-called anti-German POWs, whom the Germans separated from the other prisoners. Oflag XIII B had significant security problems due to openly expressed conflicts between Yugoslav groups with political differences. This transfer was an attempt to solve this problem.

Under the Geneva Convention, the officers were not required to work, and there were no work details in Oflag 55 (V [End Page 214] D). Activities in support of internal camp operations, however, were customary.

The treatment of the POWs was similar to that in other Oflags in the territory of the Reich. The French and Greeks were treated best, while the Yugoslavs were in a somewhat worse position. Only rarely did they receive support from relief organizations. A library was provided as a service. POWs made up an orchestra and also organized educational activities.

Here, too, visits were made by various delegations. The camp was visited by the ICRC on August 16, 1941, and February 23, 1942, and by the YMCA on August 14, 1941, October 2, 1941, October 26, 1941, and September 1, 1942. The YMCA gave priority to serving the POWs by supplying books, musical instruments, and the like. The ICRC examined the overall living conditions of the POWs and made a concluding assessment in each report. For the visit in Offenburg on February 23, 1942, the summary comment was “an excellent camp.”⁵

Medical care was provided at two levels. Treatment began first in the camp medical center, which was run, under German oversight, by prisoners who were physicians and by camp personnel. The more serious cases were referred to military hospitals outside the combat zone (with POW wards), in Freiburg and Rottenmünster. The civilian hospital in Offenburg also admitted POWs when necessary.

Oflag 55 (V D) had a subcamp (Zweiglager) in Wurzach, housed in the castle there and in barracks on the castle grounds. The branch camp was subordinate to the commandant of Oflag 55 (V D). Formerly, Oflag V C controlled this compound, but on June 5, 1942, by order of the General Army Office, Oflag 55 (V D) took it over, after Oflag V C moved to Lubny. The approximately 700 French prisoners (including officers and orderlies), whom the Germans then moved to Wurzach, played a special role. Thus, they do not appear in the reports of the OKW to the ICRC. Most of these men were Frenchmen from Corsica, whose drive for independence led them to view themselves primarily as Corsicans and only secondarily as Frenchmen. The Germans combined the Corsicans in the subcamp as Project Corsicans and hoped to use them later for the Germans’ own political ends. Accordingly, this group received better-than-average treatment, which did not exactly delight the Vichy government.

After only four months, Project Corsicans came to an end, and the POWs were moved to the Rohrsen subcamp of Stalag X C. Camp operations ceased, and the Wurzach subcamp was shut down. On December 1, 1942, the Wurzach camp area was handed over to the Württemberg Ministry of the Interior, which then, on its own responsibility and with its own resources, operated Ilag V C. Wurzach was thereby removed from the Wehrmacht’s sphere of responsibility.

At the main camp, all the prisoners were sent away at the beginning of September 1942. The camp now stood empty, but the commandant’s office/headquarters was still in existence. British civilian internees from the Channel Islands were now brought to the camp. The military commandant’s office thus ran a camp that functioned as an internment camp. This transitional situation, however, lasted only until December 19, 1942, when the camp was closed by order of the General Army Office. The internees and the campgrounds were turned over to the Württemberg Ministry of the Interior, which then operated Ilag V B. As a result, Biberach an der Riss was removed from the Wehrmacht’s sphere of responsibility.