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

The Wehrmacht established Stalag 336 from a Frontstalag on May 14, 1941, in Defense District (Wehrkreis) VI. From August 1941 to October 1943, the camp was located in Fort VI in Kauen (Lithuanian: Kaunas) (map 9b). Stalag 336 had a sub-camp (Zweiglager) in Vilnius, which became Stalag 344 on September 9, 1941. It had a second subcamp in Šiauliai, which became Stalag 361 in February 1942.¹ Stalag 336 was disbanded on March 2, 1944.² The camp received field post number (Feldpostnummer) 22 515 between February 16 and July 18, 1942. That number was struck on August 27, 1943, but reissued on January 21, 1944, and struck again on March 29, 1944. There is also a record of another field post number, 47 133, issued between March 1 and September 7, 1942, and struck on February 25, 1944.

Beginning on July 25, 1941, the camp was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War in the General District Lithuania (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Generalbezirk Litauen), who was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War with the Armed Forces Commander Ostland (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen beim Wehrmachtsbefehlshaber Ostland). The camp commandants, in chronological order, were Oberstleutnant Karl August Werdelmann, Major Otto Grennebach, Oberstleutnant Karl Sieber (as of February 1943), and Major Schmidhammer. The camp was guarded by subunits of Reserve Battalion (Landesschützenbataillon) 530, which were assisted by Lithuanian police auxiliaries.

Stalag 336 held Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). It was a large camp, with a maximum population of 34,016 in February 1942.³ The camp was located in Fort VI, plus six subcamps in the city’s suburbs, the largest of which was located near the airfield. A letter from prisoner F. Kozhedub, dated October 19, 1941, reveals the horrible conditions in the camp. Kozhedub, who had been in the camp for two weeks, reported that

I live outdoors in a pit, or cave, or in a cellar. As for food, each day we get 200 grams [7 ounces] of bread, half a liter [1 pint] of boiled cabbage, and half a liter of tea with mint. Everything is without salt, so that we don’t swell up. Using sticks and wire whips, they force us to work, but they don’t give us additional food. We have millions of lice. For two months I haven’t shaved, washed, or changed clothes. As for my clothes, I have underwear, a shirt, an overcoat, a field cap, and low boots with puttees. The weather is cold, and there’s slush and mud. Every day 200 to 300 people die.⁴

After liberation in 1944, Kaunas resident Dmitrii Interesov testified that “several times I had a chance to talk with Russian POWs. They told me that they were living in the damp and gloomy dungeons of the fortress, but as even these quarters were far from sufficient, many were lying about right in the ditch of the fortress, out in the open. Their food consisted of raw beets, potato peelings, and other vegetable scraps.”⁵

The inhumane conditions led to a high death rate. The monthly German summaries of the incidence of disease in Fort VI, where the infirmary for POWs was located, recorded that in the period from September 1941 to July 1942 alone, 22,000 POWs died in the infirmary.⁶ In the camp yard, the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) discovered 67 standardized graves, each measuring 5 by 2.5 meters (16 by 8 feet). A map of Cemetery No. 5 from the camp office attested that from October 1941 to November 1942, 7,533 persons were buried,⁷ while in total, as camp documents indicate, around 35,000 POWs died in the camp.⁸ Approximately 10,000 others died in the subcamp located near the airfield. Here the ChGK discovered 13 graves measuring 25 by 2 meters (82 by 6.6 feet) apiece, 5 graves measuring 12 by 2 meters (39 by 6.6 feet) apiece, and a grave measuring 15 by 15 meters (49 feet squared).⁹

Thousands more prisoners died in the various subcamps of Stalag 336. According to the ChGK, approximately 1,500 Ukrainian prisoners died at Fort VII in the winter of 1941–1942 alone. It should be noted that casualty reports from the ChGK are often significantly exaggerated, and these numbers should be viewed accordingly.