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

The Wehrmacht established Stalag 364 on November 1, 1941, in Defense District (Wehrkreis) IV, from Stalag IV B. On November 15, 1941, the camp was subordinated to the Commander of Prisoners of War in the Generalgouvernement of Poland (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Generalgouvernement Polen), and on November 29, 1941, it was transferred to Reichshof (today Rzeszów, Poland) (map 5). In the second half of April 1942, the camp was redeployed to Nikolaev (today Mykolaïv, Ukraine) (9g), where it was located until the Germans disbanded it on December 13, 1943. From July 15, 1942, until April 9, 1943, Stalag 364 had a subcamp (Zweiglager) in Kherson.¹

Starting on April 15, 1942, the camp was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War with the Armed Forces Commander Ukraine (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen beim Wehrmachtbefehlshaber Ukraine). As of February 24, 1943, the camp was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War with the Army Group South Rear Area Command (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen beim Befehlshaber des Heeresgebiets Süd). Starting on September 21, 1943, it was subordinated to the Commander of Prisoners of War in Operations Area I (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Operationsgebiet I).² Stalag 364 received field post number (Feldpostnummer) 42 189 between July 30, 1941, and February 28, 1942. The number was struck between September 8, 1942, and March 11, 1943.

Stalag 364 held Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). In May 1942, there were 17,200 POWs in the camp. In September [End Page 367] 1942, there were 45,000; in December 1942, 27,000; and in February 1943, 20,300.³ In Nikolaev, the camp was located on the right bank of the Ingul River in the settlement of Temvod. The first prisoners were POWs transferred from the camp at the Greigovo railroad station, 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) northeast of Nikolaev. These were mainly former soldiers and officers of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Armies of the Southern Front; they had been taken captive as early as the fall of 1941. In August 1942, soldiers and officers captured at Sevastopol’, in Crimea, were also placed in the camp. In 1943, the Germans also used the camp as a transit camp for civilians whom the authorities were sending to work in Germany. Stalag 364’s prisoners were supposed to be the principal workforce for the 61 Communards shipbuilding factory, which was renamed the Southern Shipyard immediately after the German occupation of Nikolaev. On the basis of the Southern Shipyard, the Germans created a headquarters for managing the building of warships and submarines.

Gefreiter Erwin Maier, who served at the camp from September 22, 1942, until November 9, 1943, gave the following description of the camp in his testimony on January 23, 1967:⁴

Stalag Nikolajew [Nikolaev] was located outside of town, specifically at the edge of the town, in the immediate vicinity of the Bug River. Next to the Stalag was the Nikolaev airfield. Stalag N. had previously been a monastery. The Stalag was surrounded by walls, and inside the monastery were various sturdy buildings, in which the prisoners of war and the permanent staff lived. A guard unit also was stationed inside the Stalag itself. This was approximately a company-strength unit. The Stalag personnel and the guard forces were separate from one another, in terms of their provisions and the table of organization.

Upon questioning, I must state that I cannot give any detailed information about the guard company.

I do recall, however, that the prisoners of war were taken out of the Stalag in groups of 10 for deployment at labor and were guarded by guard personnel.

The camp commandant during my time there was Oberstleutnant Strohbach. While I was there, there was no replacement of the commandant. I am unable to provide further details regarding Strohbach. In this connection, it comes to mind that the Stalag personnel came from Saxony, specifically from Löbau. I also remember Hauptmann Staudt and Hauptmann Kühn. What functions these two captains performed, I am unable to say. In total, there were 22 officers in Stalag 364.

I can no longer remember the names of counterintelligence officers, camp physicians, interpreters, and orderly-room personnel. I believe that two physicians worked in Stalag 364. I no longer recall their names, however.

Regarding the counterintelligence section, I wish to state that it included around 10 to 12 persons.

The conditions in the camp were similar to those in other camps for Soviet POWs. The housing, food, and medical care was inadequate, the prisoners had to perform forced labor, and the guards abused them. Malnutrition, exhaustion, and disease led to a high death rate.

The daily rations were very meager: a small amount of soup made from rotten cabbage and wheat chaff, smelling of kerosene, and often containing no salt, and in addition a little “substitute bread” (Ersatzbrot). Almost unclothed, with torn shoes on their feet, or simply wrapped in rags, as thin as skeletons, prisoners walked around the grounds of the camp searching for some kind of food. Often, the exhausted prisoners simply fell to the ground and died on the spot. Many others died of dysentery, typhus, dystrophy, and other illnesses. Typhus Block 25 was always filled to overcrowding. The “burial teams” frequently did not bury the bodies promptly, and they often piled up near Block 26, the “infirmary.” At times the mortality rate reached 100 men per day. Many hospitalized prisoners suffering from limb amputations died a slow death. Deep pits were dug near the hospital, and the corpses of the deceased were then thrown into them.

In the hospital, the wounded and sick had to sleep on the floor, and their food was substantially worse than that received by the other prisoners. Many only survived through the selfless help of the Soviet prisoner-physicians. With great difficulty, the prisoner-physicians obtained the medications so necessary to the gravely ill and wounded. They concealed many Soviet prisoners and kept them from being sent away in prisoner transports. Without the necessary surgical instruments, they performed serious operations and also helped with food, instilled faith in people, and did diligent patriotic work among the camp’s prisoners.

A strict system of regulations was in effect in the camp, and prisoners received 21 days in a punishment cell for any violation. In the punishment cell, food was provided only every other day, and then in a small amount. Others were confined in a small cage made of barbed wire, intended to hold several persons, located inside a former stadium. Prisoners stayed in the uncovered cage regardless of weather and received food every other day.

Three underground groups were active in the camp: one in the hospital, one among the captive airmen, housed in Blocks 1 and 3, and one within the work squad in the warehouse of the prisoner kitchen. The members of these groups encouraged POWs not to join various German units, supplied the POWs with Soviet literature and newspapers, and organized escapes from the camp, mainly for the officers.⁵

As in other camps, the Germans screened newly arrived prisoners to separate out Jews and Communists, whom a Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst) detachment or the guards then shot near the camp.⁶ According to Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) materials, 30,000 POWs perished [End Page 368] in the camp at Nikolaev between 1942 and 1943; however, casualty figures from the ChGK are often substantially exaggerated and should be viewed accordingly.⁷