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

The Wehrmacht established Stalag II D (map 4b) on September 20, 1939, in Stargard in Pommern (today Stargard, Poland), in Defense District (Wehrkreis) II, on the site of the former Dulag L (also known as Dulag Stargard).¹ The camp was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War in Defense District II (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Wehrkreis II). The Germans evacuated the camp on February 25, 1945, as the Red Army approached from the east. Soviet forces liberated the campsite sometime between March 4 and March 6, 1945.

Stalag II D was divided into three sections: the main camp (Hauptlager), and two “forecamps” (Vorlager), known as Vorlager I and II. The first commander of Stalag II D was Oberst Dommerget.² By January 1940, he had been replaced by Major Wilhelm Diemer.³ He was succeeded by Oberst May sometime in mid-1940.⁴ May was replaced by Generalmajor Hans Henke at an unknown date.⁵ Henke left the position in mid-1942 and was succeeded by Generalmajor Adolf Plammer, who remained at the camp until at least May 30, 1944.⁶ The final commandant of the camp was likely SS-Obersturmführer Karl-Heinz Müller.⁷ The deputy commandant for at least some of the camp’s operation was Major Kröplin. The adjutants were Hauptmann Bertram and Hauptmann Simon. The counterintelligence (Abwehr) officer was Hauptmann Johannes Boldt.⁸ The camp was guarded by personnel from the 269th, 271st, 978th, and 980th Reserve Battalions (Landesschützenbataillone).⁹

The first prisoners to arrive at Stalag II D were Polish prisoners of war (POWs) who were captured during the German invasion of September 1939. In late 1939 and early 1940, the Polish prisoners were gradually transferred to other camps. After the German invasion of Western Europe, French and Belgian POWs were brought to the camp; the French would remain the largest group of prisoners in the camp throughout the war. In April 1941, Serbian prisoners were brought to the camp, followed in the summer of 1941 by Soviet POWs, after the German attack on the Soviet Union. In late 1943, Italian military prisoners were brought to the camp, along with small numbers of Dutch prisoners. Finally, British and Canadian prisoners captured during the Dieppe Raid were brought to the camp in January 1944. Stalag II D was a large camp, with a population that remained well over 30,000 throughout the war; the maximum recorded camp population was 39,991 in October 1941.¹⁰ However, the majority of the prisoners (at times as many as 96 percent of them) worked outside the camp in labor detachments (Arbeitskommandos). Stalag II D was responsible for more than 1,500 such detachments.¹¹

A POW hospital, Reserve Lazarett II, was attached to Stalag II D. Germans ran the hospital as part of Stalag II D, though it treated prisoners from nearby camps, including Stalag II B and Stalag Luft 4.¹² The hospital held several hundred prisoners in a large three-story former school building. Individual wards held between 4 and 30 men, each in a single well-constructed bed with adequate bedding. The hospital was well built and was heated during the winter months. A garden behind the hospital allowed opportunities for patients to take walks or to otherwise pass time outdoors.¹³ However, the hospital suffered from chronic shortages of medical supplies, which was a common problem in POW hospitals. By 1945, regular access to basic medicines and supplies became unreliable. This compounded the limitations of the hospital, which had only a basic operating room and laboratory. As a result, any serious cases of illness or injury were transferred to the larger prisoner hospital in Elsterhorst.¹⁴

When prisoners arrived in the camp, they were taken to one of the Vorlager where they registered and deloused before being allowed into the main camp. For the first few months of the war, there were no permanent structures in Stalag II D; during this time, it was a “tent camp” (Zeltlager). The Polish POWs built their own barracks, as well as other camp buildings, such as the kitchen, showers, and infirmary, in late 1939 and early 1940. Each section of the camp was surrounded by two rows of barbed wire, with a paved street passing between the rows of brick and wooden barracks. By January 1941, there were 46 barracks in the camp, each of which had a capacity of between 250 and 300 men.¹⁵ Within the camp, the prisoners were segregated by nationality.

As in other camps, the conditions endured by the Polish prisoners during the first months of the war were difficult. In addition to the poor housing situation, their food rations were [End Page 398] entirely insufficient, particularly for prisoners who were expected to do difficult manual labor. For breakfast and dinner, the prisoners received 150 grams (5.3 ounces) of bread and half a liter (1 pint) of ersatz coffee, and at lunch, they were fed a watery soup made from cabbage or beets. Some of the Polish prisoners lost nearly 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of body weight during their time in the camp.¹⁶ For some prisoners in the work details, food supply was even worse, consisting mostly of rotten potatoes and cabbage. While delousing procedures in the camp prevented the spread of typhus, such protections were not afforded to the prisoners in the work details, many of whom were infected during the winter of 1939–1940. Mortality rates among these prisoners were as high as 50 percent, with higher mortality rates generally concentrated in work details in the eastern and southeastern parts of Pomerania.¹⁷ Jewish prisoners were subject to especially harsh discipline. They were later transferred to concentration camps, such as the Lipowa Street camp in Lublin and the camp in Biała Podlaska. Many of them would later perish when those camps were liquidated. There were still 112 Jewish prisoners in Stalag II D in May 1940.¹⁸

The Western Allied and Serbian POWs experienced better conditions and were generally treated according to the requirements of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (1929). Their section of the camp was visited on several occasions by international observers, including the Scapini Mission and the Red Cross. These prisoners had access to some cultural and recreational activities within the camp.¹⁹ Most prisoners were able to attend religious services in their language; the exceptions were the Muslim Yugoslavian prisoners and Catholic Canadians, for whom no clergymen were available.²⁰ In terms of recreational activities, the prisoners had libraries of books available to them, and some national groups, such as the Serbs, had small musical and theater groups. The Serbian camp also had a swimming pool, which was built by the prisoners in the summer of 1943.²¹

The first transport of Soviet POWs arrived at Stalag II D on October 1, 1941. As in other camps, the conditions endured by the Soviet prisoners were terrible and in violation of all standards of international law regarding the treatment of POWs. Their food rations were inadequate and their barracks were severely overcrowded, which, combined with minimal medical care, allowed diseases to spread rapidly. The mortality rate for Soviet prisoners was very high, primarily due to malnutrition and disease. Conditions were especially harsh in 1941 and early 1942 but improved somewhat later in the war. Soviet prisoners were also subject to “weeding out” (Aussonderung) operations conducted by the Gestapo, which identified “undesirable” prisoners (such as Jews and political commissars) who were sent to concentration camps, mainly Sachsenhausen, for execution.²²

The first Italian military prisoners arrived on September 15, 1943. By October of that year, there were more than 6,400 Italian prisoners in the camp. They were also treated poorly by the Germans, as was the case in other camps. British and Canadian prisoners were brought to the camp in January 1944. Though the Germans treated them according to the requirements of the Geneva Convention, by the last months of the war, the conditions in German POW camps had worsened for all prisoner groups. Canadian prisoner Bill Larin, who was captured at Dieppe, described his experience in the camp:

We … arrived at [Stalag] II D on January 29, 1944. I was the only one with a beard when we arrived. I got orders to shave it off by the Germans, which I did, pronto…. We were there about five days, when 30 of us were sent on a work party, to a place called Rensin. It was a large state potato farm, with a Nazi civilian in charge. We did all kinds of farming jobs, including planting, hoeing, and grading seed potatoes. We had a few problems here. The Germans got a bit rough with the guys. One day, while planting potatoes, the Germans wanted more speed, and walked behind the boys with bayonets on their rifles. It didn’t work, as the boys stuck together. It took a bit of courage, believe me. We also had a bed bug infestation one night. They sure knew how to bite. Our quarters were fumigated, and that took care of the bugs. We got word of a Second Front here, and the next day after that, hundreds of American Flying Fortresses [B-17 bombers] came over us. The German fighters tried to get at them, but were held off by armed B-29 [sic] bombers. What a racket they made. At night, we heard the British and Canadian planes bombing Stettin [Szczecin], it was very loud and the ground was trembling. One day, the Gestapo called, and just about tore the place apart. They were evidently looking for maps and compasses. I don’t know if they found anything. We had some Poles working on the farm and living next to us. They took two of them away with them, a man and a woman, reputed to be brother and sister. God knows what happened to them, but we suspected the worst. If any of their people got caught out of their area, they were hanged at a crossroads as a warning. The Germans didn’t like the way we worked, so we were replaced by some Italians. We were sent to a saw mill at Plathe [today Płoty, West Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland] on June 24, 1944. We made rough lumber, peeled logs, etc. While here, a couple of our guys escaped. We never heard what happened to them. It was a dangerous time to be on the loose. The Germans were getting nervous, as the Russians were coming from the east. We weren’t getting much food at this time. We lived on potatoes, but they didn’t stay with you for long.²³

As Larin noted, escape attempts were common both in the work details and in the main camp. However, most of those who escaped were recaptured and several prisoners were shot [End Page 399] during their flights.²⁴ The Germans began evacuating the prisoners to the west on February 25, 1945. Some were taken by sea to Flensburg, while others were marched to Sassnitz, Jarmen, and Friedland (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). The Canadian prisoners were sent to Stalag XI B in Fallingbostel.²⁵ Larin recalled of the evacuation:

We packed what we could carry, and dressed warmly, took a blanket each, and on February 25, 1945, we headed out. It wasn’t too warm. We marched toward Stettin, but before crossing the bridge, we met some German troops going east toward the Russians. They looked like boys 15–16 years old, and very scared. I felt sorry for them. We could hear the Russian guns in the distance. We marched all day, every day, and stayed over on farms at night. We didn’t get much food from the Germans, and scrounged and stole what we could. The Germans hollered loud and long. We ran into other groups from the east, crossed the Oder and Elbe rivers, and went past Rostock, a port on the Baltic, around Berlin, past Hamburg and Bremen. We finally crossed the Elbe River again near Brunswick [Braunschweig], headed south, and all the roads were packed with POWs. Some columns were strafed by our own planes, with some casualties. We bumped into the Russians, gave them what we could, and they gave us lice—not a good experience. They were in very bad shape, wore rags, and some had no shoes. We couldn’t do much for them, as we had to move on.²⁶

The Red Army arrived a week later and liberated the former site of the camp, along with approximately 300 prisoners who had been left behind because they were unable to march.²⁷ The Soviets used the site as a field hospital, and after the war it was turned over to the Polish army. The number of prisoners who died in Stalag II D is uncertain. The former commandant, Generalmajor Henke, died in 1956 without facing trial.²⁸ In 1965, the West German government opened an investigation into crimes committed at Stalag II D, with the aim of prosecuting the former Commandant of Prisoners of War in Defense District II, Generalleutnant Josef Lehmann. However, the investigation was dropped in 1976, as Lehmann had died in the intervening time.²⁹