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

The Wehrmacht established Stalag III D (map 4b) on August 14, 1940, on the corner of Landweg and Osdorfer Streets in Berlin-Lichterfelde. The existing prisoner of war (POW) labor units in the area, which had previously been subordinate to Stalag III A in Luckenwalde, were reorganized and subordinated to Stalag III D. The new guard units arrived at Stalag III D on August 28, 1940.¹

Stalag III D was the only main POW camp located in a major German city, Berlin. Most POW camps had been built on military exercise grounds or near villages or small cities. Its existence there is somewhat surprising, given the priorities for Polish and French POW labor in 1940: agriculture, first and foremost, followed by forestry, industry (mining, railway construction, the synthetic chemical industry, road construction, and quarries), and state cultural activities.² The camp in Berlin was established for a different reason: to support the Reichsbahn’s need to expand the thoroughfares in and around Berlin, which was of particular interest to the General Construction Inspector for the Reich Capital City (GBI), Albert Speer. Following a decree that Hitler issued on June 25, 1940, Speer announced the need for 180,000 laborers to redevelop the capital, of whom 30,000 were to be POWs. This order was the catalyst for the construction of a Stalag in Berlin.³

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Stalag III D at Berlin-Lichterfelde. Prisoners exercising in the camp, February 1944.

COURTESY OF ICRC.

Stalag III D was not a reception and holding camp but a “shadow camp” (Schattenlager), as Rolf Keller referred to it;⁴ however, the term “administrative camp” (Verwaltungslager) is probably more appropriate. Very few POWs were held in the main camp; instead, as was true of most main POW camps eventually, it provided the infrastructure for the administration of at least 120 labor details (Arbeitskommandos) that were distributed across Berlin. The command office of the camps as well as the Labor Office Action Offices were located at 10608 Belle-Alliance Street in Kreuzberg (today Blücherplatz 1/AGB) until the spring of 1942. It was relocated to Tempelhof Ufer 2 no later than 1944.

Stalag III D did not have its own hospital. Ill prisoners were transferred to the Camp Hospitals (Reserve Lazaretts) 119 (Neukolln) and 128 (Biesdorf). The hospital in Neukolln (at Donau Street 122/27), with 400 beds, was established on October 1, 1940, to treat POWs. The hospital in Biesdorf was established a month later with the same capacity.

Since Polish prisoners were working primarily in agriculture in 1940, most of the prisoners in the main camp at Stalag III D were French. Of the 18,172 prisoners present in the camp in January 1941, 18,160 were French.⁵ Almost all the POWs were working in the labor details, with only a small percentage working within the camp and few unable to work for health reasons. In April 1941, 20,686 of the 21,370 POWs (97 percent) were deployed as laborers and only 684 remained in the camp.⁶ In June 1941, there were 21,322 POWs from the Stalag in labor service with almost exactly half (10,562) doing forced labor for the GBI in Berlin.⁷

The national composition of Stalag III D’s population changed in 1942. In 1941, relatively few Soviet POWs were brought to Berlin. However, in August 1941, Speer was informed that he would be able to use 10,000 Soviet prisoners as laborers in the city.⁸ The first transport of Soviet POWs arrived on October 8, 1941, and were sent to Lager [End Page 410] Friedrichsfelde-Ost to work for the Berlin railway directorate (Arbeitskommando 21). Other Soviet prisoners worked at Marienfelde and Grossbeeren. Most of the Soviet POWs who arrived in 1941 came from Defense District VIII (Upper Silesia). In September 1941, they were frequently registered in the camps at Neuhammer (VIII/308) and Lamsdorf (VIII/318). Because, initially, Soviet POWs could only be held and registered in so-called Russian camps (Russenlager), in which there were no POWs of any other nationality, and because there was no such Russian camp in Defense District (Wehrkreis) III, Soviet POWs who arrived in Berlin in 1941 had always been registered in another Defense District. At the beginning of December, there were still only 58 Soviet POWs in Stalag III D. Only that month did extensive transports of Soviet prisoners arrive in Berlin, and by January 1, 1943, there were 3,703 Soviet POWs.⁹ French prisoners remained the largest group in the camp, however, even as more Soviet POWs were transported to the capital. French and Soviet prisoners comprised more than 90 percent of the population of Stalag III D. However, based on the data from three available overviews, one can see that the largest national group that existed in Stalag III D at that time has disappeared from the statistics. This comprised the Italian military prisoners from January to July 1944. In mid-1943, Italian military prisoners arrived in the camp, and, by January 1944, there were 31,738 registered in Stalag III D; however, their number declined substantially by the end of 1944, and there were no Italian prisoners in the camp by January 1945.¹⁰

Stalag III D also became the site of solemn and propagandistic celebrations as Italian military prisoners made the transition into the civilian workforce. On August 20, 1944, 6,000 Italian military prisoners were released from POW status.¹¹

Little is known about the commanders of the Stalag. Until February 1944, the commanding officer was Oberstleutnant Kleffel; he was followed by Oberst Hans-Joachim Breyer, the former head of the OKW General Department for POWs.¹² Breyer, who had been part of General Hermann Reinecke’s General Army Office (Allgemeines Wehrmachtamt) since 1939, may have been removed for expressing concerns about adherence to the Geneva Convention in the camp.¹³ His deputy in 1940 was Major Kühn. Hauptmann Heinevetter was responsible for the allocation of prisoner labor from 1940 to at least 1943. Other officers in the camp were Hauptmann Eichentopf and Hauptmann Paschke. The medical officer in 1941 was Stabsarzt Dr. Wieck.

The guards were primarily members of the 334th and 344th Reserve Battalions (Landesschützenbataillone), consisting mostly of elderly soldiers or soldiers who were no longer fit for active service. There were also civilian guards who were appointed as auxiliary police as well as members of the factory guards or private security guards. The French prisoners were generally treated decently by the guards. However, employers complained that French and Soviet POWs were not sufficiently motivated for work and that the guards prevented harsh measures.¹⁴ Even the camp commandant was forced to state that the companies did not have internal control over the prisoners and threatened civil consequences if they acted to the contrary: “Neither employers nor their employees or any other member of staff have the right to punish the POWs…. The main camp can automatically terminate the deployment of the entire labor detail without replacement if the firm or any of its members imposes any punishment [on the laborers].”¹⁵

By contrast, the Italian military prisoners, who were often regarded as traitors, were treated poorly. The commander of a Reserve Battalion forwarded a telegram from the Commander of POWs in Defense District III (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Wehrkreis III) to the guards: “The Führer, as a result of many complaints about the laziness of the Italian military prisoners, orders that the guards ensure through sharp measures that they are the most diligent workers and that any negligence is dealt with by harsh measures.”¹⁶ The Italian prisoners at Heinrich List KG were treated so poorly that the company complained to the commandant at the main camp. The commander there, a noncommissioned officer named Schulz, beat the Italians several times and took away their warm coats. Additionally, the guards spread rumors about the laziness of the Italians and partly out of self-interest demanded that the company confirm this: “The management is required to provide an immediate assessment of the prisoners’ output in the work stations. The management is reminded that such assessment should not be too favourable so as to prevent a withdrawal of the guards.”¹⁷ The company replied that the output of the majority of the Italians was satisfactory.

There are very few surviving documents relating to the Stalag command. Files from the companies as well as the Reichsbahn and the GBI are dispersed and rarely give a comprehensive view of the labor details. One of the better documented cases was Arbeitskommando 861, consisting of Soviet POWs, which was deployed primarily at the Bergmann Electrical Plant in Berlin-Wilhelmsruh. In January 1942, there is evidence of a transfer of 75 prisoners and 5 German guards to the work detail.¹⁸ The detail grew constantly until the end of 1942, and by Christmas 1942 consisted of 1,237 Soviet POWs. There were 26 guards, of whom one was an officer and two were NCOs.¹⁹ Sick prisoners were transferred to Camp Hospital 128.²⁰ In the spring of 1942, many of the prisoners were weak, undernourished, and sick because the Wehrmacht let them starve in camps close to the front before they arrived at Stalag III D. The situation improved that summer because of improved weather, better basic rations, and the increasing use of supplementary rations for those prisoners doing heavy labor. As a result, the number of sick prisoners in Kommando 861 from the fall of 1942 was less than in the other company camps, consistently about 15–45 percent lower.²¹

The output of Soviet POW laborers from Stalag III D improved from the summer of 1942. Complaints from the companies only began to increase in the spring of 1944, after the situation at the front began to deteriorate. A report from July 1944 noted that “the labor output of the Soviets in the last few [End Page 411] months, especially since June, has markedly declined. There are an increasing number of cases of refusal to work, escape and supposed ‘illness.’”²² The camp was disbanded no later than early April 1945.