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

The Wehrmacht established Stalag IV F (map 4e) on February 1, 1941, in Hartmannsdorf, in Defense District (Wehrkreis) IV. The camp was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War in Defense District IV (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Wehrkreis IV). There was one subcamp (Zweiglager) in Altenburg, which was still operating as of December 4, 1944.¹

Stalag IV F was a large prisoner of war (POW) camp, particularly late in the war, with a maximum population of 48,115 in June 1944. It held predominantly French prisoners captured during the German invasion and, from the fall of 1941, a large number of Soviet prisoners as well.² An influx of over 4,000 British soldiers arrived from the Italian front in October 1943. By February 1945, the camp had over 25,000 prisoners, about half of whom were French. In addition to the French and British, the camp by 1945 had 3,200 Serbian, 2,400 American, and 1,400 Slovak prisoners. Smaller numbers of Belgians, Dutch, Poles, Commonwealth, Soviet, Serbian, Czechoslovak, and Romanian POWs, as well as Italian military internees, were also held at Stalag IV F.³

The main camp structures were large administrative buildings from an old mechanical laundry, which provided much of the prisoner housing. The majority of prisoners were deployed in numerous work details (Arbeitskommandos) scattered throughout the region around the camp. By April 1944, there were 790 such work details, which ranged in size from 9 to 200 prisoners. Work and facilities at these details varied considerably, though most of the prisoners performed manual labor. Groups were assigned to railway construction, ditchdigging for air-raid shelters, machine work in a paper factory, and bricklaying.

Conditions in the main camp were generally adequate and conformed to international standards for treatment of POWs. Bomb shelters were available, and one infirmary served the [End Page 420] main camp with 15 additional infirmaries throughout the wider camp system. Camp leaders had their own offices, prisoners their own personal lockers, and despite the size of the camp, facilities were seen as sufficient and not overcrowded. The prisoners slept 18–20 men to a room in double or triple bunks. The main camp had a large sports field, and, while there was no theater as some other camps had, the Western Allied prisoners had access to a movie once a week.

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Stalag IV F at Hartmannsdorf. Prisoners playing soccer, date unknown.

COURTESY OF ICRC.

Conditions in the work details were often much worse than those in the main camp. Prisoner representatives for the varying nationalities had limited access to these sites, and in many cases there was little direct oversight or intervention from the German camp authorities. As a result, the conditions in the work details depended on the leadership of the individual units. In some cases, good leadership produced decent conditions, such as in Kommando 9 in Chemnitz, which the International Committee of the Red Cross described as “the best camp the delegate has ever seen.”⁴ However, conditions in most work details were significantly worse. Work hours at camps regularly exceeded 60 hours per week. Due to “exhaustion, pneumonia, and undernourishment” in Kommando G 124, seven prisoners died in a three-week span in the winter of 1944–1945 and 68 percent of the unit was unable to continue working.⁵ Prisoners were routinely beaten and struck by the director of the rubber factory where Kommando 57 worked. Dutch railway workers complained of “meanness” from overseers and Belgian coal miners described dire circumstances.⁶ Particularly toward war’s end, the overcrowding in the main camp coupled with less frequent oversight and fewer supplies led to deteriorating conditions in the work details.

Conditions also varied considerably based on nationality. Western Allied prisoners generally experienced better treatment than their Eastern European counterparts. British and American prisoners received regular Red Cross shipments, and generally the German staff proved more responsive to their complaints. After complaints about the facilities in several work details for American and British prisoners, either the work details in question were dissolved or the issues corrected. By contrast, Serbian prisoners went months without receiving Red Cross packages and complained that they were treated worse than prisoners of other nationalities.

In the wake of the Warsaw Uprising, several hundred Poles arrived at the camp. The German authorities regarded them as they did Russian prisoners “to whom the Geneva Convention does not apply.”⁷ The maltreatment was particularly pronounced for a group of 191 Polish women who had fought in Warsaw. They were beaten and “not treated like prisoners of war, but like convicts.”

Toward the end of the war, overall camp conditions steadily deteriorated, as there were frequent movements of prisoners into and out of the camp and supply lines and Red Cross parcels became less dependable. American prisoner Sidney Cole stated that he lost about 50 pounds during his time in the camp in late 1944 and early 1945.⁸ American forces liberated Stalag IV F on April 14, 1945.