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

The Wehrmacht established Stalag VI C on September 25, 1939, in Bathorn (today part of the municipality of Hoogstede), in Defense District (Wehrkreis) VI. The camp headquarters was relocated to Münster in October 1944. The camp was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War in Defense District VI (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Wehrkreis VI). The camp in Bathorn originated as one of the penal camps in the network of camps known as the Emslandlager; within that system, it was designated as Lager XIV. Bathorn, along with eight other Emsland camps, was handed over to the Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, OKW) in September 1939.¹ The Wehrmacht initially anticipated that these camps would hold about 16,000 prisoners.² Stalag VI C had several subcamps—collectively designated Stalag VI C/Z—all of which had also been part of the Emslandlager system. The original Stalag VI C/Z camps were located at Alexisdorf (Lager XV), Dalum (Lager XII), Gross Hesepe (Lager XI), and Wietmarschen (Lager XIII). On May 13, 1942, Stalag VI C absorbed Stalag VI B in Neu Versen (formerly Lager IX), along with its subcamps at Fullen (Lager X), Oberlangen (Lager VI), and Wesuwe (Lager VIII).³

Stalag VI C was a large camp. It maintained a population of more than 20,000 prisoners for most of the war and reached its maximum population of 28,791 in October 1943. However, more than half of the prisoners registered in the camp were deployed outside the camp in labor details (Arbeitskommandos) and the total population figure reflects the population of the entire Stalag VI C complex, rather than that of the Bathorn camp by itself.⁴ There were around 300 work details in the Emsland region, which were initially divided between Stalags VI B and VI C; when Stalag VI B was folded into Stalag VI C in May 1942, its work details were also transferred to Stalag VI C.⁵ The prisoners in the camp were initially employed in the conversion of the moors of the Emsland region into arable land, as were the prisoners in the northern Emsland camps, which remained under the control of the Reich Justice Ministry (Reichsjustizministerium). However, in 1941, there was a reorientation of the labor of the prisoners in the Emsland region in general. In the northern camps, about 80 percent of the prisoners were shifted to work in the defense industry in the Papenburg area and the remaining 20 percent were sent to work on the already-existing agricultural land in the region. However, in the camps in the Stalag VI C complex, this proportion was reversed: more than 80 percent of the prisoners were sent to agricultural labor and the remaining 20 percent to war-related industries or construction projects.⁶

The first prisoners in Stalag VI C were Polish prisoners of war (POWs) who arrived in the camp in October 1939. At the end of 1939, there were 4,886 Polish prisoners in the camp. After the German campaigns in Western Europe in 1940, French, Belgian, and (briefly) British POWs were brought to Stalag VI C. By September 1940, French prisoners were by far the largest group in the camp; there were 13,060 French prisoners, compared to only 2,206 Poles, 943 Belgians, and 343 British. In May 1941, Serbian prisoners captured during the German operations in the Balkans arrived at the camp. The first Soviet prisoners arrived in August 1941; thereafter, they were generally the second-largest population group in the camp after the French, before becoming the predominant prisoner group in the fall of 1944.⁷ Most of the Soviet prisoners were kept in the subcamps (specifically, Alexisdorf, Dalum, Fullen, Oberlangen, Wesuwe, and Wietmarschen) rather than at the main camp in Bathorn.⁸ On September 12, 1943, the first of more than 11,000 Italian military prisoners were brought to the camp, although some were subsequently transferred to other camps.⁹ Finally, on October 2, 1944, about 3,000 women of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK), who had been captured during the Warsaw Uprising, were brought to Oberlangen, making that subcamp the only camp in Nazi Germany that exclusively held female POWs.¹⁰

As in other camps, the Polish prisoners whom the Germans captured early in the war lived in poor conditions. Most of the Polish prisoners were sent to work cultivating the moorlands. These included officers, whom the Germans forced to work, despite the stipulation in the Geneva Convention of 1929 that only enlisted men can be required to work. The Polish prisoners held at Stalag VI C were not subsequently reclassified as civilians and converted into forced laborers as Polish POWs in other camps were.¹¹

The French, Belgian, and British prisoners in the camp fared somewhat better. The Germans generally observed the [End Page 429] requirements of the Geneva Convention in their treatment of Western Allied prisoners. The French prisoners created a lively cultural environment in the camp, including an orchestra and a theater troupe.¹² The French and Belgian prisoners were also quickly sent to work as agricultural laborers. Little information is available about the Serbian prisoners who were held at Stalag VI C; Serbian prisoners were generally treated better than Polish and Soviet POWs but usually not as well as Western Allied prisoners.

The Polish, Western Allied, and Serbian POWs had access to recreational, cultural, and religious activities within the camp and in some of the work details. There was a Catholic priest and a Protestant minister in the camp, both of whom conducted services in French; the Polish Catholic prisoners attended the French-language services. By October 1942, there was also a Serbian Orthodox priest in the camp.¹³ There was a camp library with approximately 5,500 books as of May 1942, the majority of which were in French. By April 1943, the number of books had increased to more than 14,000, including more than 800 in Polish and almost 900 in Serbian.¹⁴ Teachers and professionals among the prisoners taught courses on various subjects, including languages, geography, history, mathematics, and technical subjects. There was a 25-man orchestra as well as a 17-man theater troupe that provided entertainment for the other prisoners. These activities were generally performed in French, but Polish prisoners nonetheless attended the shows. There was also a French-language camp newspaper, called Le Canard en barbelé (The barbed duck). The prisoners also had opportunities to play sports; as of mid-May 1942, there were 12 soccer teams, 14 volleyball teams, and 13 basketball teams in the camp. Other physical activities included boxing and discus throwing. Sports equipment was provided primarily by the YMCA.¹⁵

As in other camps, Soviet POWs received the worst treatment, in violation of the norms established by the Geneva Conventions. In the Stalag VI C system, Alexisdorf, Dalum, Gross Hesepe, and Wietmarschen functioned as “Russian camps” (Russenlager, a term used for camps reserved solely for Soviet prisoners), where prisoners were kept under horrible conditions.¹⁶ Because of the length of the trip from the Soviet Union to Stalag VI C in Western Germany, many of the Soviet prisoners were already in very poor shape when they arrived at the camp and died shortly thereafter. Those who reached the camp alive faced extremely harsh conditions, including insufficient food rations (mostly consisting of watery soup and ersatz bread), minimal medical care, and overcrowded housing, which facilitated the spread of diseases such as typhus and dysentery. By September 1941, there were 22,461 Soviet prisoners in the two Emsland Stalags. Thousands of Soviet prisoners died in Stalag VI C between the fall of 1941 and the spring of 1942, mainly due to malnutrition and disease. There is no information indicating that the “weeding out” operations (in which Jews and political commissars were identified and executed or sent to concentration camps and killed) that were performed at other camps for Soviet POWs were carried out at Stalag VI C.¹⁷

After the spring of 1942, conditions improved somewhat as Soviet prisoners began to be used as forced laborers, although the prisoners continued to die at a high rate due to exhaustion and malnutrition. Unlike the Polish and Western Allied prisoners, the Soviet prisoners were primarily sent to work on infrastructure construction and maintenance projects in the nearby area. Between 14,250 and 26,250 Soviet POWs died in Stalag VI B and VI C (existing statistics do not indicate the death tolls for Soviet prisoners in each camp individually).¹⁸ Dead Soviet prisoners from the Emsland Stalags were buried in mass graves near Alexisdorf, Dalum, Fullen, Oberlangen, Wesuwe, and Wietmarschen.¹⁹

The first Italian military prisoners were brought to Stalag VI C in September 1943. As of October 1, 1943, there were more than 11,000 of them in the camp. There were 5,000 Italian officers confined in the Oberlangen camp alone as of March 1944. The Germans generally treated Italian prisoners quite poorly, giving them smaller food rations than Western Allied prisoners and keeping them in overcrowded conditions. In January 1944, the Germans offered increased food rations to Italian prisoners who were willing to work. There were 872 Italian prisoners who died in Stalag VI C, at least 404 of them in Fullen in 1944 alone. These prisoners were buried in the Gross Fullen cemetery.²⁰

The final group of prisoners brought to the camp were Polish women who had fought with the Home Army during the Warsaw Uprising between August and October 1944. The first prisoners arrived at Stalag VI C on December 18 of that year. There were about 3,000 Polish women who were taken prisoner during the uprising, of whom over half were sent to Stalag VI C. The Polish women, confined to the camp in Oberlangen, created a very organized camp structure, led by Lieutenant Irena Mileska (aka Jaga). They set up a system of religious and intellectual activities in the camp to maintain morale and solidarity against the Germans. One barrack within the camp was converted into a chapel, and, in another, lessons were taught on a variety of academic subjects. The cultural activities in the Polish women’s camp at Oberlangen were some of the most organized within the entire Emsland POW camp system.²¹

In January 1944, Stalag VI C was dissolved and folded into Stalag VI F in Münster.²² The Oberlangen camp was liberated by the Polish 1st Armored Division on April 12, 1945. The 1,728 female Polish prisoners in the camp were transferred to the abandoned camp at Neusustrum, northwest of Oberlangen, where they could be kept in better conditions.²³