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

The Wehrmacht issued the order to establish Stalag VI F from Dulag F in Köln-Deutz on October 3, 1939. On November 5, it was ordered to move to a location near Bocholt, in Defense District (Wehrkreis) VI, as soon as facilities there were ready. The actual move and designation change took place sometime after December 1. In September 1944, the camp was transferred to Münster (map 4a). Stalag VI F had a subcamp (Zweiglager) in Dorsten, which was designated Stalag VI F/Z. In October 1944, the camp also took over Stalag VI C and its subcamps in Alexisdorf, Wietmarschen, Gross Hesepe, Neu Versen, and Fullen.¹ American forces liberated the camp on April 2, 1945.

The camp was under the authority of the Commander of Prisoners of War in Defense District VI (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Wehrkreis VI). From May 1942 until September 1944, the camp commandant was Oberst Hans Jauch (1883–1965). The last camp commander was Obersleutnant Simon.²

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Stalag VI F at Bocholt. Camp entrance, September 1942.

COURTESY OF ICRC.

The first prisoners in Stalag VI F were Polish prisoners of war (POWs) who arrived in the fall of 1939. They were followed by French, Belgians, and British in 1940, Serbs and Greeks in April 1941, Soviets in October 1941, Italian military internees in the fall of 1943, and Americans and Romanians in 1944. The maximum camp population was 36,200.³ At the time of its liberation, the camp held a variety of prisoners including: 1,738 Soviets, 499 Italians, 176 Serbs, 143 Greeks, 106 Romanians, 29 Belgians, and 10 Poles.⁴

The majority of prisoners were assigned to work detachments (Arbeitskommandos).⁵ Among the main tasks the prisoners performed were clearing land and digging trenches approximately 5–6 kilometers (3.1–3.7 miles) from the camp.⁶ Some Soviet POWs were sent to a work detachment in Düsseldorf-Reisholz. As in many other such detachments for Soviet prisoners, the men were kept in horrible conditions. German records indicate that numerous prisoners in this work detail died from malnutrition-related conditions⁷ as well as diseases such as tuberculosis.⁸

The camp at Bocholt comprised five blocks of four barracks each, separated by barbed wire; it was enclosed by two rows of barbed wire approximately 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) high with four guard towers.⁹ The facilities at Bocholt were generally adequate. This was not the case after the camp moved to Münster. There, food preparation facilities were inadequate and the water supply was nonfunctional. Sanitary facilities were virtually nonexistent. Living space was badly overcrowded due to an inadequate number of barracks; while the buildings themselves were in decent shape, the conditions within them were filthy. There was no electricity in the camp for several months prior to liberation, nor were there any supplies in the camp canteen.¹⁰

Western Allied prisoners were treated decently by the German guards and administrators. Conditions were generally satisfactory and in accordance with the Geneva [End Page 434] Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (1929). The prisoners in the camp at Bocholt had access to recreational and cultural activities. The camp had a Catholic chapel, which was described by observers as being very well built and ornate. Daily morning mass and larger Sunday services were held; around 100 men could attend each service. The masses were conducted in French, although Dutch-speaking Belgian and Polish prisoners also participated. The camp library had over 9,000 volumes in French and more than 1,500 in Serbo-Croatian. There was a “very good” orchestra and a theater group performed plays and other shows weekly.¹¹ The prisoners had the opportunity to participate in sports, the most popular of which was football.

By contrast, the Soviet POWs were treated very poorly and lived in squalid conditions even before the move to Münster. There were at least 1,736 deaths among the Soviet prisoners; the names of 403 of these prisoners are unknown.¹² Regular selections (Aussonderungen) of “undesirables,” such as Jews and political commissars, were conducted; those selected were taken to nearby concentration camps for execution.¹³

In the months prior to the camp’s liberation, particularly after its relocation to Münster, conditions for all prisoners deteriorated badly. Prisoners’ food supplies were inadequate, consisting mostly of soup and turnips; the men received on average around 1,200 calories a day, well below the daily caloric needs of an adult. When the Americans arrived, they found around 1,500 sick prisoners, nearly half the camp population; the majority of the illnesses were cases of tuberculosis, of which 50 were in the contagious stage. There had been 226 deaths among the prisoners (mostly Soviets) in the three months prior to the arrival of American forces. The prisoners had not received parcels from the Red Cross, which were a vital lifeline for prisoners late in the war, since June 1944.¹⁴

The liberated prisoners accused the camp doctor, Georg Hollstein, of allowing Soviet inmates to die of malnutrition and treatable medical conditions. The German camp personnel fled the camp about an hour before the arrival of the Americans, evacuating about 1,500 prisoners with them, at least 26 of whom were Americans.¹⁵ Orders from the Allied forces to the newly liberated prisoners to stay put in the camp were not heeded; as many as 1,000 Russian POWs left the camp.¹⁶