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

The Wehrmacht established Stalag VIII B (map 4e) from Dulag VIII B on October 4, 1939, in Lamsdorf, Oberschlesien, Germany (today Łambinowice, Poland). On September 17, 1942, a subcamp (Zweiglager), designated Stalag VIII B/Z, was created in Teschen (today Český Tešín, Czech Republic); this camp was dissolved on November 18, 1943. On December 2, 1943, the headquarters of Stalag VIII B were transferred to the camp at Teschen and the camp at Lamsdorf was redesignated as Stalag 344. Reserve Hospital (Reserve Lazarett) Cosel was also subordinate to Stalag VIII B.¹

Stalag VIII B was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War in Defense District VIII (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Wehrkreis VIII). The first commandant of the camp was Oberstleutnant Castell-Castell; he was succeeded shortly thereafter by Oberstleutnant Nickisch von Rosenegk. Nickisch von Rosenegk was only the commandant for a short time and was replaced on September 9, 1940, by Oberst Dr. Bornemann. Bornemann left the position on January 25, 1941; it is unclear who was in command immediately after his departure, but, by March 1941, Major Trenka had been installed as the new commandant. After May 8, 1941, he was replaced by Oberstleutnant Hedicke, who remained until August 1, 1941. He was then succeeded by Oberstleutnant Minzinger, who was succeeded by Oberst Ritter von Poschinger on October 25, 1941. Ritter von Poschinger remained the commandant until September 11, 1942, when the camp’s longest-serving commandant, Kapitän zur See Gylek, took over. The final commandant of Stalag VIII B was Oberst Thielebein, who succeeded Gylek on December 5, 1944. The camp was guarded by personnel from the 337th, 398th, 427th, 438th, 439th, 515th, 559th, 561st, 565th, 586th, 590th, and 749th Reserve Battalions (Landesschützenbataillone).²

Stalag VIII B held prisoners of war (POWs) from Poland, Belgium, France, Britain, Yugoslavia, Greece, the Soviet Union, the United States, and Romania as well as Italian military internees. The maximum camp population was 97,646, and as of mid-1943, it was the largest POW camp in Germany.³ However, the official camp population figures are generally much higher than the number of prisoners who were detained in the camp at any given time, since most prisoners were sent to work details (Arbeitskommandos) in the surrounding area.

On August 26, 1939, the Wehrmacht created a transit camp (Dulag) on the site for the expected influx of Polish POWs. The first prisoners arrived on September 5. On October 4, 1939, the Germans redesignated the camp as a Stalag. By this time, 43,000 prisoners had already passed through the camp, and a total of 270 work details had been created, employing 6,669 prisoners, primarily in agriculture.⁴ Conditions in these work details were generally poor. Regulations on working hours were often ignored and prisoners regularly died of exhaustion. The poor sanitary conditions in the work details led to additional deaths from diseases such as typhus and typhoid fever. The men’s rations were barely sufficient to keep them alive and working, generally consisting of ersatz coffee or tea and between 100 and 250 grams (3.5–8.8 ounces) of bread in the morning, a liter (1 quart) of watery soup for lunch, and two or three small potatoes for dinner.⁵ [End Page 446]

In March 1940, the Wehrmacht began transferring Polish prisoners to camps in other parts of Germany to make room for expected prisoners from the western front. The first British and French prisoners arrived the next month and were soon sent out on work details. The largest group in the camp were British prisoners, many of whom were British Palestinians or Cypriots, who arrived from transit camps in Southeastern Europe or other Stalags further to the south, including Stalag XVIII D in Marburg (today Maribor, Slovenia) and Stalag XVII A in Kaisersteinbruch. For example, on June 30, 1941, a transport of 692 British prisoners departed Dulag 183 in Salonika (today Thessaloniki, Greece) for Stalag VIII B.⁶

When the camp was first established, the prisoners slept in tents or in the headquarters building of the old firing range, as no barracks were constructed prior to the invasion of Poland.⁷ Between the fall of 1939 and fall of 1940, the prisoners built the camp facilities. While the prisoners were living in the tent camp, the German camp personnel conducted selections to remove Jewish prisoners as well as those who were sick or otherwise unable to work.

Once the prisoners’ quarters and other camp facilities were constructed, British and other Western Allied prisoners generally experienced adequate conditions in Stalag VIII B, at least through 1942. Prisoners lived in large whitewashed brick barracks, which were solidly constructed, each with stoves and basic latrines and bathing facilities.⁸ However, there were reports of mistreatment of Western Allied prisoners, including beatings, solitary confinement, and shootings.

The hospital (Lazarett) facilities at Stalag VIII B Lamsdorf were among the best and most modern in the German POW camp system. The hospital comprised 11 buildings with a capacity of over 600 prisoners. It also had its own X-ray and laboratory facilities, a separate morgue, and quarters for medical staff. However, the conditions in the hospital deteriorated as the camp became increasingly overcrowded during the middle years of the war.

Between September 1942 and October 1943, the British camp nearly quadrupled in size from 8,000 to over 30,000 prisoners. This rapid expansion placed further strain on the camp’s already limited resources. By late 1942, the prisoners faced overcrowding and chronic water shortages. The lack of reliable water meant that latrines were rarely emptied and showers were infrequent. Rations were reduced to around 1,500 calories per day.⁹

The British and other Western Allied prisoners had access to some recreational and cultural activities within the camp at Lamsdorf. The Anglican chapel held two Sunday services; the morning service attendance was usually around 700, while that of the evening service was usually around 400. A small theological study group consisting of eight men was formed, three of whom were preparing for ordination on their return to England. There was also a Methodist minister in the British camp. Twenty-four hundred men participated in a total of 83 courses in subjects such as English, German, French, history, geography, and mathematics. The camp orchestra had 28 regular members, while the choir had 50. Concerts and theater productions were performed weekly, and sometimes more frequently. The prisoners also participated in sports, including football and volleyball; the YMCA delegate who visited the camp on March 17, 1943, noted that the American and Canadian soldiers wanted equipment to play softball and basketball as well.¹⁰

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Stalag VIII B at Lamsdorf. Prisoners at a class outside the barracks, August 1940.

COURTESY OF ICRC.

By October 1943, the rapid expansion of the camp population coupled with the failure to expand the camp itself or address its infrastructural problems made conditions in Stalag VIII B very poor. These conditions were further exacerbated by the influx of Italian military internees during the last months of 1943. Third beds were added to all the bunks, but this measure failed to provide sufficient quarters for the growing population, so the Germans converted all available recreational areas (including the school, theater, and other social spaces) to makeshift barracks.¹¹ These new barracks lacked beds and, by November, nearly 1,500 prisoners were sleeping and eating on the floor.¹² Obtaining water required constant effort on the part of the prisoners, who had to fill buckets from a source about 180 meters (200 yards) from the camp and carry them back. They could only shower once per month and faced severe hygiene problems stemming from their inability to clean the latrines. Similar overcrowding and water shortages affected the camp infirmary and hospital, both of which lacked beds for all the patients. Fears of epidemics spread throughout the camp.¹³

There were between 600 and 700 work details subordinate to Stalag VIII B. They were spread throughout much of Upper Silesia and other parts of present-day southwestern Poland. Among them was the infamous Kommando E715, whose 1,200 (mostly British) prisoners were deployed to the IG Farben synthetic rubber factory (Buna Werke) at Auschwitz III-Monowitz. Many of them remained under the control of Stalag VIII B after it was transferred to Teschen at the end of 1943. [End Page 447]

While they were not subject to the same level of mistreatment as the Polish POWs and civilian laborers had been early in the war, the Western Allied prisoners in the work details nonetheless faced difficult conditions. This was especially true of those prisoners who were sent to work in the numerous coal mines of Upper Silesia; this fate was particularly common for Jewish prisoners. One British Palestinian prisoner, Mosche (Ernest) Brauner, was sent to work in a coal mine after he was brought to Stalag VIII B in late April 1941. He reported that the Jewish and Gentile prisoners were separated, though British prisoners of both groups worked in the same mine near Bismarckhütte (today Chorzów Batory, Poland) in a detail of about 400 men. They worked in two 12-hour shifts in the mine along with Polish civilian workers. They were guarded by a German officer who was armed with a pistol. In early 1943, two of his fellow prisoners (both Jewish) were shot by the German officer in unclear circumstances; it was alleged by the German authorities that they had attempted to escape, but Brauner had no way to confirm their story.¹⁴

In January 1945, as the Red Army closed in on Teschen, the Germans began to evacuate the prisoners at Stalag VIII B to Stalag XIII D in Nürnberg-Langwasser. Two of the largest groups were marched out of the camp in early March. The first, which left on March 7, was taken in the direction of Karlsbad, in the Sudetenland (today Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic); it remained there for five days before resuming its march toward Germany. The second, which departed two days later, was sent toward Marienbad (today Mariánské Lázně, Czech Republic); it remained there for a few days before continuing onward.¹⁵ The camp at Teschen was liberated on May 3, 1945.