KRIEGSGEFANGENENLAGER (KGL) RHODOS
KGL Rhodos was not part of the regular German prisoner of war camp system but rather an ad hoc collection camp for interned Italian soldiers, guarded by regular German troops on temporary detail. The camp existed on the Greek island of Rhodos (Rhodes) in the Aegean Sea from mid-September 1943 until March 1944 and again from November 2, 1944, until the end of the war (map 8). The camp was subordinate to the German commandant of the island of Rhodos/Admiral Aegean (Admiral Ägäis)/Army Group (Heeresgruppe) E.
German troops (Sturmdivision Rhodos, Generalleutnant Kleemann) occupied the island on September 11, 1943. Italian service members (approximately 37,000) were held prisoner, pending transport to the Greek mainland, in the KGL, parts of which were located at several inhabited localities (Calato/Kalathos and Campochiaro/Eleousa, among others) (map 8).1 Fifty of the Italian military prisoners were shot as a result of sentencing by a field court-martial, and 40 others were shot without a trial or inquiry.2
On September 22, 1943, the military prisoners (whom the Germans, in a moment of euphemism, termed “military internees” [Militärinternierte]) began the transfer to the Greek mainland, both by air and by sea. Thus, on that day, 709 prisoners departed for the mainland by air and 1,584 by sea. The ship carrying that latter group of prisoners foundered, and all the prisoners perished. On December 3, 1943, 23,092 internees, including 400 officers, still remained on the island. In all, from January 1 to March 5, 1944, more than 10,000 prisoners were moved to the mainland by sea.3
No details on conditions in the camp are available, but, in general, the Germans did not take good care of Italian prisoners, so conditions in KGL Rhodos are likely to have been harsh. There was a resistance movement among the prisoners, which primarily took the form of attempts to escape. For example, from September 11 to December 31, 1943, 1,210 prisoners, including approximately 200 officers, managed to escape. Of the escaped prisoners, 96 were arrested by the Geheime Feldpolizei, and an undetermined number of escapees were arrested by the German Feldgendarmerie and Italian Carabinieri. Recaptured prisoners, if they showed no resistance and were not shot upon capture, were placed in a special camp at Calato/Kalathos pending transport to the mainland.4
SOURCES
Additional information about KGL Rhodos can be found in the following publications: Gerhard Schreiber, Die italienischen Militärinternierten im deutschen Machtbereich 1943–1945: Verraten, Verachtet, Vergessen (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1990); and Mario Torsiello, Le operazioni delle unita italiane nel settembre–ottobre 1943 (Rome: l‘Uffizio, 1975).
