Volume IV: Camps and Other Detention Facilities under the German Armed Forces
Encyclopedia

SONDERLAGER WUTZETZ

Alexander Kruglov
Translated by Kathleen Luft

This special camp (Sonderlager) existed from the beginning of 1942 until the end of 1944. The camp was deployed in Wutzetz, near the town of Friesack, Brandenburg, about 64 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of Berlin (map 4b). Administratively, the camp was subordinate to the commander of Defense District (Wehrkreis) III, but it had a special relationship to the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Ostministerium).

The camp held Soviet prisoners of war (POWs), specially selected by the Germans in POW camps, to test their suitability for training as propagandists and various types of administrative personnel in organizations that the Ostministerium created in occupied Soviet territory and in Germany itself. Prisoners who passed the test and preliminary training were sent for further training to the training camp (Ausbildungslager) at Wustrau.

SOURCES

Additional information about Sonderlager Wutzetz can be found in the following publications: S. G. Chuev, Spetssluzhby Tret’ego reikha: Kniga II (St. Petersburg, 2003), p. 236; and A. V. Okorokov, Osobyi front: Nemetskaia propaganda na Vostochnom fronte v gody Vtoroi mirovoi voiny (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Russkii put’,” 2007).

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