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

Among the earliest Mobile Army Prisons (Bewegliche Beeresgefängnisse, BHG) known by name is BHG Athens, which the Germans established in Greece in the summer of 1941. Presumably, it existed only for a few months, until the establishment of the Armed Forces Prison (Wehrmachtgefängnis, WG), Athens.¹ A larger number of BHGs came into being immediately after the attack on the Soviet Union. Thus, the first identification cards for BHG personnel were issued by the headquarters of armies (Armeeoberkommando, AOK) 9, 11, 17, and 18 date from July 1941.² A few of the BHGs that the Germans established on the eastern front in 1941 existed until 1945, for example, the BHG with AOK 18. Others were disbanded again after a short period of time, as was the case with the BHG with the Fourth Army by the end of 1941.

An order from the commander of the Ninth Army outlined the role of the BHGs, according to their status as of the spring of 1942, thus: “The mobile army prison in Witebsk [today Vitebsk, Belarus] is not available for the execution of penal detention. Its task, first and foremost, is to concentrate and dispatch those prisoners who have been sentenced to longer prison sentences and detention in penal camps, and who are to be transported to detention facilities in the homeland. Prison sentences of up to 3 months will be served in the prison in Borissow (KWG) [today Barysaw, Belarus]; sentences of more than 3 months in prisons in the homeland. Those affected are to be conducted to the mobile army prison in Witebsk for transport, including those for whom detention in penal camps has been ordered.”³

The authorized strength for the permanent staff of the mobile army prisons also provides a clue to the size of their prisoner populations. According to Seidler, the permanent staff of a BHG in 1941 consisted of a Hauptmann or Leutnant (captain or lieutenant) as commander, an Oberfeldwebel (master sergeant), a Feldwebel (staff sergeant), and six Unteroffiziere (sergeants or corporals) as well as two privates as drivers. Accordingly, the number of prisoners was likely to be estimated in the two digit rather than three digit range. The reason for the small number was that the BHG were “not penal facilities in the usual sense,” but rather “first and foremost reception, collection, and transfer stations.”⁴ Because of this role, the Germans usually established BHGs at the sites of the prisoner of war collection points at the front.

From April 1942 on, the execution of sentences was largely moved out of the armed forces prisons in the homeland to areas near the front, that is, to Field Penal Battalions (Feldstrafgefangenen-Abteilungen, FStGAs) and Field Penal Camps (Feldstraflager). At that point, the activities and the number of BGHs in the east expanded. As of the end of May 1942, mobile army prisons existed with AOKs 6, 9, 11, 12, 16, 17, and 18, and with the commanding generals of security troops and the commanders of the rear areas of Army Groups South, Center, and North. Their tasks were outlined this way at the time: “Accepting custody of judicially convicted soldiers from the respective commands for the purpose of transferring them to the penal institutions in the rear, or to field penal battalions (or field penal camps). Execution of disciplinary and judicial penal detention, and in exceptional cases also up to six weeks of time remaining on an existing sentence.”⁵ The BHGs also came into consideration for the temporary housing of provisionally arrested soldiers.

From January 1943 on, so-called penal platoons (Strafvollstreckungszüge) were established in order to be able to also execute sentences of a few weeks in the immediate area of the front, and this development further restricted the responsibilities of the BHGs. On September 4, 1944, their “purpose” was communicated thus: “1. Housing of temporarily apprehended prisoners and those being held for interrogation; 2. Acceptance into custody of those sentenced by military courts within the jurisdiction of the army or army group, for transfer to field penal units and field penal camps or to penal installations in the rear; 3. Execution of penal detention of up to six weeks’ duration, if temporary incarceration in a penal platoon is not possible.”⁶ Messerschmidt underscores the importance that befitted the BHGs as a hinge to the field penal units and the field penal camps, by noting that the Sixteenth Army judge inspected the BHG there three times in the fourth quarter of 1944.⁷ Apparently, the inspections were supposed to establish that the prisoners reached the field penal system as quickly as possible.⁸

After mobile army prisons were established, at first on an “as needed”⁹ basis only at army headquarters and the commanders of army rear areas, others were added at various army groups, the last one being established in 1944. As of March 16, 1943, there were already 14 mobile army prisons in the area of the eastern front.¹⁰ Occasionally, they were also referred to as “Bewegliche Armeegefängnisse” (which also translates to “mobile army prisons”), as was the case, for example, with the installation with AOK 18, located in Volosovo [End Page 591] (Leningrad oblast’) in May 1943.¹¹ After the start of combat action in Italy, by February 1944, a BHG Italy existed there.¹² The Field Post Number Overview of June 6, 1944, shows a BHG North,¹³ which may have been located in Norway or perhaps Denmark. Soon after the Allied landing in Normandy in the summer of 1944, BHGs were established on the western front; they existed as part of the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Army commands. Also, the First Airborne Army command had an army mobile prison at its disposal—even though the army itself was under the command of the air force.¹⁴

In December 1944 and January 1945, the designations of the existing 21¹⁵ BHG were changed to mobile army prisons 500–520. The following listing shows the last former designation: BHG 500 (formerly the BHG with AOK 2), BHG 501 (with AOK 4), BHG 502 (with AOK 6), BHG 503 (with AOK8/B II), BHG 504 (was the BHG Italy), BHG 505 (with AOK 16), BHG 506 (with AOK 17), BHG 507 (with A II), BHG 508 (with AOK 1), BHG 509 (with AOK 7), BHG 10 (with AOK15), BHG 511 (with AOK 19), BHG 512 (with P z.AOK [Armored Army Headquarters] 1), BHG 513 (with Pz.AOK 3), BHG 514 (with Pz.AOK 4), BHG 515 (with Pz.AOK 5), BHG 516 (the BHG with Airborne AOK1), BHG 17 (was the BHG at A I), BHG 518 (was the BHG with Army Group A), BHG 519 (was the BHG with Army Group Center), and BHG 520 (was the BHG North). BHG 521 and BHG 522, which appear in the Field Post Number Overviews of January 16 and March 3, 1945, respectively, had apparently already been established at unknown locations.¹⁶

Like all Wehrmacht detention sites, the mobile army prisons added their contribution to the balance of terror of National Socialist military justice, which carried out over 20,000 executions of members of the armed forces alone. The example of BHG 511, which was under the control of the Nineteenth Army, serves to illustrate the role that the mobile army prisons played in this regard. On April 25, 1945, its commander, Hauptmann Otto Siebler, arrived in Diepoldshofen with 120 prisoners, on a march from Waldkirch via Sigmaringen. Among the prisoners were 45 soldiers who had been sentenced to death. For 16 of them—one of whom was able to flee—Siebler had received the execution orders on April 19. On April 26, two days before French troops arrived, he had the remaining 15 men executed in the forest of Diepoldshofen. Two criminal proceedings against him in the 1950s were suspended, because juridically he could not be found guilty, since the sentences had been legally valid.¹⁷