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

The Wehrmacht established FStGA 3 on May 1, 1942, “through District II Armed Forces Prison (Wehrmachtgefängnis, WG) Anklam.”¹ The unit originally comprised 100 prisoners from WG Anklam as well as 50 inmates sent from WG Graudenz (today Grudziądz, Poland) and 50 from the Armed Forces Prison Camp (Wehrmachtgefangenenlager, WGL) Donau.

On May 28, 1942, General der Artillerie Eugen Müller, general for Special Tasks in the Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres, OKH), who was responsible for prison sentences, instructed the “Army Groups, Army High Commanders and Armored Armies in the East”² that FStGA 3 would be sent to Army Group North (Heeresgruppe Nord). Convicts in the vicinity of this Army Group were to be brought to FStGA 3 via Wartime Armed Forces Prison (Kriegswehrmachtgefängnis, KWG) Wilna (Vilnius), if a direct transfer was not possible.

The Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, OKW) guidelines of April 14 and 15, 1942—which General Müller expanded on October 28, 1942, after initial deployment experiences—dictated the organization and strength of the unit, the selection of the prisoners, and the prisoners’ treatment and deployment. These guidelines are discussed in detail in the entry for FStGA 1. Their concrete implementation in FStGA 3 can be thoroughly reconstructed for the beginning phase.

On May 27, 1942, the Sixteenth Army in Army Group North reported that FStGA 3 would be incorporated into the XXXIX Army Corps. At the same time, AOK 16 requested guidelines for the treatment of the unit’s personnel. In explanation, the following was cited:

According to a fundamental order of the Armed Forces High Command, the Field Penal Unit is to be deployed for the most difficult labor, under unfavorable climatic conditions and with perilous circumstances in the operational area, possibly in the deployment area of fighting troops, for building bunkers and fortifications, road construction, and mine sweeping, etc.

I ask for guidelines for the positioning of the guard units—which provide for their military service under the same circumstances that are imagined as strict punishment for prisoners. The difficult service of these irreproachable soldiers demands special recognition, also to make them stand out in the eyes of the prisoners. The question of the removal, replacement, or, if necessary, health care privileges, special bonuses, etc., requires fundamental regulation.³

The letter from AOK 16 was finally reflected in an order from Army High Command to ensure “heightened care for and care of supervisory staff through the outlined command authorities.” With this came the directive not to “forget” the officers and permanent staff and to reward them with “decorations and promotions.” A “permanent instruction” to operate within the troops was that the “guard duty in prisons was not inferior to, but rather equal to, infantry service.”⁴ It was later indicated that officers of the FStGA could be recommended “for priority promotion” if their unit was “incorporated into a front division.”⁵

A FStGA 3 duty report for July 1942 illustrated service (Dienst) for internees, which was “imagined [as] particularly severe punishment.” According to this report, 375 prisoners from WG Wilna and five directly “from the [front line] troops”⁶ were sent to the unit in that month. The unit comprised 640 men, divided into four companies (i.e., 160 men per company). Mainly due to illness, 160 men were unavailable for service at that time. In July 1942, the four companies of FStGA 3 were deployed “near the front line with at least 120 men,” in order to “make the sole highway (Rollbahn) under construction for the 218th Infantry Division somewhat passable.” Specifically, the work entailed, “sawing logs, … to carry them to the highway.” Felling the trees and transporting the logs was [End Page 599] difficult because the subsoil on all sides was made “nearly completely [of] swamp and water.” The men also had to deal with “thick underbrush everywhere.” The unit commander gave a positive report: “Working seven days, 120 men cut down between 7,331 and 9,527 tree trunks per week, which means building a wooden embankment [Knüppeldamm] of nearly five kilometers [3 miles] for the deployed company. Since the work is to be done in marshland, morass, and softened-up muddy roads, and the logs are to be carried 200 to 500 meters [656 to 1,640 feet] from the forest, the performance of the military prisoners—who have worked for a long while without a break—will be recognized.” The commander also commended “a minesweeping squad of approximately 16 men” who were working on the Loknia-Kholm highway under the 218th Infantry Division. This task had been “flawlessly operated” to that point. The report continued that “naturally, casualties from mine fragments, death, and wounds [would occur].”⁷ The commander reported that, up to that time, 2 men had been killed and 10 wounded working on this task.

The assessment of the guard personnel was less positive. According to the unit commander, it did “not yet meet highest standards … despite much instruction and punishment.” Clearly, the selection standards were not closely observed. This problem continued “especially in the guard platoon [Wachzug],”⁸ which was composed of soldiers who had only received six weeks of training after their conscription. Per an order from June 24, 1942, the guard personnel were to be chosen from “completely trained, reliable, particularly energetic and physically robust soldiers.”⁹

The report indicated numerous additional permanent departures among the prisoners: 2 “in the course of punishment,” 4 through “sentence reassignment [to probation on the front],”¹⁰ 15 due to serious illness, 3 by “order of penal camp custody,”¹¹ and 6 “by updated sentence,” whereby it was supposedly based on prison sentences. Even though FStGA 3 had only been deployed for two months, two men had already been “shot for desertion.” Court authorities confirmed two additional death sentences at the time. The grounds for the two other “departures” were eventually entered as “absent without leave.”¹² Since the subsequent months and years yielded no comparable source material, it cannot be judged whether these figures are representative of the normal movement of personnel to and from FStGA 3.

The leader of FStGA 3 emphasized in his report of August 1, 1942, that he was “pleased” with the work carried out to that point by “all senior deployed units.”¹³ However, the flyer created in Everding’s name described the malnutrition and exhaustion the prisoners experienced in the unit: “With the rations that we in the battalion [sic] receive, and the great physical burden we won’t be able to hold out long. You know our daily rations well: 150 to 200 grams [5.3 to 7 ounces] of bread, thin soup without meat, etc. You all remember well how Rein-hold Buhr once gave in under the weight of a heavy beam, and how the Feldwebel of the First Company gave him a kick.”¹⁴

This assessment—which might otherwise be attributed to Soviet propaganda—was confirmed later in the “Activity Report of the Advising Internees at the Army Medic of the Sixteenth Army for the Period November 1, 1942 to May 1, 1943.” Oberfeldarzt Schmidt-Ott said of FStGA 3 that “of the 100 field prisoners, I often saw none with a body weight exceeding 50 kilograms [110 pounds]. This FStGA had the highest rate of deaths due to dysentery … even if the burden of the punishment abbreviates the sentence, the individual convict will very soon not be able to do the labor because he is too calorically malnourished.”¹⁵ Because of the lack of source material, it is not possible to determine whether the doctor’s evaluation led to any improvement in conditions.

FStGA 3 was supposedly the first FStGA to receive the order to deploy “climbers” (Aufgestiegene)—prisoners promoted within the unit for good behavior. In effect, the assignments for climbers were expanded on the spot—they were to take up arms in emergency situations—and were already deployed to antipartisan fighting. In the beginning of 1944, the Sixteenth Army formed two battalions with about 900 climbers from FStGAs 3, 9, and 14. They wore the insignia “Army Group-Probationary-Btl. III and IV.”¹⁶ Army Group-Probationary-Btl. IV had been dissolved by May 1944, after which its members were returned to the FStGAs. The same procedure was supposedly carried out with Army Group-Probationary-Btl. III. The reason for the dissolution of these units is unknown. In any case, General Müller confirmed that the FStGAs should continue to be deployed “without weapons, under perilous conditions … essentially as construction troops … positioned according to deployment and military duty with engineering posts.” “Temporary armed deployment of select field prisoners in a breakthrough company or platoon” was only to take place in “exceptional cases.”¹⁷

In the fall of 1944, FStGA 3 was among the eight FStGAs transferred to the western front to build fortifications against the approaching Western Allied troops in the area along the German border with France and Belgium.¹⁸ The last-known deployment of FStGA 3 was with Army Group B in the Eifel Mountains in western Germany and eastern Belgium.¹⁹