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

The Wehrmacht established FStGA 11 in Armed Forces Prison (Wehrmachtgefängnis, WG) Anklam through the commander of Defense District (Wehrkreis) II.¹ It was deployed to the eastern front with Army Group Center (Heeresgruppe Mitte), taking the place originally intended for FStGA 12. The unit, “about 800 men” strong, was subordinated to the LVI Army Corps at the end of November 1942.² Army Group Center had previously informed the Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres, OKH) that “the possibility of accommodating and utilizing additional penal units also exists [this] winter. The transfer of additional units, however, is only requested if a smooth and productive work deployment is guaranteed through the provision of a sufficient number of personnel—who are fully suitable as guards—with each unit.”³

There had already been problems with the prisoners’ productivity in FStGAs 2 and 5, which had both been deployed to the central section of the front. These problems were blamed on inadequate numbers and quality of guards.⁴ The General for Special Tasks at the OKH who was responsible for the FStGAs, General der Artillerie Eugen Müller, had indicated in his guidelines of October 28, 1942, that “few personnel suited for use as guards, who have been trained in the prisons, remain available” and that “it is therefore necessary to train qualified guards in the prison and use them to train a new generation of guards within the units [at the front].”⁵

Once it was deployed to the front, FStGA 11 received additional prisoners from WG Anklam (and presumably other WGs in Germany). Convicts from the front and rear areas of Army Group Center were also incorporated into the unit at that time. If they could not be transferred directly to FStGA 11, they were collected and transferred via Wartime Armed Forces Prison (Kriegswehrmachtgefängnis, KWG) Borissow and its Reception Center (Auffangstelle) in Smolensk.

The Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, OKW) guidelines of April 14 and 15, 1942—which were expanded by General Müller on October 28, based on the initial experiences with the FStGAs—dictated the organization and strength of the unit, the selection of the prisoners, and the prisoners’ treatment and deployment. These guidelines are discussed in more detail in FStGA 1. Little information concerning the specific implementation of these guidelines in FStGA 11 is available. It is known that the unit remained in the central area of the front, with its final deployment near Danzig (today Gdańsk, Poland).⁶

The Soviet liberation of occupied Belarus, which began with the launch of Operation Bagration on June 22, 1944, resulted in the destruction of Army Group Center and FStGA 11. Many men in the unit went missing on or shortly after this date. Sailor Hans M., who was 19 and who had been sentenced to a year in prison for insubordination and resistance, was reported missing at Starossalia (today Starosel’e, Brianskaia oblast’, Russia) on June 23, 1944.⁷ Franz K., who had been transferred to FStGA 11 from WG Anklam, had been sentenced to a year in prison for perjury. He succeeded in fleeing during troop movements on July 1, 1944.⁸ The 20-year-old naval Lance Corporal S., who had received five years in prison for breaking and entering, escaped by different means. As a straggler on a march toward the rear, he joined up with a regular combat unit and then took part in a successful small-scale counterattack. As a result, his sentence was commuted to “front probation” with Probationary Unit (Bewährungstruppe) 500 on September 22, 1944.⁹ Although FStGA 11 reported “heavy defensive actions … on the front line” in the fall of 1944, the unit did not suffer as high a casualty rate as it had in the summer, unlike other units, such as FStGAs 2 and 15.¹⁰

Beyond the case of Lance Corporal S., there are no available accounts to indicate how many prisoners from FStGA 11 had their sentences commuted to front probation with regular combat units or Probationary Unit 500.¹¹ Similarly, there is no documentation of the number of prisoners who were deemed “incorrigible” and transferred from FStGA 11 to “custody” in a Field Penal Camp (Feldstraflager), where they were subjected to even worse conditions. Their time in the Field Penal Camp would not count against their sentences, which were still to be served in full at the end of the war.¹² However, at least one example indicates that prisoners from FStGA 11 were sent to the Field Penal Camp.¹³

Despite the general lack of source material, there are two examples from FStGA 11 that illustrate how the strict application of penal regulations shaped service in a FStGA. The first example concerns the connection between stays in field hospitals and the calculation of prison sentences. For prisoners in the FStGAs, treatment in a field hospital had to occur “under secure guard” and in the same section of the front or army group rear area (Heeresgebiet).¹⁴ Generally, the nearest KWG was responsible for their transfer to the hospital. However, the course of the war—which led to hasty retreats, cutoff transport connections, and other problems—increasingly prevented compliance with this regulation. The case of Grenadier Heinrich Kampmann, who was sentenced to a 10-year prison term for “subversion of fighting power” (Wehrkraftzersetzung) through self-mutilation, demonstrated the difficulties these circumstances created. An officer of the 3rd Company of FStGA 11 reported Kampmann on December 23, 1944, for having stayed in an unguarded hospital for 15 days. As a result, 15 days were added to the end of his sentence, moving his release date from September 7, 1954, to September 22.¹⁵

The second example concerns dealings with postal transportation and censorship.¹⁶ In October 1944, the authorities of FStGA 11 refused to give prisoner Ernst Röstel a letter from his mother, because the censor apparently found its contents objectionable. His mother had told him that of the 2,200 people in his hometown, “many from Wurzbach have fallen [in combat].” She added that “it will all be over quickly, then we will rejoice if we can celebrate the festival of peace.”¹⁷ It is unsurprising that such seemingly “defeatist” remarks did not [End Page 617] pass the censor; in fact, it is perhaps more surprising that in the sixth year of war the letter was not destroyed or filed away but returned to Wurzbach via the Feldpost, stamped “returned to sender for official reasons.”¹⁸

This strict compliance with regulations within a penal system in which permanent hunger, difficult working conditions, and frequent shootings all dominated—as well as the constant threat of the possibility of transfer to a Field Penal Camp, where conditions would be even worse—parallels the similar situation in the area of military judicial criminal proceedings. Alongside the proverbial “speedy trial,” there were also excessively protracted and meticulous investigations, even when the circumstances and required sentences seemed clear from the beginning. Denunciatory formulations could also emerge in the findings of these drawn out investigations, which were similar to the verdicts pronounced in the “speedy trials.” Historians detect here a “curious synthesis of authoritarian formality and Nazi-justice arbitrariness.”¹⁹ The compliance with formal standards can be understood as more than the result of “Prussian thoroughness.” A persistent “judicial” and “procedural certainty,” alongside the terror in certain spheres, was deemed necessary and appropriate for guaranteeing the functionality of the whole system of “educational,” penal, and probationary units of the Wehrmacht.

The adherence to legal formalities facilitated the rehabilitation of offenders who still appeared to have the potential to be useful soldiers. The strict adherence to codified procedural regulations simultaneously promoted the extensive, frictionless participation of men who came from the more traditional judicial service of the Weimar Republic and did not agree with all aspects of Nazi ideology, goals, or methods. They could cling onto this legal window dressing and block out the terror that loomed behind the facade. Those who were deemed “enemies of the Volk” or “Wehrmacht” and permanently unsuitable for military service were threatened with “eradication” through transfer to a Field Penal Camp or regular concentration camp or simply through execution.

Evidence concerning the exact number of prisoners from FStGA 11 who were sentenced to death and executed is limited. Heinrich Ackmann—who had been sentenced to death for collaborative desertion by the court of the Higher Pioneer Leader (Höherer Pioneerführer) 18 on November 13, 1943—could not be executed despite the confirmation of his death sentence on December 5, 1943, because he had still not been captured.²⁰ Walter Bunge and Paul Abramsohn of the fourth company of FStGA 11, both of whom had also been sentenced to death, avoided execution because they escaped during a Soviet offensive in the summer of 1944, while being transported from KWG Minsk to Molodechno, where their sentences were to be carried out.²¹ Helmut Ströll (or Ströhl) was executed by firing squad for “subversion of fighting power” on September 2, 1944, having been sentenced to death by the court of Field Command (Feldkommandantur) 186 on August 8, 1944.²² Richard Behnke, another member of FStGA 11, was executed on October 8, 1944.²³ On October 19, 1944, Karl Leiterholt (b. October 18, 1922) was shot by a firing squad at Spandau Prison in Berlin. His sentence, for desertion, had been handed down by the court of Armed Forces High Command Berlin (Wehrmachtbefehlshaber Berlin).²⁴

On December 8, 1944, the commander of the Third Panzer Army, Generaloberst Erhard Raus, stayed the execution of two other members of the 1st Company of FStGA 11, Horst Broschinski and Heinz Hermsdorf, who had been sentenced to death for desertion.²⁵ The verdict had been pronounced by the court of the XXVI Army Corps on November 30, 1944. By that time, it appeared advisable (due to the drastic losses of personnel) to decrease the number of executions to a minimum, only carrying out those deemed necessary for effective deterrence. Those who were spared execution were to be utilized in armaments production or “front probation.” It is unknown whether Broschinski and Hermsdorf were sent to work deployment considered important to the war in the Mauthausen concentration camp (Zwischenhaft I)²⁶ or to “special probation”²⁷ in combat. The men were threatened with “death in installments” as the military sought to maximize the exploitation of “human material.”