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

The Wehrmacht established FStGA 21 in March 1945 through the conversion of Field Penal Camp (Feldstraflager) I, which was in service at that time with Army Group South (Heeresgruppe Süd) in Hungary.¹ The five companies of FStGA 21 (at least according to plans) included a penal camp company (Straflager-Kompanie) and a penitentiary company (Zuchthaus-Kompanie).

The redesignation and reclassification of Feldstraflager I (which took place in a similar manner with Feldstraflager II) brought to an end the process of expanding and unifying the military penal system, which had begun in the late summer of 1944. Up to that time, prisoners who were sentenced to terms in penitentiaries, if their sentences were not commuted to prison terms, were classified as “unfit for combat,” kicked out of the armed forces, and turned over to the Reich Justice Administration (Reichsjustizverwaltung, i.e. the civilian penal system). They were often sent to prison camps in Emsland—where they lived in conditions that were “similar to those in the concentration camps”—for what was deemed “probation.”² Their time there did not count against their sentence, which they were expected to serve in full at the end of the war.

Early on, there were already critics of the idea of returning penitentiary prisoners to Germany. As one naval court put it, “undesirable elements … may find it preferable to be sentenced to the penitentiary rather than prison.”³ The Naval High Command (Oberkommando der Kriegsmarine, OKM) expressed the same concern in October 1942. However, the OKM did not see a possibility for “field penal service for these bad elements” because of the lack of suitable guards. It stated that “the guard personnel cannot be assembled in sufficient strength for supervision and maintenance of the prisoners, to prevent mutiny, unauthorized leave, and desertion.”⁴ It had, in fact, already become apparent in some cases, such as those of FStGAs 3 and 4, that there was a shortage of adequate guard personnel. On October 6, 1942, General der Artillerie Eugen Müller of the Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres, OKH) stated that in view of the “the generally restricted availability of staff personnel” the FStGAs “unfortunately cannot be expanded.”⁵ Because field penal service for the penitentiary prisoners would have required increased numbers of guard personnel, it appeared inefficient from a military standpoint.

In fact, two detachments with about 4,600 total penitentiary prisoners from the Emsland camps had been formed outside the Wehrmacht and deployed to northern Norway (Kommando Nord) and the Atlantic coast of France (Kommando West), where they provided good results in the eyes of the German authorities. The men were sent to work on military construction projects under Organisation Todt, which included the construction of defensive works and construction and maintenance of military supply lines.⁶ The Industrial Ministry, which was responsible for these units, expressed its satisfaction with the work done by these units to the Justice Ministry.⁷

It is unknown whether the experiences with Kommando Nord and Kommando West had any direct influence on the decision to use soldiers sentenced to penitentiary terms in the FStGAs. It is possible that the increasingly desperate military situation led the military leadership to resort to using these men. On September 4, 1944, General Müller gave the order for the large-scale transfer of penitentiary prisoners to penal service at the front. The special penitentiary companies were attached to the FStGAs in late August or early September 1944. According to Müller’s order, “members of the field army who have been sentenced to a penitentiary term” were only to be handed over to the Reich Justice Administration if they were “the most uneducable asocials; homosexual repeat-offenders; elements which were dangerous to the community; or convicts who were not needed by the Wehrmacht for various reasons.” In all other cases, “prisoners who were sentenced to the penitentiary” were to be sent “to the FStGAs or Feldstraflager under a conditional restoration of suitability for military service.”⁸

A day after Müller’s order, Heinrich Himmler, who had become the commander of the Replacement Army (Ersatzheer) on July 20, 1944, ordered that in his area of responsibility, the penal system was “to be placed without exception in the immediate service of the war effort”: “Soldiers and army officials … who have been sentenced to prison are no longer to be … given over to the civilian justice system. They are either to be sent to the penitentiary companies of the FStGAs or turned over to the Gestapo and transferred to labor service in a concentration camp.”⁹ The prisoners selected for the penitentiary companies were to be those who could be considered for “front probation” with Probationary Unit (Bewährungstruppe) 500. Time served in the penitentiary company would only begin to count against the prisoner’s sentence when they were transferred to Probationary Unit 500. The Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe soon adopted the same practice.¹⁰ The army sent a commission of military judges to the Emsland camps to evaluate the prisoners there for suitability for service in a penitentiary company in a FStGA, in Probationary Unit 500, or in the labor service at Buchenwald. Since the majority of the prisoners in the Emsland camps were already working in war-related industries, the transfer of [End Page 638] prisoners to Probationary Unit 500 was very selective, while the transfer of prisoners to the FStGAs or labor in Buchenwald was much more common.¹¹ A similar practice was instituted for former service members who had been sentenced to the penitentiary because they were “unfit for duty on the Moor [i.e., in the Emsland camps].”

Alongside the integration of the penitentiary companies, the FStGAs also received penal camp companies, which in the special case of FStGA 20 had already been done in late 1943. In the process of a unification of the organizational structures, Feldstraflager I was reorganized as FStGA 21. If this change in the final weeks of the war had any practical effect it is unknown due to the lack of available sources. The prisoners in FStGA 21 were captured by American forces on May 8, 1945, and became prisoners of war.¹²