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

KWG Dubno (map 9e) was—along with Dünaburg (Daugavpils) and Borissow (Borisov/Barysaŭ)—one of the three KWGs that the Wehrmacht established in the occupied territories shortly after the invasion of the Soviet Union. The main deciding factors for the locations of these three KWGs—in the southern, northern, and central rear areas of the eastern front—were the existence of suitable buildings for housing prisoners and “convenient location to transportation hubs.”¹ Under the “enforcement plan” of November 17, 1941, the purpose of KWG Dubno was to house prisoners from Army Group South (Heeresgruppe Süd), its rear areas, and the Military Commander (Wehrmachtsbefehlshaber) Ukraine, who were given sentences of up to three months imprisonment by military courts. Soldiers from these areas who were given longer sentences were transferred from Dubno “in regular, expedited transports” to Armed Forces Prison (Wehrmachtsgefängnis, WG) Glatz (today Kłodzko, Poland) in Lower Silesia. The KWG in Dubno had a Reception Center (Auffangsstelle) in Kiev.² Beginning in April 1942, the military penal system was largely transferred from the military prisons within Germany to the areas near the front,³ in the form of the newly created field penal battalions (Feldstrafgefangenen-Abteilungen, FStGA) and field penal camps (Feldstraflager); as a result, the responsibilities of KWG Dubno increased. From May 1942, it collected Wehrmacht soldiers from Army Group South who had been sentenced to the penal battalions and sent them on to FStGA 1.⁴ In this respect, by October 1943, FStGA 7, 8, 10, 12, 16, 17, and 18 had also been deployed to the southern section of the eastern front.

Like other KWGs, Dubno also served as a temporary residence for prisoners from the nearby penal battalions who were unable to work due to stress, hunger, and abuse. The basis for this practice was derived from the guidelines for medical care in the penal battalions, in which was stated: “Hospital care for prisoners is carried out … under strict supervision in the army or army group rear area; a transfer to a hospital in the homeland or, respectively, to a replacement unit (here: Armed Forces Prison) is not to occur.” Military prisoners who were “physically and medically unfit,” according to the judgment of both the battalion doctor and the doctor of the higher division, were then to be “sent to the responsible Kriegswehrmachtgefängnis” for treatment.⁵ If the reports differed with each other, the prisoner would remain with the battalion. One such prisoner sent to KWG Dubno was Fritz D. from FStGA 16, who was no longer able to work due to malnutrition. He reported: “One day a column went to Dubno, and we undernourished and sick prisoners were driven [there]—70 kilometers [43.5 miles] by foot. In Dubno, they were supposed to let us recover, but we had to spend seven hours in the yard, double-timing. Every day, one saw deaths. Those who were near death were taken out at night to be shot.”⁶

That last quote indicates that KWG Dubno was already used as a remand prison in 1943, although the “accommodation of remanded prisoners and those provisionally detained” was first mentioned as a responsibility of the KWGs in instructions from September 4, 1944.⁷ Indeed, two shootings of prisoners in KWG Dubno have been documented. On September 18, 1943, two prisoners from FStGA, Paul Knott (b. November 21, 1919) and Waldemar Knappe (b. June 1, 1921), were executed for desertion.⁸

Even after the establishment of the field penal units, regular transports to the prisons within Germany continued. These transports carried either prisoners who were not healthy enough to be sent to the FStGAs⁹ or officers and non-commissioned officers who had been sentenced to more than three months’ imprisonment (without loss of rank) and were thus required to serve their sentences in the military prisons in Germany.¹⁰ In particular, those soldiers who had been sentenced under §102 Abs. 1 and 3 of the military penal code (Kriegsstrafverfahrensordnung) were sent back to Germany to be turned over to the civilian authorities.¹¹ In practice, these transports also included soldiers who were determined to be “unworthy” of the military due to their criminal sentences and who would thus be expelled from the Wehrmacht. Soldiers under the authority of the Army Group South Rear Area Command (Befehlshaber des rückwärtigen Heeresgebietes Süd) who were given such sentences were sent from “KWG Dubno … to the Ratibor prison” in Upper Silesia, from which they were then sent via the prosecutor in Ratibor (today Racibórz, Poland) “to the Strafgefangenenlager [prison camp] Esterwegen.”¹² [End Page 642]

Further transports from Dubno to Germany carried those who were considered to be “irredeemable” and were thus sentenced to the hardest form of military punishment, imprisonment in the field penal camps.¹³ The policy toward these prisoners was that “soldiers who were sent to the Field Penal Camps will be transferred only via WG Torgau-Fort Zinna—with the exception of those who can be transferred directly from the area of these Field Penal Camps.”¹⁴ Because there were no field penal camps in the area around KWG Dubno, soldiers from the area who were sentenced to terms in those camps were transferred from Dubno via WG Torgau-Fort Zinna. Finally, another unknown number of men were sent to Probationary Unit (Bewährungstruppe) 500. The associated risk to life and limb is illustrated by the example of Oberfeldwebel Andreas Seitz. On April 23, 1944, he was sentenced to five years in prison for alleged cowardice and was sent to KWG Dubno. On May 13, the chief of Luftflotte 4, his former unit, recommended him (apparently based on his previous good record) for transfer to the Probationary Unit.¹⁵ On June 14, he was sent to Probationary Unit 500 at Tomaszów Mazowiecki; by August 6, he was registered as “killed in action” by the 550th Infantry Battalion.

As the Red Army advanced during that time, KWG Dubno was moved to Lemberg (then also known as Lwów; today L’viv, Ukraine). The closing of the prison at Dubno was ordered by the Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, OKW) on August 24, 1944, with the accompanying order to send the prisoners held there to WG Bruchsal, where a processing center was established.¹⁶ By September 31, 1944, KWG Dubno’s field post number (Feldpostnummer) had been struck.¹⁷