The Forgotten Red Army Prisoners of War
Ms. Pulvermacher, when and why were so many Soviet soldiers taken prisoner?
In June 1941, the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union, taking it completely by surprise. Having signed a pact with Hitler in 1939, Stalin had not expected a German attack until much later. The situation was disastrous for the Soviet Union, especially in the first months of the war. During the major encirclement battles of late summer and fall 1941, hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers were taken prisoner by the Germans – over 600,000 in Kyiv alone.
What did the Nazi leadership and the Wehrmacht plan to do with the prisoners?
Initially, they were to be deported to the German Reich to be used as forced laborers in the war industry. Hitler abandoned this plan, however, because he feared a “Bolshevik contamination” of the German people. Under international law, the Wehrmacht would have been obligated to treat the prisoners of war no differently from its own soldiers. But since the Soviet Union had not signed the Geneva Convention, the Nazi leadership disregarded the provisions for the protection of prisoners. Most of the prison camps – Dulags and Stalags – were makeshift and disastrously organized. Daily life was marked by hunger, violence, and death marches; those who could no longer walk were often shot.
A team from the University of Klagenfurt is researching the largely unexplored fate of Soviet prisoners of war during World War II in occupied Ukraine. A total of 2.5 to 3 million Red Army soldiers died in German captivity.
Did women also serve in the Red Army?
Yes, over 800,000 – the majority of them worked in logistics, administration, as translators, or in the medical field. The Red Army was a decidedly unfavorable environment for women. There was a lack of proper uniforms, footwear, equipment, underwear, and hygiene supplies. Also, female soldiers were considered fair game by the Red Army officers – sexual assault was widespread.
Tens of thousands of female Red Army soldiers were also directly and indirectly involved in the fighting at the front. In German propaganda, they were portrayed as amazons and perverse fiends. Women in active combat were incompatible with the Nazis’ views on gender. Several Wehrmacht directives therefore ordered the shooting of what they termed “Bolshevik gun bitches.” As a result, particularly in the first months of the war, Soviet female soldiers were shot right after being captured, and rapes beforehand were not uncommon.
How many prisoners of war were there in total?
In total, 5.3 million soldiers of the Red Army, as well as members of the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) and railway workers, were taken prisoner during World War II, around 2 million of them in the territory of present-day Ukraine. The largest ethnic group was Russians, followed by Ukrainians, Belarusians, Georgians, and numerous other ethnic groups from the Soviet Union. Approximately 480,000 Jews also served in the Red Army, and 50,000 to 80,000 of them were taken prisoner.
What questions does your research focus on?
One focus is on the structure and location of the camps in the occupied territories. Many were located in or near cities. The Wehrmacht often used existing barracks, factory buildings, warehouses, and even monasteries. In Uman, Stalag 349 was housed in a huge clay pit; the buildings of an abandoned brick factory and a chicken farm served as accommodations. These buildings were unheated and inadequate – the majority of prisoners had to spend their nights beneath the open sky.
Another important question is why so many prisoners of war starved to death, particularly during the first winter of 1941–42. Contrary to earlier accounts, this was not the result of supply shortages. The 1941 harvest in Ukraine was very good, but the German occupiers shipped large quantities of food to the Third Reich. Rations, which were already low, were further reduced for prisoners of war who were unable to work, and the local population was stopped from providing any support. By the summer of 1942 alone, approximately 1.5 million prisoners had died.
Do your studies also reveal anything about daily life in the camps?
Yes, regarding incarceration procedures and differential treatment based on origin, among other things. Jewish prisoners and political office holders were systematically murdered. Ukrainian prisoners of war had better chances of survival; many of them were deployed, more or less voluntarily, for duties regarding the occupation, as camp guards, or as auxiliary police.
What happened to the prisoners toward the end of the war and afterwards?
For most prisoners of war, suffering did not end with the liberation – for Stalin saw them as traitors who might have collaborated with the enemy. Liberation was followed by interrogations and long months of screening; about 15 percent were executed or deported to gulags. Discrimination by the state and society continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Jewish and female prisoners of war were additionally exposed to anti-Semitism and sexism. And prisoners of war played little role in the culture of remembrance.
What sources do you use?
My research draws on international literature in at least five languages and archival holdings scattered across several countries: Germany, the U.S., the former Soviet Union, and Israel. My work often resembles searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. What is relevant to my research are the Wehrmacht files at the Federal Archives in Freiburg im Breisgau and the files on trials for Nazi crimes at the Federal Archives in Ludwigsburg. The archives of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem contain copies from post-Soviet archives, such as the files of the Extraordinary State Commission. This commission was established in the Soviet Union in November 1942 in order to document Nazi war crimes.
Last year, I was able to do research at Yad Vashem. There, I also found relevant reports, memoirs, recollections, and interviews with former prisoners of war. I also envisage further research, for example in Kyiv and the United States.
What do your findings mean for the present?
They reveal the long-term consequences of war and violence. In the case of Ukraine, we see a continuity of war, violence, and terror since World War I. After the October Revolution, the country descended into a bloody civil war. In the early 1930s, Ukraine was the scene of the so-called Holodomor – several million Ukrainians starved to death as a result of collectivization of agriculture and poor harvests. This was followed by mass deportations and murders during the Great Terror. Beginning in June 1941, Ukraine became one of the main theaters of Germany’s war of annihilation. After 1945, the Ukrainian population continued to suffer for a long time from the consequences of the “scorched earth” that the Wehrmacht had left behind during its retreats.
Did the situation calm down later?
The collapse of the Soviet Union was followed by a difficult period of transition. Since Vladimir Putin became Russia’s leader, he has sought to exert influence over Ukraine and to destabilize the country. Since 2014, and especially since 2022, Ukraine has once again been experiencing war and violence. When I visited the City Museum in Chernivtsi in the fall of 2025, I found countless portraits and biographies of missing Ukrainian soldiers in one of the exhibition rooms. The families do not know whether their loved ones, who have been missing for months or even years, are still alive. The fate of missing soldiers is a chilling reminder of the past.
What can we learn from history?
We see the recurrence of misguided political decisions, such as appeasement policies. At the same time, support for Ukraine today remains inadequate. Even four years after the expansion of Russia’s war of aggression, Europe is unable to provide Ukraine with sufficient support – which has grave consequences for the Ukrainian population. This is not just about Ukraine, but about the future of freedom and democracy in Europe, which I see as being massively threatened by Russian disinformation.
About the researcher
Alexandra Pulvermacher conducts research at the Institute of History at the University of Klagenfurt. In 2020, she was a research fellow at the Center for Holocaust Studies in Munich, and in 2025 at the Research Institute of the Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem. Her research is part of the project “Soviet Prisoners of War in Occupied Ukraine 1941–1944,” funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and led by Dieter Pohl.
Source: University of Klagenfurt/red
