Soviet repressions against former prisoners of war

During and after World War II, the Soviet Union implemented strict policies toward its prisoners of war (POWs), treating their capture or encirclement by enemy forces as an act of treason. Issued in August 1941, Order No. 270 classified commanders and political officers who surrendered as deserters, subjecting them to execution and punitive measures against their families. As the war progressed, Soviet authorities reassessed their stance, distinguishing between voluntary collaborators and those captured involuntarily. By late 1944, repatriation policies dictated that freed POWs would either be returned to military service or handed over to the NKVD. At the Yalta Conference, the Western Allies agreed to repatriate Soviet citizens, regardless of their wishes.

After the war, former POWs underwent screening in NKVD filtration camps, where most were cleared, but many faced forced labor or imprisonment. Official Soviet records indicate that the majority were reintegrated into society, while a significant minority—particularly those accused of collaboration—were sentenced to forced labor camps or penal military units. In 1955, an amnesty released most remaining collaborators, though former POWs were denied veteran status and benefits for decades. Historians debate the full extent of Soviet reprisals against repatriated soldiers, with some arguing that nearly all returning POWs were subjected to forced labor or imprisonment. In 1995, Russia formally recognized former Soviet POWs as veterans, granting them equal rights with other war participants.

During the war

From the beginning of the Second World War, the Soviet policy—intended to discourage defection—advertised that any soldier who had fallen into enemy hands, or simply encircled without capture, was guilty of high treason and subject to execution, confiscation of property, and reprisal against their families. Initially, the recaptured POWs were judged based on the criminal code (article 193 of the Criminal Code of the USSR and the analogous article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR). Those who surrendered themselves were charged with ‘unwarranted leaving of a unit or a place of service’ (193–7), ‘escape from a unit’ (193–8), ‘unwarranted leaving of a unit in a tactical situation’ (193–9), or ‘surrendering oneself when it was unjustified by the tactical situation’ (193–22). Even those had broken out of encirclement were tried under clause 193–21, ‘unwarranted disobedience of battle orders by a leader for the purpose of favouring the enemy’.^: 125

Issued shortly after the invasion (in August 1941), Order No. 270 classified all commanders and political officers who surrendered as culpable deserters to be summarily executed and their families arrested. Sometimes Red Army soldiers were told that the families of defectors would be shot; although thousands were arrested, it is unknown if any such executions were carried out. There have been estimates that 10,221 Soviet soldiers were executed in the first months of the war alone.^: 126 As the war continued, Soviet leaders realized that most Soviet citizens had not voluntarily collaborated. In November 1944, the State Defense Committee decided that freed prisoners of war would be returned to the army while those who served in German military units or police would be handed over to the NKVD. At the Yalta Conference, the Western Allies agreed to repatriate Soviet citizens regardless of their wishes.

By late December 1941 the Soviet regime set up many NKVD filtration camps, hospitals, and recuperation centers for freed prisoners of war,^: 127 where most stayed for an average of one or two months. These filtration camps were intended to separate out the minority of voluntary collaborators, but were not very effective. The majority of defectors and collaborators escaped prosecution.

By 1944, more than 90% of the POWs in the camps were cleared, and about 8% were arrested or condemned to serve in penal battalions. In 1944, they were sent directly to reserve military formations to be cleared by the NKVD. Further, in 1945, about 100 filtration camps were set for repatriated Ostarbeiter, POWs, and other displaced persons, which processed more than 4,000,000 people.

After the war

By 1946, 80% civilians and 20% of POWs were freed, 5% of civilians, and 43% of POWs were re-drafted, 10% of civilians and 22% of POWs were sent to labor battalions, and 2% of civilians and 15% of the POWs (226,127 out of 1,539,475 total) were transferred to the NKVD, i.e. the Gulag. Another estimate for the percentage of soldiers sent to Gulags is 17%.

Punishments and amnesties

Trawniki men were typically sentenced to between 10 and 25 years in a Gulag labor camp and military collaborators often received six-year sentences to special settlements. According to official statistics, "57.8 per cent were sent home, 19.1 per cent were remobilized into the army, 14.5 per cent were transferred to labor battalions of the People's Commissariat for Defence, 6.5 per cent were transferred to the NKVD ‘for disposal’, and 2.1 per cent were deployed in Soviet military offices abroad". Different figures are presented in the book Dimensions of a Crime. Soviet Prisoners of War in World War II, which reports that of 1.5 million returnees by March 1946, 43 percent continued their military service, 22 percent were drafted into labor battalions for two years, 18 percent were sent home, 15 percent were sent to a forced labor camp, and 2 percent worked for repatriation commissions. Death sentences were rare. On 7 July 1945, a Supreme Soviet decree formally pardoned all former prisoners of war who had not collaborated. Another amnesty in 1955 released all remaining collaborators except those sentenced for torture or murder.

According to Russian historian G.F. Krivosheev, 233,400 former Soviet POWs were found guilty of collaborating with the enemy and sent to Gulag camps out of 1,836,562 Soviet soldiers who returned from captivity. According to other historians, 19.1% of ex-POWs were sent to penal battalions of the Red Army, 14.5% were sent to forced labour "reconstruction battalions" (usually for two years), and 360,000 people (about 8%) were sentenced to ten to twenty years in the Gulag. These data do not include millions of civilians who have been repatriated (often involuntarily) to the Soviet Union, and a significant number of whom were also sent to the Gulag or executed (e.g. Repatriation of Cossacks after World War II).^{: 128–134} The survivors were released during the general amnesty for all POWs and accused collaborators in 1955 on the wave of De-Stalinization following Stalin's death in 1953 but most were subject to enduring discrimination.^: 124

However, some other historians, such as Rolf-Dieter Müller and Gerd R. Ueberschär claimed that almost all returning Soviet POWs were convicted of collaboration and treason and sentenced to the various forms of forced labour, while admitting that it would be unlikely to study the full extent of the history of the Soviet prisoners of war.

Discrimination

Former prisoners of war were not recognized as veterans and denied veterans' benefits; they often faced discrimination due to perception that they were traitors or deserters. Most were forced to settle in remote regions, subject to regular controls, and denied compensation payments (even after the fall of the Soviet \nion), common in most other countries.^{: 7 : 123, 139} Most of the discriminatory provisions were legally abolished only in the 1990s; however, due to lackluster interest in this topic by the Russian government, the surviving Soviet POWs were still denied compensation afforded to other Allied POWs for being used as forced labor.^{: 124, 133, 137–138} In 1995, Russia equalized the status of former prisoners of war with that of other veterans. Soviet POWs did not receive any reparations until 2015, when the German government paid a symbolic amount of 2,500 euros to the few thousand still alive.^: 87–89

See also

• German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war
• Operation Keelhaul
• Order No. 227
• Repatriation of Cossacks after World War II
• Soviet atrocities committed against prisoners of war during World War II

References

1. Moore 2022, p. 381.
2. Edele 2017, p. 41.
3. Polian, Pavel (2005). "The Internment of Returning Soviet Prisoners of War after 1945". In Moore, Bob; Hately-Broad, Barbara; International Committee for the History of the Second World War (eds.). Prisoners of war, prisoners of peace: captivity, homecoming, and memory in World War II. Oxford ; New York: Berg. ISBN 978-1-84520-724-3.
4. Moore 2022, pp. 381–382.
5. Edele 2017, pp. 42–43.
6. Moore 2022, p. 381-382.
7. Edele 2017, p. 140.
8. Blank & Quinkert 2021, p. 85.
9. Moore 2022, p. 388.
10. Moore 2022, pp. 384–385.
11. Edele 2017, p. 141.
12. ("Военно-исторический журнал" ("Military-Historical Magazine"), 1997, №5. page 32)
13. Земское В.Н. К вопросу о репатриации советских граждан. 1944–1951 годы // История СССР. 1990. № 4 (Zemskov V.N. On repatriation of Soviet citizens. Istoriya SSSR., 1990, No.4
14. Moore 2022, p. 394.
15. Edele 2017, p. 143.
16. Blank & Quinkert 2021, p. 79.
17. (in Russian) Россия и СССР в войнах XX века — Потери вооруженных сил Archived 2010-04-08 at the Wayback Machine Russia and the USSR in the wars of the 20th century — Losses of armed forces
18. Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Harvard University Press, 1999, hardcover, 858 pages, ISBN 0-674-07608-7, page 322
19. Rolf-Dieter Müller; Gerd R. Ueberschär; Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte (Germany) (January 2002). Hitler's war in the East, 1941–1945: a critical assessment. Berghahn Books. p. 219. ISBN 978-1-57181-293-3. Retrieved 19 June 2011.
20. Lagrou, Pieter (2005). "Overview". In Moore, Bob; Hately-Broad, Barbara; International Committee for the History of the Second World War (eds.). Prisoners of war, prisoners of peace: captivity, homecoming, and memory in World War II. Oxford ; New York: Berg. ISBN 978-1-84520-724-3.
21. Latyschew 2021, p. 252.
22. Keller, Rolf; Kozlova, Daria; Latyschew, Artem; Meier, Esther; Winkel, Heike (2021). Blank, Margot; Quinkert, Babette (eds.). Dimensionen eines Verbrechens - Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Katalog zur Ausstellung = Dimensions of a crime - Soviet prisoners of war in World War II: exhibition catalogue. Museum Berlin-Karlshorst. Berlin: Metropol. ISBN 978-3-86331-582-5.

Sources

• Blank, Margot; Quinkert, Babette (2021). Dimensionen eines Verbrechens: Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene im Zweiten Weltkrieg | Dimensions of a Crime. Soviet Prisoners of War in World War II (in German and English). Metropol Verlag. ISBN 978-3-86331-582-5.
• Edele, Mark (2017). Stalin's Defectors: How Red Army Soldiers became Hitler's Collaborators, 1941-1945. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-251914-6.
• Latyschew, Artem (2021). "History of oblivion, recognition and study of former prisoners of war in the USSR and Russia". Dimensionen eines Verbrechens: Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene im Zweiten Weltkrieg | Dimensions of a Crime. Soviet Prisoners of War in World War II (in German and English). Metropol Verlag. pp. 240–257. ISBN 978-3-86331-582-5.
• Moore, Bob (2022). Prisoners of War: Europe: 1939-1956. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-257680-4.