From incarceration to repatriation

• Verfasst von: Grunewald, Susan [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: From incarceration to repatriation
• Titelzusatz: German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union
• Verf.angabe: Susan C.I. Grunewald
• Verlagsort: Ithaca ; London
• Verlag: Cornell University Press
• Jahr: 2024
• Umfang: xiii, 241 Seiten
• Illustrationen: Illustrationen, Karten
• Gesamttitel/Reihe: Battlegrounds: Cornell studies in military history
• Fussnoten: Literaturverzeichnis: Seite 213-227 ; Enthält ein Register
• ISBN: 978-1-5017-7602-1
• Schlagwörter: (g)Sowjetunion / (s)Internierter / (s)Kriegsgefangener / (s)Speziallager / (s)Zweiter Weltkrieg / (s)Nachkriegszeit
• Sprache: eng
• Bibliogr. Hinweis: Erscheint auch als : Online-Ausgabe: Grunewald, Susan, 1989 - : From Incarceration to Repatriation. - 1st ed.. - Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2024. - 1 online resource (259 pages)
• RVK-Notation: NQ 6000
• K10plus-PPN: 1865793353

Abstract

This book explores the lives and memories of the nearly 1.5 million German POWs who were held by the Soviet Union during and after World War II and released in phases through 1956, seven years longer than the prisoners of any other Allied nation. Susan C. I. Grunewald argues that Soviet leadership deliberately kept able-bodied German POWs to supplement their labor force after the end of the war. The Soviet Union lost 27 million citizens and a quarter of its physical assets during the war, motivating Soviet leadership to harness the labor of German POWs for as long as possible.

Abstract

Engaging with recently declassified documents in former Soviet archives, archival material from multiple German governments, as well as innovative use of digital humanities methods and geographic information system (GIS) mapping, Grunewald demonstrates that Soviet authorities detained German POWs primarily for economic rather than punitive reasons. In fact, the GIS mapping of the historical materials makes it clear that most of the four thousand POW camps across the USSR were strategically located near industrial, infrastructure, and natural resource sites that were critical to postwar economic reconstruction.

Abstract

This is the first book to draw together the distinct fields of Soviet and German history to provide a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of German POW captivity in the USSR during and after World War II. Attending to the ways that the memory of German POWs remains in circulation in both the former Soviet Union and Germany, Grunewald tracks the political repercussions of war commemoration.

Abstract

"Explores the experiences and memories of the 1.5 million German POWs held by the Soviet Union in World War II and how they were used in postwar economic reconstruction"-