Soviet Camp Research Articles

„Wyimaginowane twory”? Obóz Pracy w Łambinowicach według Janusza Rudnickiego

The article concerns Janusz Rudnicki’s work (short story) dedicated to the labor camp in Łambinowice (1945–1946). Its original version was published in 1998 under the title Polska hańba (Polish Disgrace), and its latest edition was included in the book Chodźcie, idziemy (Come On, Let’s Go), published by Rudnicki in 2007. Here it is entitled Dwa (Oboz) (Two [Camp]). The genesis, structure, functions and reception of this work are considered. It is presented in both historical (post-war expulsions of Germans from Poland, Polish camps for Germans) and literary context. Rudnicki’s work is important for several reasons. It is a significant “intervention” in Polish historical memory, bringing out the repressed persecution of Germans (who were imprisoned, tormented and killed in the Łambinowice camp). Therefore, it fits into the trend of literature questioning the “paradigm of Polish innocence” (which is dominated by works about the murder of Jews in Jedwabne). Moreover, it is a drastic work in terms of style (saturated with vulgarisms) and the presented world. The horror convention that characterizes it is as provocative and shocking as it is artistically and intellectually justified. By arousing strong emotions in the reader, it encourages them to confront the evoked situations and events with what historians have established so far. What is special about Rudnicki’s work, as a manifestation of Polish concentration camp literature, is that its lyrical subject is a torturer and not, as it is most often the case, a victim. Moreover, the torturer is a Pole. Rudnicki’s work also proves that Polish concentration camp literature is not limited, as was believed for years, only to lagers (German Nazi concentration camps and extermination centres) and gulags (Soviet camps, especially forced labor camps). It also includes Polish camps.

What We Learn From Comparison: Some Epistemological Remarks

This article deals with the comparisons between testimonies and theoretical works on Nazi and Soviet camps carried on within literary studies. Going beyond the debates about potentially antagonistic memories of those two regimes, the comparison contributes to decompartmentalizing research, infusing it with new dynamics and methods as well as the adoption of a renewed approach to the construction of knowledge. Indeed, by conducting textual comparisons rather than basing their research on the study of facts, the researchers in the field of literary studies were able to question narrative strategies and the positions of certain works within their host cultures. Debates on the generic aspects of literary testimonies have thus helped shift the focus from the specificity of the experiences they described to their status and form. The article then compares the two bodies of texts from the point of view of their possible use as historical sources, and analyzes a few examples of narrative strategies.

Polska literatura obozowa według Arkadiusza Morawca

The present article is a commentary on Arkadiusz Morawiec’s book Polska literatura obozowa. Rekonesans [Polish Prison and Camp Literature: Preliminary Remarks], in which a convincing hypothesis was presented that a concentration camp should be seen as a symbol of the 20th century. Morawiec illustrates his reflections with the monograph’s chapters on Nazi concentration camps, gulags, as well as Polish, Spanish and Japanese prison camps. In his book, the author postulates broadening the scope of literary and historiographic research on Nazi and Soviet camps to include the internment camps created by the other European regimes as well as the literary works created decades after the Second World War, with inclusion of questionable pop culture works. The author of this article sees this not only as Morawiec’s attempt at redefining the concept of Polish camp literature but also an attempt at re-creating it from scratch in order to showcase new research perspectives. The author emphasises the fact that each of the book’s chapters can be seen as a small monograph describing the camps and their literary representations that serves as a model example of academic humanistic writing. The author’s only point of critique is underrepresentation of the genre’s most well known works. Such literary works have been subjects of numerous studies, nevertheless Polish Prison and Camp Literature would have greatly benefited as monograph from exploring the oeuvre of Tadeusz Borowski, Seweryna Szmaglewska, Stanisław Grzesiuk, Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, Anatol Krakowiecki, Aleksander Wat in greater detail.

‘Good fortune in the camps never lasted’: Gendered experience of carceral labour in the Soviet Union, 1930–1953

AbstractGendered order in the Soviet camp system shaped women inmates’ experiences of labour and factored in their survival. This article zooms in on the published memoirs of four women political prisoners who survived the Gulag and explores how they experienced and narrated carceral labour. It focuses on three types of labour taking place in the carceral setting – forced labour, care work and clandestine crafts – and investigates the gendered dynamics that surrounded each of these interrelated types of labour. Historically‐situated forms of women inmates’ constrained labour‐related agency, as the memoirs show, were diverse and not always limited to outright resistance or compliance.

ІНОЗЕМНІ ВІЙСЬКОВОПОЛОНЕНІ НА КИЇВЩИНІ У 1943-1954 РОКАХ ЗА ДОКУМЕНТАМИ УКРАЇНСЬКИХ АРХІВІВ

The aim of the article is the attribution and characterization of a range of unpublished sources from the archives of Ukraine, which contain information about the situation of prisoners of war of Germany and its allies in Soviet camps on the territory of Kyiv and Kyiv region in 1943–1954. The documents of this complex of sources are classified, their typological and specific diversity, content and informational potential are characterized. The prospects for research on the topic are determined on the basis of the available range of sources. The research methodology is defined by the principles of scientificity, historicism, objectivity and systematicity. The author used the methods of source studies, including archival heuristics, analysis and synthesis of documentary sources. The scientific novelty is in determining the typological and specific composition, content and informational potential of an unpublished array of documents on the history of the regional link of Soviet military captivity in Kyiv region, which are stored in the archives of Ukraine. Conclusions. The identified and systematized array of unpublished sources on the history of the regional branch of the Soviet military captivity in the Kyiv region in 1943–1954 are represented by the directive documents of the top party leadership of the Ukrainian SSR, the government of the republic, regulatory and administrative orders of the NKVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs), records of the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Service, special camps and hospitals, documents of the management entities that used the labour of prisoners of war, the decisions of local authorities on the allocation of buildings and land for the placement of regime facilities and the burial of dead prisoners. The documents studied by the author are stored in the fonds of the Central State Archive of Public Associations of Ukraine, the Central State Archive of Higher Authorities and Administration of Ukraine, the Sectoral State Archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the State Archives of Kyiv Region and the City of Kyiv, and the Archival Department of the Bila Tserkva City Council. Documents that differ in content and are unequal in the degree of informativeness characterize the general directions of the Soviet policy in the field of military prisoners at the final stage of the Second World War and in the post-war period, and on the example of a specific region reflect the steps taken by the authorities aimed at its practical implementation. The content of the studied documents allows us: to identify the general features of the Soviet military captivity system and the peculiarities of its regional branch in the Kyiv region, in particular in the context of the organization, functioning and liquidation of camps and special hospitals for prisoners of war in 1943–1954; to find out the situation of foreign prisoners in the camps of Kyiv and the region, the peculiarities of the regime of detention, material, household, food provision and treatment; to reveal the regional and sectoral specifics of the deployment of contingents of prisoners in the region; to investigate the peculiarities of the exploitation of prisoner of war labour in the housing and communal sphere, industry, transport infrastructure and road construction; to trace the fate of graves of foreign prisoners of war, who died and were buried on the territory of the city of Kyiv and Kyiv region; to study the issue of repatriation of prisoners of war from the camps of the region. The available range of unpublished sources from the archives of Ukraine is promising for further research on the topic.

"Perekovka" Newspaper of the White Sea-Baltic and Dmitrov Prison Camps: The Evolution of Prison Camp Press

The study analyzes the evolution of camp press through the example of the newspaper "Perekovka," published within the Soviet penitentiary system. Based on content analysis, the author reveals how the press was used to attempt to instill ideas of re-education and "reforging" of prisoners, turning their labor into a tool for building a new state. The article emphasizes the multifaceted and deep propagandistic role of camp newspapers, considering them as a means of mass information aimed at forming new "homo soveticus". Researcher analyzes how the content of the newspaper changed over different periods, reflecting transformations of the Soviet leadership's view on the goals of the penitentiary system. The work is enriched with examples from archival materials. The research methodology includes the use of the computerized content analysis program MAXQDA 2024 for processing large volumes of text. This approach allows for both quantitative and qualitative analysis of texts, providing an extensive set of features for coding, quantitative lexical analysis, and data visualization. The scientific relevance of the work lies in the comprehensive analysis of the camp newspaper "Perekovka" as an instrument of ideological influence, re-education, and motivation in Soviet camps. The study applies computerized content analysis methods to the complete collection of this publication for the first time, enabling not only the study of the content and evolution of this publication but also a deeper understanding of the motives of the camp system's leadership and the transformation of their views over time. The results of the research contribute to historical science, expanding perceptions of the complexity and multifaceted nature of the work of penitentiary media in the USSR and introducing new sources for further work.

Economic aspects of the effectiveness of forced labor in the Soviet camp system in the first half of the 1950s. (based on the Southern Kuzbass Corrective Labor Camp of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR materials).

Using the example of the Corrective Labor Camp of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, some economic aspects of the effectiveness of forced labor in the Soviet camp system in the first half of the 50s are considered. The twentieth century particular attention is paid to the issue of expenses and income of the forced labor camp. Based on archival materials from the current archive of the Main Directorate of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Kemerovo Region, a list of expenses is given, as well as the amount of money spent by the state on the maintenance of the prison population and the forced labor camp as a whole. Data on the costs required to maintain the camp economy are correlated with the amount of money for which the contingent produced marketable products annually. Information is provided on the amount of financial assistance received by the forced labor camp from the state budget and from the departmental unit under the jurisdiction of which it was located. The novelty of the research lies in the appeal to unpublished archival documents of the current archive of the Main Directorate of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Kemerovo region and in local history topics that have not received widespread scientific coverage. The author comes to the conclusion that the income received from the labor activities of the prison population not only did not compensate for the costs of servicing the activities of the correctional labor camp, but also significantly exceeded them. Analysis of documentary material clearly showed that the use of forced labor was not cheap for the state, much less free. The state spent significant sums to organize camp production and maintain the prison population. The camp existed thanks to annually received government grants and subsidies.

“ОСТАННЄ СЛОВО” В СУДОВІЙ ЗАЛІ ЯК ВИКЛИК ВЛАДІ (З КРИМІНАЛЬНОЇ СПРАВИ ДИСИДЕНТА ЗОРЯНА ПОПАДЮКА)

Drawing upon the declassified archival files meticulously preserved by the State Security Committee of the Ukrainian SSR, this endeavor seeks to illuminate the profound impact of the Soviet totalitarian system and propaganda on human destinies. Despite the relentless efforts to suppress individual spirits, it becomes evident that the indomitable spirit and the capacity for conscious resistance persisted among citizens who refused to succumb to Moscow's propaganda machinery. In particular, the focus of this exploration is on the remarkable case of Zorian Popadiuk, a first-year student enrolled in the Faculty of Philology at Lviv University. The publication of the final statement delivered by Popadiuk during his trial serves as a poignant lens through which to discern the moral and intellectual resilience of this young non-conformist, subsequently evolving into a dissident and enduring the harsh realities of long-term incarceration within the confines of Soviet camps. The narrative unfolds against the backdrop of a repressive regime that sought to mold the thoughts and actions of its citizens through pervasive propaganda. The declassified files present a harrowing account of the ways in which the Soviet machinery endeavored to cripple the destinies of individuals, aiming to subjugate the collective consciousness to the dictates of the ruling ideology. However, as we delve into the life and trial of Zorian Popadiuk, it becomes apparent that the spirit of resistance and the quest for individuality persisted against all odds. Zorian Popadiuk's journey from a seemingly ordinary first-year student to a symbol of dissent is a testament to the human capacity for resilience in the face of oppressive systems. The trial, a crucial juncture in his life, serves as a microcosm of the larger struggle against ideological conformity. Popadiuk's final statement, extracted from the trial records, unveils the depth of his moral and intellectual fortitude. It becomes a significant point of reflection, shedding light on the inner workings of a non-conformist mind grappling with the ideological juggernaut of the Soviet state. The examination of Popadiuk's trial extends beyond a mere historical account; it provides valuable insights into the broader socio-political landscape of the time. It serves as a poignant reminder that, even within the confines of a totalitarian regime, there existed individuals who resisted the homogenizing effects of propaganda, clinging steadfastly to their convictions and individuality. The publication of Popadiuk's final words serves a dual purpose – to acknowledge the personal sacrifice of one individual and to unveil the collective resistance simmering beneath the surface of the Soviet society.

GULAG in the memories of prisoners: gender and chronological aspects of content analysis

The periodization of political repression in the USSR was and remains an urgent issue in the study of the GULAG. According to A.V. Bakunin, when determining the main stages of political repression in the USSR, it is necessary to proceed from the periodization of Soviet totalitarianism, which includes three main stages: the formation (genesis) of totalitarianism (1917–1929), the domination (apogee) of totalitarianism (1929–1953), stagnation and collapse of totalitarianism (1953–1991). After 1991, the mass publication of memoirs of former prisoners of Soviet camps has begun, and it is the memories that are the main source for our research. As part of the current work, we hypothesize that the perception and transmission of memories of the camps may be influenced by the period or stage of repression in which the prisoners served time. The conducted content analysis of memoirs of former GULAG prisoners in subgroups by gender and stage of political repression allows us to conclude that in all subgroups of documents the categories of "Power", "Life" and "Work" dominate, regardless of the stage of political repression and the gender of the authors of the memoirs. This confirms the thesis that in the memory of former prisoners, first of all, memories associated with daily survival in the camp and overcoming inhuman living and working conditions leave an imprint. At the same time, it can be noted that in the subgroups with a small number of incoming documents and marked elements, for example, in the subgroup "women, dates of arrest from 1918 to 1922", significant deviations in the frequency of occurrence are observed – bright connections of atypical categories are revealed. Conversely, the more texts and the larger the studied subgroup, the more common features of the perception of camp life appear. This confirms the hypothesis about the massive nature of large arrays of thematically similar texts.

Culture in Times of Crisis: Auerbach, Czapski, Nafisi

This article considers three examples of engagement with cultural texts in times of crisis to show how the White Rose pamphlets fit into a broader tradition. The three examples are: Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (1946), written in exile in Istanbul during WWII, Józef Czapski’s Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp (1948), based on lectures given to fellow inmates in a Soviet camp during WWII, and Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003), a memoir that describes clandestine classes on English literature given by Nafisi after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. The article shows how the uses to which cultural texts are put in such contexts are often ambiguous and contradictory: rather than telling an idealistic story of the redemptive power of culture in the face of political and social disasters, the aim is to articulate the role that cultural texts can play in inspiring intellectual resistance, while attending critically to the specificities of individual case studies.

Problems of researching the history of exile of Ukrainians and of the Baltic peoples in the USSR

This study investigated the conditions of exile and interaction between Ukrainian and Baltic prisoners in Soviet camps in the post-war period. The scientific relevance of the subject lies in the investigation of the cooperation of political prisoners of diverse national groups, which led to the camp uprisings of 1953-1954. The purpose of this study was to determine the nature of the conditions of exile and the opportunities for contacts between Ukrainian and Baltic prisoners in the context of protest formation using evidence from the camp departments of Vorkuta, specifically Rechlag. To fulfil this purpose, the methods of comparative and retrospective analysis, historical and psychological reconstruction were used. The study identified common and distinctive features inherent in the Vorkuta camps. It was found that the basis for interaction between Ukrainian and Baltic prisoners was their common situation and attempts to improve living conditions in the camp. Therewith, it was stated that the same cultural and educational level and participation in the anti-Soviet resistance improved the establishment of interethnic contacts. The socio-psychological characteristics of Ukrainian and Baltic prisoners of the postwar era distinguished them from others. It was found that the unification into national groups was facilitated by the self-identification of prisoners as captives with a national worldview and experience that opposed Soviet ideology. The main goal was to improve the conditions and release prisoners from places of captivity, and active attempts to achieve this came after Stalin’s death. It was proved that political uncertainty and chaotic actions of the camp administration became a catalyst for uprisings that accelerated the transformation of places of captivity. A key role in organising the protests belonged to strike committees representing groups of prisoners on ethnic grounds. Specifically, Ukrainian, and Baltic prisoners took an active part in them. This shows the place and role of these nations in the camp uprisings. The practical significance of this study lies in highlighting the little-studied issue of the ways in which Ukrainian and Baltic political prisoners interacted and the impact of these contacts on the fight against the Soviet repressive apparatus in prison

"It is impossible not only to provide for all the needs of places of detention caused by overcrowding, but also to feed prisoners": interdepartmental financial disputes on the eve of the birth of the Soviet camp system (1928-1929).

The subject of the study is the financial and economic prerequisites of the hardware confrontation on the strategy and priorities of the development of the Soviet correctional labor system, observed at the turn of the 1920s-1930s. Archival documents of that era are analyzed, indicating that the NKVD of the RSFSR and its subordinate Main Directorate of places of detention in the specified period experienced an acute shortage of funds for the maintenance of constantly an increasing contingent of prisoners. The leadership of the People's Commissariat (V. N. Tolmachev) and GUMZ (E. G. Shirvindt) made significant hardware efforts to eliminate the shortage of monetary resources and, with the support of the SNK of the RSFSR, sometimes even acted bypassing the People's Commissariat of Finance of the RSFSR for these purposes. Therefore, including for this reason, it categorically refused to participate in the financing of measures to create new correctional labor camps under the auspices of the OGPU. At the same time, representatives of the NKVD opposed the very idea of expanding the camp system and transferring other categories of prisoners to the OGPU in addition to those convicted of counterrevolutionary crimes. The article also cites other archival documents, which, together with the rest of the sources analyzed in it, cast doubt on the well-established opinion that the head of the NKVD V. N. Tolmachev was one of the initiators of the project of transition to a mass system of camp organization of forced labor of prisoners in the USSR.

Indo-US Nuclear deal: Challenge for Pakistan

Pakistan and India were in opposing camps during the cold war while Pakistan was in the West camp and India in Soviet camp. (Gillani, 2021) (Ali, 2020). The demise of Soviet Union gave a chance to China to emerge itself as a challenger to the USA superiority. China's growing economy gave a direction to US policy towards the South Asian region and especially focused on India. India was also trying to be a hegemonic power in its region and common enemy of Pakistan and China. The US knew that there was only India in the south Asian region that will be helpful to combat china because Pakistan was already economically tied with china. There was another important point that America was intentionally focusing on Asia because it need allies in Asia like the EU and the Middle East. So it needs an important ally like India that can shelter the interests of the USA.

Victims of Soviet Terror in the Prose of Sergey Lebedev and Nikolay Kononov: The Prism of Postmemory

This article discusses the prose of the Russian writers Sergey Lebedev and Nikolay V. Kononov, who address state terror and violence. The aforementioned authors take into account the experience of the post-Holocaust European culture of remembrance, which is constituted by the figure of the victim and tends to interpret the tragic events of the Soviet past using the concepts and theoretical frameworks of memory and trauma studies. In this article, Lebedev’s and Kononov’s prose is seen as an integral part of the Russian liberal-oriented memory project, which is based on late-Soviet dissident culture, the perestroika “culture of repentance,” and Western cultural models of “working through the past.” In rediscovering the topic of Stalinist terror, Lebedev and Kononov reassert its ideological and moral significance and attempt to place it on the current public agenda. Both writers proceed from the need to redress injustices against the victims of state violence, whose suffering was long silenced in the USSR. They work with documents, personal testimonies, and family history to tell stories of victims missing from the historical record and thus undermine the dominance of the state-supported heroic narrative. Such an approach brings Lebedev and Kononov closer to the tradition of Soviet camp prose, but this was prose of testimony, created by survivors of camps: the modern novelists have no such experience and rely on their imagination, documents, and previous representations of Stalinist terror. They consider the historical experience of state terror and the figure of the victim from the perspective of postmemory (M. Hirsch), which prompts them to postulate the existence of so-called “inherited trauma” and explore its social and emotional consequences in the lives of different generations. Thus, they observe the “post-existence of the GULAG” and paradoxical interactions between victims and perpetrators through the prism of “inherited” trauma and memory.

Why pioneer camps survived the collapse of the Soviet Union

The article analyses the survival of the children’s centres, Artek and Orlyonok, during the post-socialist transformation. It is based on 50 interviews with employees who worked there starting in the late-Soviet era. Artek and Orlyonok were exemplary children’s camps, subordinated to the Central Committee of the Komsomol. Since the early 1960s, they have functioned as schools for distinguished teenagers who were considered ‘good examples’ for other children. In this article, I have made an ethnographic analysis of Artek and Orlyonok employees’ late-Soviet experiences. This analysis shows how the agency of Soviet counsellors and camp directors became a creative interpretation of the governmental order to raise the children as active Soviet citizens. Camp educators transformed it in line with the idea to base their agency on ‘common human values’, which was spread in the Soviet educational field in the post-Stalin era. As a result, the Soviet teaching experiences gained in these education centres were heterogeneous. When a child-centred paradigm was later introduced to the post-Soviet educational system, the camps adopted the most applicable practices from their Soviet experiences.

From high camp to post-modern camp: Queering post-Soviet pop music

This article examines the post-Soviet transformations of Russian popular music culture ( Estrada), arguing that its aesthetics can be analysed from the perspective of camp, by looking at two cult music performers bridging the Soviet and post-Soviet realm – Valery Leontiev and Filipp Kirkorov. The analysis is grounded in a close reading of the artists’ career trajectories, selected videos and – to a lesser extent – textual analysis of their lyrics and public statements. The article argues that their performative personas are rooted in a particular version of camp with differing modalities of subversiveness – each responding both to their respective cultural and political climates, audience expectations, and also in accordance with their individual embodiments of (post)-Soviet camp. While Leontiev demonstrates a more earnest commitment to high drama, Kirkorov continues his ironic experimentation with transgression, ambiguity and excess, thereby participating in the queering of post-Soviet popular culture. The article concludes that their appropriation of camp is strategic, as it responds to the temporal, national and global trends such as global gay culture and neo-camp in Russia.

Dostoievski și literatura Gulagului

This paper aims to describe and analyze the references and allusions made by the authors who write about the Soviet Gulag to Dostoevsky and to his text written after his imprisonment in the tsarist prison in Omsk, The House of the Dead (1860- 1862). Starting from the premise that The House of the Dead has a special status as it is a text that makes the transition from the classical and vaguely defined genre of prison literature (i.e. literature written in prison or related – however not always explicitly – to the prison experience) to that of testimonial literature (i.e. literature related to a traumatic experience of a collective nature that is able to testify on behalf of those who remain to suffer in prisons or concentration camps), I will emphasize the testimonial character of Dostoevsky’s writing. Subsequently, I will analyze how the authors who write about their experiences in the Soviet camps (Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, A World Apart, Julius Margolin, Journey into the Land of Zeks and Back, Varlam Shalamov, Kolyma Tales, Yevgenia Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind, Within the Whirlwind, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago) relate to Dostoevsky’s text. At first, the references to Dostoevsky highlight the continuity between the two repressive systems: the tsarist katorga and the Soviet Gulag (Gustaw Herling-Grudziński). Later, however, the differences between them become apparent, as the Gulag writers all highlight in their writing the extent and intensity of the suffering experienced by those who lived through the hell of the repressions in the Gulag. In this way, they enter in an ironic and polemical dialogue with the nineteenth-century Russian writer. In the end, this polemical separation from Dostoevsky shows how the Gulag writers abandon the messianic and humanistic innocence of the nineteenth-century prison literature in the context of the totalitarian and repressive system of the twentieth century.

Pułapki (nie)pamięci. Przedstawienia GUŁagu w kulturze XXI wieku: literatura, film i sztuka

The subject of the article is the review of the book “Inwiefern ist das heute inter-essant?” Erinnerungen an den stalinistischen Gulag im 21. Jahrhundert by the German literary scholar Nina Friess (2016), which is dealing with the contemporary Russian memory of the Gulag. The goal is to show how the author interprets and contextualizes memory practices in today’s Russia and which texts are crucial for her as manifestations of these remembering strategies (and forgetting as well). Reading this book allows to form the thesis that the extreme experience of the Soviet camps is still a controversial issue in the Russian culture and that the memory of it is full of gaps and empty spaces, even though at the same time this subject increasinly finds its way into popular cultural (graphic novels and crime thrillers).

Allied Internment Camps in Occupied Germany: Extrajudicial Detention in the Name of Denazification, 1945–1950 by Andrew H. Beattie

Reviewed by: Allied Internment Camps in Occupied Germany: Extrajudicial Detention in the Name of Denazification, 1945–1950 by Andrew H. Beattie Brian E. Crim Allied Internment Camps in Occupied Germany: Extrajudicial Detention in the Name of Denazification, 1945–1950. By Andrew H. Beattie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xii + 248. Paper $32.99. ISBN 978-1108720731. In May 1946, the British chairman of the Nazi Arrest and Denazification Subcommittee lectured his colleagues representing the other three Allies: "We are trying to educate Germany to democracy and useful work, not to look upon the world from inside of a Concentration Camp" (56). The meeting concerned the nature of internment in the occupied zones of defeated Germany, an issue Andrew Beattie rightfully identifies as underrepresented in the historiography of World War II and the postwar period. Beattie has written a thoroughly researched comparative study of internment that not [End Page 618] only closes this gap in our knowledge, but also corrects more simplistic interpretations depicting the Soviet Union as a cruel and vindictive occupier and the Western powers as intrinsically constructive and democratic. More than 400,000 Germans were interned from one to three years in the Western zones and five years in the Soviet zone. Especially in the first year of occupation, each power used internment to isolate those suspected of crimes by virtue of belonging to dangerous organizations as designated by the International Military Tribunal, the SS for example, and individuals who could endanger the Allies' postwar agenda by virtue of NSDAP affiliations. One of the many lessons from Beattie's study is that the process of building a democratic Germany involved far more antidemocratic and coercive measures than originally assumed. When it came to deciding whom to intern, why, and for how long, the four powers shared more commonalities than differences. Beattie begins by tracing the development of internment policy between 1943 and 1946, noting that the diverse motives and objectives of internment were entangled from the outset. The Allies conceived of draconian measures in anticipation of continued resistance from a heavily armed populace and only altered their policy after the zones achieved an acceptable level of security. Internment was originally planned as a temporary measure before the formal prosecution of war criminals and others designated as Nazi followers. The second chapter compares how internment worked in practice between 1945 and 1950, when the last Soviet internment camps closed. One of the strengths of the book is Beattie's coverage of the French zone and Austria, regions barely mentioned in previous work on the subject. Internment was preventative, political, and lasted longer than often believed. Beattie is careful to distinguish internment from denazification, a term not easily defined, especially when one considers how differently each power approached denazification in its respective zone. Chapter 3 provides a collective profile of internees, breaking down the demographics in each zone and the relative involvement of internees in NSDAP organizations. While "high-value" internees like the top leadership and desirable scientists were held in well-known camps like Ashcan and Dustbin in the American zone, most internees belonged to the so-called Mittelbau of the party, those nameless functionaries who kept the regime running. The fourth chapter explores camp life, describing differing approaches to reeducation, retraining, recreation, religious activity, death, and burial. Unsurprisingly, the Allies were forced to leverage the expansive concentration camp system already in place in addition to constructing separate camps. Although Beattie consistently highlights Allied similarities in internment policy and infrastructure, Soviet camp conditions were markedly worse. Calculating a shockingly high 35 percent death rate for internees in Soviet camps, Beattie concludes: "The Soviets' failure to keep their internees alive was inhumane and amounted to answering one injustice with another" (144). Beattie ends the book with a thoughtful discussion of internment's relationship to [End Page 619] denazification efforts across the zones. Indeed, Beattie's important work reveals that internment is linked to several interrelated issues, including demilitarization, POWs, reparations, war crimes prosecutions, and forced labor. Moreover, Beattie suggests it is more accurate to define internment as extrajudicial as opposed to prejudicial since the vast majority of internees never saw the inside of a courtroom or underwent a formal...

Crime, Punishment, and the Early Soviet Camps

Crime, Punishment, and the Early Soviet Camps