PoW Camp Related SB &WP

[hucks216]

It is a collecting area that doesn't seem to get the attention of many other areas but it can be a cheaper area to collect and sometimes well known or infamous places crop up. While most PoW Camp guards ony have their main unit listed in the Soldbuch or Wehrpass such as a Landesschuetzen-Btl, other examples will actually have the camp noted.

Here is an example of a Soldbuch to an older serviceman who had previously served in World War 1 and who was assigned to a Marine Landesschuetzen Kompanie and was sent to be a guard at Marlag-Milag Nord which was the main PoW Camp for Royal Navy & Merchant Navy sailors who were captured (approx 5,000) and located near Bremen. The liberation of the camp is on Youtube.

 

This Wehrpass is to another older soldier who was assigned to Stalag 343. After the Germans occupied Lithuania in 1941 Stalag 343 was used to hold, and kill, Russian PoW's. To begin with it was located near Alytus in Lithuania before a camp near Bobruisk was renamed Stalag 343. Thousands of Russian prisoners died at the camp in Lithuania due to starvation and disease, and in the nearby forest of Vidzgiris over 60,000 Jews were murdered.

 

And here is a Wehrpass to a soldier who was transferred to the Luftwaffe and assigned to a Luftwaffe Landesschuetzen Kompanie. This unit was used to guard Stalag-Luft III and this soldier was guarding the camp during the period of arguably the the most well known escape from the PoW Camp system, The Great Escape on 24th March 1944.

 

[turtle]

What´s also interesting about these POW-Guards Wehrpässe or Soldbücher, in many cases these guys were trained on a lot of captured firearms. This guy guarding the Oflag VII-A in Murnau ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oflag_VII-A_Murnau ) was trained on the belgian version of the BAR!!

[hucks216]

Good point, you do tend to see a wide variety of foreign weapons. The naval guard in my original post was issued a Bulgarian rifle (possibly a Mannlicher M1895):

[turtle]

The issue of captured firearms of all kind to german soldiers durig WWII is a really interesting topic, in my opinion!

 

This guy was a veteran of the Battle of Tannenberg and served as a CO or XO at Oflag 2C.

Some more information:

http://gmic.co.uk/topic/59526-rittmeister-later-major-johann-heinrich-reschke/?tab=comments#comment-557463

 

[turtle]

Nikolaus Spanier served fromt 1914 - 1919 earning both Iron Crosses and the Baltenkreuz. He was a schoolteacher in civilian life. During WWII he served Feb. till May. 1942 at Stalag VI/C

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalag_VI-C

 

[hucks216]

5 hours ago, turtle said:

The issue of captured firearms of all kind to german soldiers durig WWII is a really interesting topic, in my opinion!

 

Please feel free to start a separate thread on the topic - it will be interesting to see the scale and scope of foreign weapons issued.

 

Thanks for the extra additions to this thread - Oflag IIC seems to have a fair bit of information on the internet including a list of 6,000 Polish PoW's and information on a prisoner Olympics in 1944.