Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene als Zwangsarbeiter - Museum Forced Labor Under National Socialism

Several men are sitting on the floor. They are wearing military uniforms. There are barracks in the background. — 1/4
Recruitment for Mining.
In the summer of 1942, Soviet prisoners of war were selected from the prisoner of war camp Zeithain to perform forced labor in Belgian mines. ©Gedenkstätte Ehrenhain Zeithain

Three men can be seen in the foreground of the photo. The one in front from the left is wearing a suit. He is talking to the man on his right. He is wearing a white coat. In front of the man in the white coat, a man can be seen from behind. He is wearing a jacket and cap. In the background of the photo, undressed men can be seen. Some are wearing caps, some have thrown on coats. — 2/4
Recruitment for Mining.
In the summer of 1942, Soviet prisoners of war were selected from the prisoner of war camp Zeithain to perform forced labor in Belgian mines. ©Gedenkstätte Ehrenhain Zeithain

The photo shows a table. Behind it, several men are sitting on a bench. Opposite the men on the other side of the table are undressed men. — 3/4
Recruitment for Mining.
In the summer of 1942, Soviet prisoners of war were selected from the prisoner of war camp Zeithain to perform forced labor in Belgian mines. ©Gedenkstätte Ehrenhain Zeithain

A large number of men wearing military uniforms. A few are bare-chested. The men run towards the onlooker. — 4/4
Recruitment for Mining.
In the summer of 1942, Soviet prisoners of war were selected from the prisoner of war camp Zeithain to perform forced labor in Belgian mines. ©Gedenkstätte Ehrenhain Zeithain

The German Wehrmacht treated Soviet prisoners of war as "Slavic subhumans." Their lives were considered worthless. Behind the front they were housed in holding and transit camps situated on open fields. Conditions were catastrophic also in the few provisional camps in Germany. By the beginning of 1942, hunger, heat, cold, disease, and executions by gunfire had taken the lives of some two million victims among more than three million prisoners of war.

In expectation of rapid victory, Soviet prisoners of war were initially withheld from forced labour in the German Reich. The authorities feared this would pose a security threat as well as endanger the "purity" of the German people. However, beginning in the summer of 1941 the use of prisoners of war for work deployments began to be practiced on large scale.

Largely at the urging of the mining sector, the prohibition against the use of Russians ("Russeneinsatz") was withdrawn in 1941. From then on, Soviet prisoners of war were often forced to work in mines. The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Wehrmacht) ordered that they only be deployed in work crews and separate from German workers. After 1942 the mortality rate among Soviet prisoners of war was particularly high, due to arduous working and living conditions.

In the summer of 1942, Karl Schmitt, head of the Wehrmacht mining division in in Liège, Belgium, took a vacation trip with his wife to Berlin. On the way he visited the prisoner of war camp in Zeithain, Saxony. At his request the Soviet prisoners of war were assessed in terms of their physical fitness for work deployment in the German-controlled Belgian mines.