Kazakhs and ‘Turkestanis’ in German Captivity

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, German and Russian scholars began to move beyond the ideological stereotypes of the Cold War era and adopted an objective, scientific approachiKriegsgefangene / Wojennoplennye. Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene in Deutsch­­­land – Deutsche Kriegsgefangene in der Sowjetunion. Hrsg. Haus der Geschichte BRD. — Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1995. . Thus, in the years that followed, documents thoroughly examining the tragic fate of Soviet POWs in Nazi camps were publishediSowjetische Kriegsgefangene im Arbeitseinsatz 1941–1945. Dokumente zu den Lebens- und Arbeitsbedingungen in Norddeutschland. Hrsg.: Rolf Keller und Silke Petry. — Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2013. .

Yet, amid this growing body of research, the fate of the Kazakh POWs was largely ignored in these studies—in fact, in many of these studies, they weren’t mentioned at all. Meanwhile, much of Kazakhstan’s historical scholarship has largely focused on the conditions experienced by German and Japanese POWs in camps located on Kazakh territory, rather than on Kazakh soldiers taken captive abroad.

Only in recent years have scholars begun to explore this long-neglected subject; new monographsiНапример: Кокебаева Г.К. Германия ­– Россия – СССР: политика, война и плен. Монография.­ — Алматы: Қазақ университеті, 2009. and articles are now closely examining and shedding light on the policies of Nazi Germany and the USSR regarding POWs during the two world wars, finally bringing Kazakh voices into the broader narrative.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the international community began developing the first treaties to regulate wartime conduct and define the legal status of POWs. The first such agreement was signed on 10 May 1864 between Austria, the Netherlands, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Great Britain, and Sweden, and in the years that followed, nearly all the European states joined the agreement.

The countries involved in the First World War followed the Hague conventions of 1899 and 1907. The document, adopted on 18 October 1907, included a separate section specifically related to POWs, clearly defining their legal status and fundamental rights. During the First World War, for example, the interests of Russian POWs were represented by Spain, who acted as a protecting power. The interests of British, French, and Serbian POWs were safeguarded by the United States, who also provided assistance to Russian prisoners. As a result, all POWs were able to claim the rights granted under the Hague conventions.

After the First World War, it was clear that holding hundreds of thousands of POWs was not simply a logistical challenge—it also exposed serious gaps in how international law protected them. Feeding, clothing, and eventually repatriating the POWs required huge resources and called for more detailed regulation of their conditions in captivity. Since the provisions of Article 17 of the Hague Convention of 1907 proved insufficient, the International Committee of the Red Cross organized a special conference in 1921 to discuss a new agreement. Its main breakthrough was that, for the first time, the rights of POWs were treated not merely as part of the general laws and customs of war, but as a distinct legal category.

After thorough deliberation, the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War, 1929, was signed on 27 July 1929. This crucial international document clearly outlined the rights of POWs from the moment of capture to their repatriation. It established specific obligations for the detaining states, including conditions of confinement, the provision of medical care to wounded and sick prisoners, and many other key aspects, and all forty-seven countries who participated in the conference supported the agreement.

According to the Geneva Convention, POWs were subject to mandatory registration, and lists of captives were forwarded to a protecting power, designated as Switzerland. POW camps were regularly inspected by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The prisoners’ food rations were not allowed to fall below the standard set for the rear-echelon troops of the detaining country. Under the new rules, prisoners were allowed to receive parcels from their home countries as well as humanitarian aid from the Red Cross, including food, vitamins, and medicine. They were also granted the right to submit complaints and statements regarding poor conditions in the camps.

Nazi Germany joined the Hague Convention on 21 February 1934iReichsgesetzblatt. Teil II. Jg. 1934. Hrsg. vom Reichsministerium des Innern. — Berlin, 1935, б. 227. . The Soviet Union, on the other hand, refused to sign the document. However, considering that the Stalinist regime had already turned the entire country into a vast prison, the reasons for this decision are fairly evident. The Soviet government had earlier annulled all international treaties signed by tsarist Russia, thereby signaling that the Hague conventions were no longer valid in its eyes. As a result, the USSR deliberately deprived its soldiers of the protections guaranteed under international law.

Nazi Germany’s treatment of Soviet POWs in the Second World War was predetermined from the outset. Hitler repeatedly emphasized that the war against the USSR was not merely an armed conflict, but a ‘clash of two worldviews’iKriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht. — Frankfurt am Main, 1965. Bd. 1. S.340. . Franz Halder’s diary records Hitler’s statement at a meeting on March 30, 1941iГальдер Ф. Военный дневник. Ежедневные записи начальника Гене­раль­ного штаба Сухопутных войск 1939–1942 гг. / пер. с нем. — М., 1969. Т. 2. С.431. :

The Soviet Union’s refusal to join international conventions played into the hands of Nazi Germany. As part of Operation Barbarossa, a special directive was issued on 16 June 1941, outlining the fate of Soviet POWs in the coming war. The document emphasizediBuchheim H., Broszat M., Jakobsen H.-A., Krausnick H. Anatomie des SS-Staates. Freiburg, 1965. Bd. 2, S.223-224. :

At the same time, the directive itself included a number of provisions that flagrantly violated international law. For instance, prisoners were to be used not for economic work but exclusively for military purposes. They were not to receive any pay for their labor, and officers and medical personnel were denied even minimal financial support. Information about prisoners was not to be passed on to the military information services.

In addition, other strict prohibitions were also imposed: prisoners' diets were regulated by special instructions; they were forbidden from establishing contact with protecting powers or humanitarian organizations; and representatives authorized to defend their interests were not allowed into the camps. Moreover, criminal proceedings were initiated against POWs without adhering to the requirements of the Geneva Convention. These measures directly violated articles 6, 7, 14, 15, 16, and 17 of the Hague Convention, as well as articles 23, 31, 34–41, 43, 44, 77, and 79 of the Geneva Convention.

As early as 8 September 1941, Nazi troops were officially instructed to treat Soviet POWs with the utmost harshness, forbidding any expression of sympathy. However, it should also be noted that in addition to Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union itself violated international law regarding POWs.

In the first months of the Second World War, communication between the front lines and army or divisional headquarters of the Eastern Front was disrupted, leading to the mass encirclement of thousands of Soviet soldiers and officers. Under these conditions, large-scale captures began. The disconnect between the high command and local units, along with poor coordination on the ground, led to chaotic retreats. This, in turn, made it difficult to gather information on the number of dead, wounded, captured, or missing soldiers and relay it to headquarters. It is worth noting that both German and Soviet sources from that time are unreliable: both sides heavily relied on ideological propaganda and distorted facts. And so, even in German academic literature, the figures for the number of Soviet POWs vary.

According to research conducted by Joachim Hoffmann, a total of 5.24 million people were captured during the Second World War, with 3.8 million taken prisoner in the first monthsiХоффманн Й. История власов­ской армии / пер. с нем. — Париж, 1990. С. 106. .

Christian Streit provides more detailed figures, and according to his data, in December 1941, there were 3,350,000 Soviet soldiers in captivity; by July 1942, that number was 4,716,903; in January 1943, 5,003,697; in February 1944, 5,637,482; and in February 1945, it was 5,734,528. Of these, 3.3 million—that is, 57.8 per cent of all Soviet POWs—perished in Third Reich camps from starvation, abuse, and repressioniStreit Ch. Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetische Kriegsge­fangenen 1941–1945. — Bonn: Dietz, 1991: 244–246.

At the same time, Russian sources differ significantly from foreign ones. The Commission for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression under the President of the Russian Federation, led by A.N. Yakovlev, concluded: There is no exact and reliable data on the number of Soviet POWs between 1941 and 1945. According to official records from the German command, 5.27 million people were captured, whereas the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation puts the figure at 4.06iСудьба военнопленных и депортированных граждан СССР. Материалы Комиссии по реабилитации жертв политических репрессий // Новая и новейшая история, 1996, № 2. С. 91. .

Thus, the actual number of Soviet POWs and the number who died in captivity have not been definitively established. As for Kazakh POWs, the available data also varies and often contradicts itself.

In the early years of the war, Soviet POWs died in large numbers. There were very few who survived the winter of 194–42 were few. On 14 December 1941, during a meeting with Hitler, A. Rosenberg reported that, according to General Kitzinger, around 2,500 people died daily from hungeriNazi Conspiracy and Aggression. Vol.IV. — Washington, 1946. P. 57. in the camps where Soviet prisoners were held. The mortality statistics in the early months of the war in camps controlled by Army Group South speak for themselves: in Transit Camp No. 160, 27.8 per cent of Soviet prisoners died; in Dulag (German transit camps for captured airmen from any of the Allied air forces) No. 205, 82.6 per cent; and in Stalag No. 346, 80.1 per cent. In Poland, by 20 October 1941, of 361,000 POWs, 54,000 had already diediKriegsgefangene / Wojennoplennye. Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene in Deutsch­­­land – Deutsche Kriegsgefangene in der Sowjetunion. Hrsg. Haus der Geschichte BRD. — Düsseldorf, 1995. S. 163–164. .

In the early months of the war, due to a lack of prison facilities, German troops housed Soviet prisoners in schools, destroyed factories and quarries, and fenced-off wastelands. By July and until September 1941, mass deaths of prisoners began in these temporary camps. On 10 July 1941, H. Dorsch, a representative of the Eastern Ministryialso known as the Ministry of Occupied Eastern Territories in the Todt Organization (a civil and military engineering organization in Nazi Germany) made a report to Minister A. Rosenberg about the horrific conditions in the Minsk campiDokumente des Verbrechens: Aus Akten des Dritten Reiches 1933-1945. Hrsg. Von H. Kaden und L. Nestler. — Berlin, 1993. Bd. 1. S. 25–26. :

The conditions in the camps, however, were inhumane. Soviet POWs, who worked long hours from morning until late evening, were provided with food totaling only about 1,300 calories per day, while the standard requirement was 3,000 caloriesiPolitisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, R 105173, Bd. 9. . Western countries, through the International Red Cross, allocated funds, purchased food and vitamins for their citizens who had been taken prisoner, and ensured their delivery to the camps. POWs were also allowed to receive parcels from their families. Soviet soldiers, however, were deprived of all these opportunities because the USSR did not join the international agreements.

The grim fate of Soviet POWs has been examined in-depth by many scholars over the years, and yet, within this vast body of research, one group remains largely overlooked: the Asian POWs, especially those from Turkestan and other parts of Central Asia. As early as May 1941, a document titled ‘Instructions for Determining the Position of Groups of Troops in Russia’, prepared by the Supreme Command (Wehrmacht), contained the following directive in line with Nazi racial theoryiStreit Ch. Keine Kameraden…, S.49–50. :

Hitler, in turn, viewed Asian civilizations as a serious threat to Europe and stated: ‘Now it becomes clear why the Chinese built the Great Wall to protect themselves from Mongol invasions. We also need a grand wall to protect ourselves from the masses of Central Asia …iPicker H. Hitler’s Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier. — Stuttgart: Propyläen Verlag, 2003. P.69. .’

On 24 July 1941, a chilling order was issued by the German High Command: Asian soldiers captured while serving in the Soviet army were not to be transported to Germany. Instead, they were to be held in camps scattered across the occupied territories. The order was explained by claiming that prisoners with Asian features were allegedly unsuitable for agricultural labor of the Third Reich. After an order like this, the officials responsible for the policy toward POWs began to treat prisoners of Asian origin with particular suspicioniDallin A. Deutsche Herrschaft in Russland 1941–1945. Düsseldorf, 1958. S.425. . However, the labor shortage in Germany forced a revision of this position. By 2 August 1941, the Wehrmacht High Command issued Order No. 5015/41, which allowed, when necessary, the transportation of Asians and POWs who spoke German from the eastern territoriesi Streit Ch. Keine Kameraden, S. 385..

Information about the national composition of Soviet POWs remains frustratingly limited. One of the few official sources is a postwar statistical report compiled under the supervision of Colonel General G.F. Krivosheev. According to this document, a total of 1,836,562 Soviet citizens returned from German captivity by the end of the war and in the years that followed. Of these, about a million were re-drafted into the Red Army, 600,000 were sent to labor battalions to work in industry, and 339,000 people, accused of offenses related to their time in captivity, were sent to camps of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. Among the returnees were 23,143 KazakhsiКөкебаева Г.К. Талқыға түскен тағдыр: түркістандық соғыс тұтқындары. Монография. — Алматы, 2022, б. 64. .

In German documents, Soviet POWs from Kazakhstan and the Central Asian republics were grouped under the general name ‘Turkestanis’. However, data on the number of Turkestanis in captivity is extremely limited and often contradictory, primarily due to the catastrophic mortality rate among prisoners during the winter of 1941–42. As reported by Major V. Uslar, a representative of the General Staff of the Army, at a meeting with General E. Koestring and Dr R. Niedermaier in Mirgorod on 1 August 1942, about 80 per cent of the 100,000 Turkestani POWs died in the first winter of the wariHoffmann J. Die Ostlegionen 1941–1943. — Freiburg, 1976. S.82. . For example, in the Czestochowa camp (Czestochow), 32,000 Turkestanis were held in the fall of 1941iBundesarchiv – Militärarchiv, RH 53-17/42. . Over several months of harsh winter, about 30,000 died from hunger, typhus, and wounds. By the spring of 1942, when recruiters arrived to enlist soldiers for the legion, only 262 remained aliveiNeulen H.W. An deutscher Seite. Internationale Freiwillige von Wehrmacht und Waffen SS. — München, 1985. S. 326. .

In recent years, the State Commission for the Full Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions has conducted significant work. Thanks to the study of special archival funds and by analyzing published materials, it has been possible to gather essential data about Kazakhstan's POWs and trace what happened to them. To date, it has been established that from 1939 to 1945, 65,755 soldiers and officers from Kazakhstan were taken prisoner. The death of 4,082 Kazakhstani individuals in captivity has been confirmed.

The tragic history of Soviet POWs is not just merely one episode in the Second World War; it is also a bitter testimony to how a ruthless political system could erase human faces from the memory of the people, depriving millions of people not only of their freedom but also of their right to compassion. Today, after decades, we are beginning to learn the truth, and with it comes hope for the restoration of justice, including for the Kazakhs, whose names had long been forgotten.