6-465: Stalag I-A was a German prisoner-of-war camp during World War II , located in the village of Stabławki (then officially Stablack ). It housed mainly Polish , Belgian , French and Russian prisoners of war, but also Britons and Italians . The camp was built in late 1939 by Polish POWs, who were captured during the German-Soviet invasion of Poland which started World War II. In 1940
12-654: The Third Geneva Convention of 1929, which established norms relating to the treatment of prisoners of war. According to some scholars (like Christian Gerlach ) Germany largely adhered to the Geneva Convention when it came to other nationalities of prisoners of war. It however disregarded it for the Soviet prisoners of war . Around 3 million of almost 6 million captured died, largely of starvation and disease, but also executions. Conditions in
18-626: The Poles were joined by Belgian and French prisoners following the Fall of France , and by Russians in 1941 following the Operation Barbarossa . Some British and Italian prisoners were also there. On 25 January 1945, as Russian troops approached, the camp was abandoned and all prisoners were evacuated to the west. Few of the men registered at Stalag I-A were housed at the main camp, as most were assigned to Kommandos (sub-camps) spread over
24-529: The Roman number marked individual Stalags in a military district. e.g. Sub-camps had a suffix "/Z" (for Zweiglager - sub-camp). The main camp had a suffix of "/H" (for Hauptlager - main camp). e.g. Some of these sub-camps were not the traditional POW camps with barbed wire fences and guard towers, but merely accommodation centers. The camps for Allied airmen were run by the Luftwaffe independently of
30-487: The camp have been described as bad, but (for POWs of Western Allies) improved as the war went on and Germans had to consider that they held significant amount of German POWs and could enact retribution. At the start of World War II, the German Army was divided into 17 military districts ( Wehrkreise ) , which were each assigned Roman numerals. The camps were numbered according to the military district. A letter behind
36-486: The entire district. German prisoner-of-war camps in World War II Nazi Germany operated around 1,000 prisoner-of-war camps ( German : Kriegsgefangenenlager ) during World War II (1939-1945). The most common types of camps were Oflags ("Officer camp") and Stalags ("Base camp" – for enlisted personnel POW camps), although other less common types existed as well. Germany signed
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