Riese ( [ˈʁiːzə] ; German for "giant") was the code name for a construction project of Nazi Germany between 1943 and 1945. It consisted of seven underground structures in the Owl Mountains and Książ Castle in Lower Silesia , which was then Nazi Germany and is now Poland .
165-502: None of them were finished, and all are in different states of completion with only eleven per cent reinforced by concrete. The purpose of the project remains uncertain because of the lack of documentation. Some sources suggest that all the structures were part of the Führer Headquarters ; according to others, it was a combination of headquarters (HQ) and arms industry but comparison to similar facilities indicates that only
330-427: A ban on sexual relations between Germans and foreign workers . Repeated efforts were made to propagate Volkstum ('racial consciousness'), to prevent such relations. Pamphlets, for instance, instructed all German women to avoid physical contact with any foreign workers brought to Germany as a danger to their blood. Women who disobeyed were imprisoned although executions also took place. Even fraternization with
495-413: A typhus epidemic occurred amongst the prisoners. They were held in unhygienic conditions, exhausted and starving. As a result, construction slowed down significantly. In at least five collective camps an unknown number of forced labourers and POWs worked on the project, some until the end of the war. It is uncertain how many prisoners lost their lives. In April 1944, dissatisfied with the progress of
660-607: A body "formed from the class-conscious and best elements of the working classes." All citizens of the Russian republic aged 18 or older were eligible. Its role being the defense "of the Soviet authority, the creation of a basis for the transformation of the standing army into a force deriving its strength from a nation in arms, and, furthermore, the creation of a basis for the support of the coming Socialist Revolution in Europe." Enlistment
825-400: A bunker, and earthworks carried out on a massive scale. A narrow gauge railway network connected the tunnels with the railway station in the village of Głuszyca Górna (German: Oberwüstegiersdorf). In October–December 1944, AL Lärche was established for prisoners of concentration camps, mostly Jews from Poland and Greece. They lived in twelve barracks made of plywood in the vicinity of
990-498: A collective committee of Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko , Pavel Dybenko , and Nikolai Krylenko . At the same time, Nikolay Dukhonin was acting as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief after Alexander Kerensky fled from Russia. On 12 November 1917 the Soviet government appointed Krylenko as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, and because of an "accident" during the forceful displacement of the commander-in-chief, Dukhonin
1155-565: A common border between Japanese controlled areas and the Soviet Far East and Mongolia . The Soviets and Japanese, including their respective client states of the Mongolian People's Republic and Manchukuo , disputed the boundaries and accused the other side of border violations. This resulted in a series of escalating border skirmishes and punitive expeditions , including the 1938 Battle of Lake Khasan , and culminated in
1320-746: A direct result of forced labour under the Nazis. After the invasion of Poland , Polish Jews over the age of 12 and Poles over the age of 12 living in the General Government territory were subject to forced labor. Historian Jan Gross estimates that "no more than 15 percent" of Polish workers volunteered to go to work in Germany. In 1942, all non-Germans living in the General Government were subject to forced labor. The largest number of labour camps held civilians forcibly abducted in
1485-403: A forced labour fund paid out more than €4.37 billion to close to 1.7 million of then-living victims around the world (one-off payments of between €2,500 and €7,500). German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated in 2007 that "Many former forced labourers have finally received the promised humanitarian aid"; she also conceded that before the fund was established nothing had gone directly to
1650-418: A further 1,836,000 returned from German captivity. Thus the grand total of losses amounted to 8,668,400. This is the official total dead , but other estimates give the number of total dead up to almost 11 million men, including 7.7 million killed or missing in action and 2.6 million prisoners of war (POW) dead (out of 5.2 million total POWs), plus 400,000 paramilitary and Soviet partisan losses. Officials at
1815-552: A guardroom were demolished. The narrow gauge railway connecting the tunnels with the railway siding in the village of Lubiechów (German: Liebichau) was dismantled after the war. In May 1944, AL Fürstenstein was established in the vicinity of the castle 50°50′15″N 16°18′5″E / 50.83750°N 16.30139°E / 50.83750; 16.30139 ( AL Fürstenstein ) . Between 700 and 1,000 concentration camp prisoners lived in barracks. They were Jews, citizens of Hungary, Poland, and Greece. Evacuation of
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#17327800905801980-689: A huge range of engineering projects both in pre- World War II Germany , and in occupied Europe from France to Russia. Todt became notorious for using forced labour . Most so-called "volunteer" Soviet POW workers were assigned to the Organisation Todt. The history of the organization falls into three main phases: Millions of Jews were forced labourers in ghettos , before they were shipped off to extermination camps . The Nazis also operated concentration camps , some of which provided free forced labour for industrial and other jobs while others existed solely to exterminate their inmates . To mislead
2145-503: A hundred times as many tanks . The Red Army, however, had been hindered by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin 's Great Purge of 1937, reducing the army's morale and efficiency shortly before the outbreak of the fighting. With over 30,000 of its army officers executed or imprisoned, most of whom were from the highest ranks, the Red Army in 1939 had many inexperienced senior officers. Because of these factors, and high commitment and morale in
2310-449: A large part of its strategic armaments production into safer regions including Province of Lower Silesia . Plans to protect critical infrastructure also involved transfer of the arms factories to underground bunkers and construction of air-raid shelters for government officials. In September 1943, Minister of Armaments and War Production Albert Speer and the senior management of Organisation Todt started talks on Project Riese. As
2475-405: A large space. Some parts of the complex are flooded but accessible by boat. From 2004 it is open to visitors. Above ground are foundations of machinery, numerous unfinished or destroyed buildings, a bunker, two reservoirs of water, and depots of building materials including thousands of fossilized bags of cement. The network of narrow gauge railways, connecting the tunnels with the railway siding in
2640-405: A lift and a staircase from the cellar and also by an entrance from the gardens. The tunnel (80 m, 180 m, 400 m) is reinforced by concrete and leads to an elevator shaft hidden 15 m under the courtyard, a connection between the first and the second level of the underground. The shaft (35 m) has not been explored because it is filled with rubble. A provisional, short tunnel from
2805-454: A major reshuffling took place in the Soviet military administration. On 13 March 1918, the Soviet government accepted the official resignation of Krylenko and the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief was liquidated. On 14 March 1918, Leon Trotsky replaced Podvoisky as the Narkom of War Affairs. On 16 March 1918, Pavel Dybenko was relieved from the office of Narkom of Marine Affairs. On 8 May 1918,
2970-494: A nearby heap, was dismantled after the war. In 1995 the underground was opened to the public and in 2001 transformed into a museum. In November 1943, Gemeinschaftslager I Wüstewaltersdorf was established in textile factory Websky, Hartmann & Wiesen AG 50°41′50″N 16°26′41″E / 50.69722°N 16.44472°E / 50.69722; 16.44472 ( Gemeinschaftslager I Wüstewaltersdorf ) . Its prisoners were forced labourers, mainly from
3135-512: A result of their living conditions – extreme mistreatment, severe malnutrition and abuse were the main causes of death. Many more became civilian casualties from enemy (Allied) bombing and shelling of their workplaces throughout the war. At the peak of the program, the forced labourers constituted 20% of the German work force. Counting deaths and turnover, about 15 million men and women were forced labourers at one point during
3300-698: A result, the Industriegemeinschaft Schlesien (Silesian Industrial Company) was created to conduct construction work. In November, collective camps ( Gemeinschaftslager ) were established for forced labourers , mainly from the Soviet Union and Poland, POWs from Italy, the Soviet Union, and later Poland as an aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising ( List of camps ). A network of roads, bridges, and narrow gauge railways
3465-477: A small underground level. There is a shaft with a diameter of 0.5 m – 0.6 m (16 m) in the vicinity of the complex but not connected to it. Tunnel number 6 is collapsed 37 m from the entrance and has not been explored yet. It was closed by two steel doors 7 m apart. The rest of the tunnels are in the initial stage of construction: 1. (10 m), 3. (15 m), 5. (3 m), 7. (24.5 m). The total length of
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#17327800905803630-545: A stable nucleus. By 1925, this system provided 46 of the 77 infantry divisions and one of the eleven cavalry divisions. The remainder consisted of regular officers and enlisted personnel serving two-year terms. The territorial system was finally abolished, with all remaining formations converted to the other cadre divisions, in 1937–1938. The Soviet military received ample funding and was innovative in its technology. An American journalist wrote in 1941: Even in American terms
3795-521: A surrender the following day although some Japanese units continued to fight for several more days. A proposed Soviet invasion of Hokkaido , the second largest Japanese island, was originally planned to be part of the territory to be taken but it was cancelled. Military administration after the October Revolution was taken over by the People's Commissariat of War and Marine affairs headed by
3960-422: Is a single-storey, concrete building (680 m, 2,300 m) with walls 0.5 m thick and roof adapted for camouflage by vegetation (0.6 m). A utility tunnel (1.25 m x 1.95 m, 30 m) was under construction to connect it with the shaft. Another structure of unknown purpose is a concrete monolith (30.9 m x 29.8 m) with tens of pipes, drains and culverts, buried into
4125-465: Is collapsed in many places because the complex was bored in soft sandstone. In 2011 excavation of tunnel number 3 (145 m) has begun, inaccessible since the end of war because of its collapsed entrance. It is 600 m away and 60 m below tunnels number 1 and 2 50°38′35″N 16°28′2″E / 50.64306°N 16.46722°E / 50.64306; 16.46722 ( Complex Sokolec 2 ) . Tunnel number 4 (100 m)
4290-399: Is not connected to the complex. It is 500 m away and 45 m below the main underground. It contains two dams and hydraulic equipment of an unknown purpose. Above ground are foundations of buildings, machinery, a ramp for transportation of mine cars to different levels, a reservoir of water and depots, some with systems of heating up building materials in winter. The largest structure
4455-404: Is reinforced by concrete. It was accessible by four tunnels bored into the base of the mountain with chambers for guardrooms. There is a shaft leading to the surface with diameter 4 m (40 m). Some tunnels have higher, second levels connected by small shafts. This is a stage of building underground halls. Two tunnels were bored, one over the other and then the ceiling was collapsed to create
4620-426: Is reinforced by concrete. There are two additional shafts leading to the surface, one with dimensions 3.5 m x 3.5 m (45 m) and one with diameter 0.5 m (40 m), presently used to supply electricity. Above ground are foundations of buildings and machinery, two reservoirs of water, a pumping station, and remains of a sewage treatment plant. In 1975–1976 four bunkers Ringstand 58c, and
4785-536: The Reichskreditkassen shall be deferred until the final settlement of the problem of reparations. To this day, there are arguments that such settlement has never been fully carried out. German post-war development has been greatly aided, while the development of victim countries has stalled. A prominent example of a group which received almost no compensation is the Polish forced labourers. According to
4950-642: The Eastern Front , it accounted for 75–80% of the casualties that the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS suffered during the war, and ultimately captured the German capital, Berlin . Up to 34 million soldiers served in the Red Army during World War II, 8 million of which were non-Slavic minorities. Officially, the Red Army lost 6,329,600 killed in action (KIA), 555,400 deaths by disease and 4,559,000 missing in action (MIA) ( mostly captured ). The majority of
5115-542: The German war economy inside Nazi Germany during the war. The German need for slave labour grew to the point that even children were kidnapped as labor, in an operation called the Heu-Aktion . More than 2,000 German companies profited from slave labour during the Nazi era, including Deutsche Bank and Siemens . A class system was created amongst Fremdarbeiter ('foreign workers') brought to Germany to work for
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5280-543: The Gulag . During the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army conscripted 29,574,900 men in addition to the 4,826,907 in service at the beginning of the war. Of this total of 34,401,807 it lost 6,329,600 killed in action (KIA), 555,400 deaths by disease and 4,559,000 missing in action (MIA) (most captured). Of the 4.5 million missing, 939,700 rejoined the ranks in the subsequently liberated Soviet territory, and
5445-958: The Imperial Japanese Army ), the doctrine was not used. Only in the Second World War did deep operations come into play. The Red Army was involved in armed conflicts in the Republic of China during the Sino-Soviet conflict (1929) , the Soviet invasion of Xinjiang (1934), when it was assisted by White Russian forces, and the Islamic rebellion in Xinjiang (1937) in Northwestern China . The Red Army achieved its objectives; it maintained effective control over
5610-671: The Potsdam Agreements of 1945, the Poles were to receive reparations not from Germany itself, but from the Soviet Union 's share of those reparations; under Soviet pressure on the Polish Communist government, the Poles agreed to a system of repayment that de facto meant that few Polish victims received adequate compensation in any way comparable to the victims in Western Europe or Soviet Union itself. Most of
5775-486: The Prussian State Library had been hidden. The works in the castle were extensive and led to the destruction of many decorative elements. New staircase and elevator shafts were built to improve emergency evacuation routes. The most serious work however took place below the castle. There are two levels of tunnels. The first is 15 m underground and was accessible from the fourth floor of the castle by
5940-715: The Red Army , was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union . The army was established in January 1918 by Leon Trotsky to oppose the military forces of the new nation's adversaries during the Russian Civil War , especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army . In February 1946, the Red Army (which embodied the main component of
6105-732: The Russian Constituent Assembly (5–6 January 1918) and the Soviet government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918), removing Russia from the First World War. Freed from international obligations, the Red Army confronted an internecine war against a variety of opposing anti-Bolshevik forces, including the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine led by Nestor Makhno , the anti-White and anti-Red Green armies , efforts to restore
6270-717: The Soviet Armed Forces alongside the Soviet Navy ) was renamed the " Soviet Army " – which in turn became the Russian Army on 7 May 1992, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Red Army provided the largest land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II , and its invasion of Manchuria assisted the unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan . During its operations on
6435-610: The Soviet invasion of Manchuria on 9 August 1945 (three days after the first atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the same day the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki , while also being exact three months after the surrender of Germany). It was the largest campaign of the Soviet–Japanese War , which resumed hostilities between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Empire of Japan after almost six years of peace following
6600-964: The United States . In total, the U.S. deliveries to the USSR through Lend-Lease amounted to $ 11 billion in materials ($ 180 billion in the 2020 money value): over 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386 of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans ); 14,015 aircraft (of which 4,719 were Bell P-39 Airacobras , 2,908 were Douglas A-20 Havocs and 2,400 were Bell P-63 Kingcobras ) and 1.75 million tons of food. Soviet soldiers committed mass rapes in occupied territories, especially in Germany . The wartime rapes were followed by decades of silence. According to historian Antony Beevor , whose books were banned in 2015 from some Russian schools and colleges, NKVD (Soviet secret police) files have revealed that
6765-627: The Wehrmacht in combat. The Axis's numeric superiority rendered the combatants' divisional strength approximately equal. A generation of Soviet commanders (notably Georgy Zhukov ) learned from the defeats, and Soviet victories in the Battle of Moscow , at Stalingrad , Kursk and later in Operation Bagration proved decisive. In 1941, the Soviet government raised the bloodied Red Army's esprit de corps with propaganda stressing
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6930-502: The Wehrmacht was especially harsh. Per a 1941 Stalin directive , Red Army officers and soldiers were to "fight to the last" rather than surrender; Stalin stated: "There are no Soviet prisoners of war, only traitors". During and after World War II freed POWs went to special " filtration camps ". Of these, by 1944, more than 90% were cleared, and about 8% were arrested or condemned to serve in penal battalions . In 1944, they were sent directly to reserve military formations to be cleared by
7095-587: The brigade and regimental levels. The commissars also had the task of spying on commanders for political incorrectness . In August 1918, Trotsky authorized General Mikhail Tukhachevsky to place blocking units behind politically unreliable Red Army units, to shoot anyone who retreated without permission. In 1942, during the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) Joseph Stalin reintroduced the blocking policy and penal battalions with Order 227 . The Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919 occurred at
7260-532: The death penalty . Simultaneously, Trotsky carried out a mass recruitment of officers from the old Imperial Russian Army , who were employed as military advisors ( voenspetsy ). The Bolsheviks occasionally enforced the loyalty of such recruits by holding their families as hostages. As a result of this initiative, in 1918 75% of the officers were former tsarists . By mid-August 1920 the Red Army's former tsarist personnel included 48,000 officers, 10,300 administrators, and 214,000 non-commissioned officers . When
7425-467: The fall of communism in Poland in 1989/1990 did the Polish government try to renegotiate the issue of reparations, but found little support in this from the German side and none from the Soviet (later, Russian) side. The total number of forced labourers under Nazi rule who were still alive as of August 1999 was 2.3 million. The German Forced Labour Compensation Programme was established in 2000;
7590-407: The triumphantly advancing enemy. The Red Guard units are brushed aside like flies. We have no power to stay the enemy; only an immediate signing of the peace treaty will save us from destruction." The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) can be divided into three periods: At the start of the civil war, the Red Army consisted of 299 infantry regiments . The civil war intensified after Lenin dissolved
7755-683: The "Second Soviet-Finnish War") which was a conflict fought by Finland and Germany against the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944. In accordance with the Soviet-Nazi Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August 1939, the Red Army invaded Poland on 17 September 1939, after the Nazi invasion on 1 September 1939. On 30 November, the Red Army also attacked Finland, in the Winter War of 1939–1940. By autumn 1940, after conquering its portion of Poland, Nazi Germany shared an extensive border with
7920-466: The 1929 Field Regulations and became codified in the 1936 Provisional Field Regulations (PU-36). The Great Purge of 1937–1939 and the 1941 Red Army Purge removed many leading officers from the Red Army, including Tukhachevsky himself and many of his followers, and the doctrine was abandoned. Thus, at the Battle of Lake Khasan in 1938 and in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol in 1939 ( major border conflicts with
8085-542: The 1932–1939 Soviet–Japanese border conflicts . The Red Army, with support from Mongolian forces, overwhelmed the Japanese Kwantung Army and local Chinese forces supporting them. The Soviets advanced on the continent into the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo , Mengjiang (the northeast section of present-day Inner Mongolia which was part of another puppet state) and via an amphibious operation
8250-646: The All-Russian Chief Headquarters was created, headed by Nikolai Stogov and later Alexander Svechin . On 2 September 1918, the Revolutionary Military Council (RMC) was established as the main military administration under Leon Trotsky, the Narkom of War Affairs. On 6 September 1918 alongside the chief headquarters, the Field Headquarters of RMC was created, initially headed by Nikolai Rattel . On
8415-623: The Army. The Council of People's Commissars appointed itself the supreme head of the Red Army, delegating command and administration of the army to the Commissariat for Military Affairs and the Special All-Russian College within this commissariat. Nikolai Krylenko was the supreme commander-in-chief, with Aleksandr Myasnikyan as deputy. Nikolai Podvoisky became the commissar for war, Pavel Dybenko , commissar for
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#17327800905808580-636: The Bolshevik Revolution took place there were few machines in Russia. Marx said Communism must come in a highly industrialized society. The Bolsheviks identified their dreams of socialist happiness with machines which would multiply production and reduce hours of labour until everyone would have everything he needed and would work only as much as he wished. Somehow this has not come about, but the Russians still worship machines, and this helped make
8745-745: The Dungan Cavalry Regiment commanded by the Dungan Magaza Masanchi . It also co-operated with armed Bolshevik Party-oriented volunteer units, the Forces of Special Purpose from 1919 to 1925. The slogan "exhortation, organization, and reprisals" expressed the discipline and motivation which helped ensure the Red Army's tactical and strategic success. On campaign, the attached Cheka special punitive brigades conducted summary field court-martial and executions of deserters and slackers. Under Commissar Yan Karlovich Berzin ,
8910-514: The Eastern Front consisted of an estimated 3,604,800 KIA/MIA within the 1937 borders plus 900,000 ethnic Germans and Austrians outside the 1937 border (included in these numbers are men listed as missing in action or unaccounted for after the war) and 3,576,300 men reported captured (total 8,081,100); the losses of the German satellites on the Eastern Front approximated 668,163 KIA/MIA and 799,982 captured (total 1,468,145). Of these 9,549,245,
9075-640: The Finnish forces, Finland was able to resist the Soviet invasion for much longer than the Soviets expected. Finnish forces inflicted stunning losses on the Red Army for the first three months of the war while suffering very few losses themselves. Hostilities ceased in March 1940 with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty . Finland ceded 9% of its pre-war territory and 30% of its economic assets to
9240-463: The French navy in the occupied zone, stated "We have a special interest in that the workers at our arsenals work, and that they work in the arsenals and not in Germany." From a practical point of view, French workers needed employment and could have been conscripted to work in Germany (as happened to 1 million of them). A small number objected to carrying out war work but the majority were found by
9405-587: The German government to compensate forced labourers from the war period. As stated in the London Debt Agreement of 1953 : Consideration of claims arising out of the Second World War by countries which were at war with or were occupied by Germany during that war, and by nationals of such countries, against the Reich and agencies of the Reich, including costs of German occupation, credits acquired during occupation on clearing accounts and claims against
9570-538: The German subsidiaries of foreign firms, such as Fordwerke (a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company ) and Adam Opel AG (a subsidiary of General Motors ) among others. Once the war had begun, the foreign subsidiaries were seized and nationalized by the Nazi-controlled German state, and work conditions deteriorated, as they did throughout German industry. About 12 million forced labourers, most of whom were Eastern Europeans , were employed in
9735-433: The German war industry with only basic tools and minimal food rations until totally exhausted. To benefit the economy after the war, certain categories of victims of Nazism were excluded from compensation by the German government; these groups had the least political influence they could have brought to bear, and many forced labourers from Eastern Europe fall into this category. There has been little effort by businesses or
9900-471: The Germans to be willing and efficient workers. In the late summer of 1944, German records listed 7.6 million foreign civilian workers and prisoners of war in the German territory, most of whom had been brought there by coercion. By 1944, slave labour made up one quarter of Germany's entire work force, and the majority of German factories had a contingent of prisoners. The Nazis also had plans for
10065-560: The Industriegemeinschaft Schlesien was deemed too inefficient and replaced by the Organisation Todt ;(OT). The Oberbauleitung Riese (OBL Riese) (Site management Riese) was established under supervision of Ministerial Director Franz Xaver Dorsch and Hans Meyer, Chief of OBL Riese and the whole area of Lower Silesia. Construction Office, located in Haus Mohaupt in the town of Wüstewaltersdorf (Polish: Walim ),
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#173278009058010230-545: The Manchurian Chinese Eastern Railway , and successfully installed a pro-Soviet regime in Xinjiang . The Soviet–Japanese border conflicts , also known as the "Soviet–Japanese Border War" or the first "Soviet–Japanese War", was a series of minor and major conflicts fought between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan from 1932 to 1939. Japan's expansion into Northeast China created
10395-418: The NKVD. Further, in 1945, about 100 filtration camps were set for repatriated POWs, and other displaced persons , which processed more than 4,000,000 people. By 1946, 80% civilians and 20% of POWs were freed, 5% of civilians, and 43% of POWs were re-drafted, 10% of civilians and 22% of POWs were sent to labor battalions, and 2% of civilians and 15% of the POWs (226,127 out of 1,539,475 total) were transferred to
10560-463: The OT until May 1945. Presently it is open to the public. The town of Głuszyca (German: Wüstegiersdorf) and its vicinity was the location of many labour camps connected to Project Riese. From October 1943 to March 1945 manufacturing plants of Friedrich Krupp AG were relocated here from Essen . They took over two textile factories belonging to Meyer-Kauffmann Textilwerke AG and adapted them to armaments production. An air-raid shelter
10725-430: The Polish share of reparations was "given" to Poland by Soviet Union under the Comecon framework, which was not only highly inefficient, but benefited Soviet Union much more than Poland. Under further Soviet pressure (related to the London Agreement on German External Debts ), in 1953 the People's Republic of Poland renounced its right to further claims of reparations from the successor states of Nazi Germany. Only after
10890-460: The Red Army finally achieving a Soviet-Mongolian victory over Japan and Manchukuo at the Battles of Khalkhin Gol in September 1939. The Soviet Union and Japan agreed to a ceasefire. Later the two sides signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact on 13 April 1941, which resolved the dispute and returned the borders to status quo ante bellum . The Winter War ( Finnish : talvisota , Swedish : finska vinterkriget , Russian: Зи́мняя война́ )
11055-481: The Red Army numbered some 6.5 million men, many of whom the Army had difficulty supporting, around 581,000 in the two operational fronts, western and southwestern. Around 2.5 million men and women were mobilized in the interior as part of reserve armies. The XI Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (RCP (b)) adopted a resolution on the strengthening of the Red Army. It decided to establish strictly organized military, educational and economic conditions in
11220-404: The Red Army was composed mainly of peasants, the families of those who served were guaranteed rations and assistance with farm work. Some peasants who remained at home yearned to join the Army; men, along with some women, flooded the recruitment centres. If they were turned away, they would collect scrap metal and prepare care-packages. In some cases, the money they earned would go towards tanks for
11385-474: The Red Army with an initial Red Guard organization and a core soldiery of Red Guard militiamen and the Cheka secret police. Conscription began in June 1918, and opposition to it was violently suppressed. To control the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Red Army soldiery, the Cheka operated special punitive brigades which suppressed anti-communists , deserters , and " enemies of the state ". The Red Army used special regiments for ethnic minorities, such as
11550-483: The Red Army's defeat of Pyotr Wrangel in the south in 1920 allowed the foundation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in December 1922. Historian John Erickson sees 1 February 1924, when Mikhail Frunze became head of the Red Army staff, as marking the ascent of the general staff , which came to dominate Soviet military planning and operations. By 1 October 1924 the Red Army's strength had diminished to 530,000. The list of Soviet divisions 1917–1945 details
11715-411: The Red Army's strength was 401 divisions. The Soviet forces were apparently unprepared despite numerous warnings from a variety of sources. They suffered much damage in the field because of mediocre officers, partial mobilization, and an incomplete reorganization. The hasty pre-war forces expansion and the over-promotion of inexperienced officers (owing to the purging of experienced officers) favored
11880-464: The Reich. The system was based on layers of increasingly less privileged workers, starting with well-paid workers from German allies or neutral countries to forced labourers from conquered Untermenschen ('sub-humans') populations. In general, foreign labourers from Western Europe had similar gross earnings and were subject to similar taxation as German workers. In contrast, Central and Eastern European forced labourers received at most about one-half
12045-572: The Russian Central Defense Ministry Archive (CDMA) maintain that their database lists the names of roughly 14 million dead and missing service personnel. The majority of the losses, excluding POWs, were ethnic Russians (5,756,000), followed by ethnic Ukrainians (1,377,400). As many as 8 million of the 34 million mobilized were non-Slavic minority soldiers, and around 45 divisions formed from national minorities served from 1941 to 1943. The German losses on
12210-418: The Russian Central Defense Ministry Archive (CDMA) maintain that their database lists the names of roughly 14 million dead and missing service personnel. In September 1917, Vladimir Lenin wrote: "There is only one way to prevent the restoration of the police, and that is to create a people's militia and to fuse it with the army (the standing army to be replaced by the arming of the entire people)." At
12375-452: The Soviet Union in textile factory of Kammgarnspinnerei Stöhr & Co. AG 50°41′5″N 16°22′21″E / 50.68472°N 16.37250°E / 50.68472; 16.37250 ( Gemeinschaftslager III Wüstegiersdorf ) and existed until the end of the war. In April 1944, AL Wüstegiersdorf was created in the same location for prisoners of concentration camps, between 700 and 1,000 Jews from Hungary and Poland. It
12540-645: The Soviet Union made Red Army logistical support difficult because many depots (and most of the USSR's industrial manufacturing base) lay in the country's invaded western areas, obliging their re-establishment east of the Ural Mountains. Lend-Lease trucks and jeeps from the United States began appearing in large numbers in 1942. Until then, the Red Army was often required to improvise or go without weapons, vehicles, and other equipment. The 1941 decision to physically move their manufacturing capacity east of
12705-556: The Soviet Union, 1.6 million to Poland, 1.5 million to France, and 900,000 to Italy, along with 300,000 to 400,000 each to Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Belgium. Hitler 's policy of Lebensraum ('room for living') strongly emphasized conquest of lands in the East, known as Generalplan Ost , and the exploitation of these lands to provide cheap goods and labour for Germany. Even before
12870-580: The Soviet Union, Poland and POWs from Italy, captured by the German army after the Italian armistice and switching sides. The most numerous group consisted of POWs from the Soviet Union. They were detained in the part of the camp subordinate to Stalag VIII-A Görlitz. It was liberated in May ;1945. In April 1944, AL Wüstewaltersdorf was created in the same location for prisoners of concentration camps, mostly Jews from Greece. Some sources suggest
13035-535: The Soviet Union. Soviet losses on the front were heavy, and the country's international reputation suffered. The Soviet forces did not accomplish their objective of the total conquest of Finland but did receive territory in Karelia , Petsamo , and Salla . The Finns retained their sovereignty and improved their international reputation, which bolstered their morale in the Continuation War (also known as
13200-436: The Soviet defence budget was large. In 1940 it was the equivalent of $ 11,000,000,000, and represented one-third of the national expenditure. Measure this against the fact that the infinitely richer United States will approximate the expenditure of that much yearly only in 1942 after two years of its greatest defence effort. Most of the money spent on the Red Army and Air Force went for machines of war. Twenty-three years ago when
13365-490: The Soviets released 3,572,600 from captivity after the war, thus the grand total of the Axis losses came to an estimated 5,976,645. Regarding POWs, both sides captured large numbers and had many die in captivity – one recent British figure says 3.6 of 6 million Soviet POWs died in German camps, while 300,000 of 3 million German POWs died in Soviet hands. In 1941, the rapid progress of the initial German air and land attacks into
13530-675: The USSR, with whom it remained neutrally bound by their non-aggression pact and trade agreements . Another consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina , carried out by the Southern Front in June–July 1940 and Soviet occupation of the Baltic states . These conquests also added to the border the Soviet Union shared with Nazi-controlled areas. For Adolf Hitler ,
13695-422: The Ural Mountains kept the main Soviet support system out of German reach. In the later stages of the war, the Red Army fielded some excellent weaponry, especially artillery and tanks. The Red Army's heavy KV-1 and medium T-34 tanks outclassed most Wehrmacht armor, but in 1941 most Soviet tank units used older and inferior models. The Red Army was financially and materially assisted in its wartime effort by
13860-636: The army. However, it was recognized that an army of 1,600,000 would be burdensome. By the end of 1922, after the Congress, the Party Central Committee decided to reduce the Red Army to 800,000. This reduction necessitated the reorganization of the Red Army's structure. The supreme military unit became corps of two or three divisions. Divisions consisted of three regiments. Brigades as independent units were abolished. The formation of departments' rifle corps began. After four years of warfare,
14025-441: The base of the mountain. The structure contains a nearly completed guardroom and large underground halls, up to 10 m in height. The total length of the tunnels is 500 m (2,500 m, 14,000 m). Eleven per cent is reinforced by concrete. Above ground are foundations of machinery and a concrete bridge. The second bridge was damaged and replaced by a footbridge. A narrow-gauge railway, used for transportation of spoil to
14190-576: The beginning of its existence, the Red Army functioned as a voluntary formation, without ranks or insignia. Democratic elections selected the officers. However, a decree on 29 May 1918 imposed obligatory military service for men of ages 18 to 40. To service the massive draft, the Bolsheviks formed regional military commissariats ( voyennyy komissariat , abbr. voyenkomat ), which as of 2023 still exist in Russia in this function and under this name. Military commissariats, however, should not be confused with
14355-480: The brigades took hostages from the villages of deserters to compel their surrender; one in ten of those returning was executed. The same tactic also suppressed peasant rebellions in areas controlled by the Red Army, the biggest of these being the Tambov Rebellion . The Soviets enforced the loyalty of the various political, ethnic, and national groups in the Red Army through political commissars attached at
14520-630: The camp can still be found in the vicinity of the tunnel number 3. Its evacuation took place in February ;1945. The complex is located near the village of Sokolec (German: Falkenberg), inside Gontowa Mountain (German: Schindelberg). It consists of two underground structures on different levels. Tunnels number 1 and 2, with chambers for guardrooms, lead to the underground up to 5 m in height 50°38′44″N 16°27′36″E / 50.64556°N 16.46000°E / 50.64556; 16.46000 ( Complex Sokolec 1 ) . It
14685-575: The camp commander, SS - Hauptsturmführer Albert Lütkemeyer, were located in AL ;Wüstegiersdorf. From December 1944 to January 1945 the prisoners were guarded by 853 SS troops. According to incomplete data, at least 13,000 prisoners worked for the project. Most of them were transferred from the Auschwitz concentration camp . The documents allow identification of 8,995 prisoners. All of them were Jews, about seventy per cent from Hungary,
14850-498: The camp might have been located on the slopes of Chłopska Mountain (German: Stenzelberg); according to others, its existence is doubtful. The complex is located inside Włodarz Mountain (German: Wolfsberg) 50°42′8″N 16°25′4″E / 50.70222°N 16.41778°E / 50.70222; 16.41778 ( Complex Włodarz ) . It is a grid of tunnels (3,100 m, 10,700 m, 42,000 m) and large underground halls, up to 12 m in height. Less than one per cent
15015-702: The camp took place in February 1945. Forced labor in Germany during World War II The use of slave and forced labour in Nazi Germany ( German : Zwangsarbeit ) and throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II took place on an unprecedented scale. It was a vital part of the German economic exploitation of conquered territories. It also contributed to the mass extermination of populations in occupied Europe. The Germans abducted approximately 12 million people from almost twenty European countries; about two thirds came from Central Europe and Eastern Europe . Many workers died as
15180-684: The camp took place in February 1945. Today the castle and the undergrounds are open to the public. The second level also contains seismological and geodesical measuring equipment belonging to the Polish Academy of Sciences . The complex is located on a borderline between the villages of Rzeczka (German: Dorfbach) and Walim (German: Wüstewaltersdorf), inside Ostra Mountain (German: Spitzenberg) 50°41′19″N 16°26′40″E / 50.68861°N 16.44444°E / 50.68861; 16.44444 ( Complex Rzeczka ) . Drilling work began in March 1944. Three tunnels were bored into
15345-473: The castle was adapted as an HQ or other official residence, and the tunnels in the Owl Mountains were planned as a network of underground factories. The construction work was done by forced labourers , prisoners of war (POWs), and prisoners of concentration camps , and many lost their lives, mostly as a result of disease and malnutrition. Due to increasing Allied air raids, Nazi Germany relocated
15510-682: The circumstance was no dilemma, because the Drang nach Osten ("Drive towards the East") policy secretly remained in force, culminating on 18 December 1940 with Directive No. 21, Operation Barbarossa , approved on 3 February 1941, and scheduled for mid-May 1941. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, in Operation Barbarossa, the Red Army's ground forces had 303 divisions and 22 separate brigades (5.5 million soldiers) including 166 divisions and brigades (2.6 million) garrisoned in
15675-420: The civil war ended in 1922, ex-tsarists constituted 83% of the Red Army's divisional and corps commanders. In 1919, 612 "hardcore" deserters of the total 837,000 draft dodgers and deserters were executed following Trotsky's draconian measures. According to Figes, "a majority of deserters (most registered as "weak-willed") were handed back to the military authorities, and formed into units for transfer to one of
15840-750: The defeated Provisional Government, monarchists, but mainly the White Movement of several different anti-socialist military confederations. "Red Army Day", 23 February 1918, has a two-fold historical significance: it was the first day of conscription (in Petrograd and Moscow), and the first day of combat against the occupying Imperial German Army . The Red Army controlled by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic also against independence movements, invading and annexing newly independent states of
16005-549: The defense of Motherland and nation, employing historic exemplars of Russian courage and bravery against foreign aggressors. The anti-Nazi Great Patriotic War was conflated with the Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon , and historical Russian military heroes, such as Alexander Nevsky and Mikhail Kutuzov , appeared. Repression of the Russian Orthodox Church temporarily ceased, and priests revived
16170-499: The depth of the enemy's ground forces, inducing catastrophic defensive failure. The deep-battle doctrine relies upon aviation and armor advances with the expectation that maneuver warfare offers quick, efficient, and decisive victory. Marshal Tukhachevsky said that aerial warfare must be "employed against targets beyond the range of infantry , artillery , and other arms. For maximum tactical effect aircraft should be employed en masse , concentrated in time and space, against targets of
16335-404: The end of 1944, another typhus epidemic occurred amongst the prisoners. Because the front line of the war was approaching, evacuation of the camps began in February 1945, however in a few places work might have been conducted as late as the end of April. Some prisoners were left behind, mostly the very ill, until the Red Army arrived in the area in May 1945. Project Riese was abandoned in
16500-545: The evacuation column in February 1945. The others were freed in May. In March 1944, Gemeinschaftslager V Tannhausen was established in the village of Jedlinka (German: Tannhausen) for forced labourers and POWs in textile factory of Websky, Hartmann & Wiesen AG 50°41′55″N 16°21′56″E / 50.69861°N 16.36556°E / 50.69861; 16.36556 ( Gemeinschaftslager V Tannhausen ) . In April–May 1944, AL Tannhausen
16665-516: The fleet. Proshyan, Samoisky, Steinberg were also specified as people's commissars as well as Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich from the Bureau of Commissars. At a joint meeting of Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries , held on 22 February 1918, Krylenko remarked: "We have no army. The demoralized soldiers are fleeing, panic-stricken, as soon as they see a German helmet appear on the horizon, abandoning their artillery, convoys and all war material to
16830-407: The forced labourers. German president Horst Koehler stated: It was an initiative that was urgently needed along the journey to peace and reconciliation... At least, with these symbolic payments, the suffering of the victims has been publicly acknowledged after decades of being forgotten. Final solution Parties Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army , often shortened to
16995-569: The formations of the Red Army in that time. In the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s, Soviet military theoreticians – led by Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky – developed the deep operation doctrine, a direct consequence of their experiences in the Polish–Soviet War and in the Russian Civil War. To achieve victory, deep operations envisage simultaneous corps - and army-size unit maneuvers of simultaneous parallel attacks throughout
17160-574: The former Russian Empire. This included three military campaigns against the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic , in January–February 1918, January–February 1919, and May–October 1920. Conquered nations were subsequently incorporated into the Soviet Union. In June 1918, Leon Trotsky abolished workers' control over the Red Army, replacing the election of officers with traditional army hierarchies and criminalizing dissent with
17325-407: The gardens was bored to assist in its excavation. The second level of underground (950 m, 3,200 m, 13,000 m) is 53 m under the courtyard. Four tunnels were bored into the base of the hill: 1. (88 m), 2. (42 m), 3. (85 m), 4. (70 m). The complex contains large tunnels (5 m high and 5.6 m wide) and four chambers. Seventy-five per cent
17490-434: The gross earnings paid to German workers and had far fewer social benefits. Prisoners of labour or concentration camps received little if any wages or benefits. The deficiency in net earnings of Central and Eastern European forced labourers (versus forced labourers from Western countries) is illustrated by the wage savings forced labourers were able to transfer to their families at home or abroad (see table). The Nazis issued
17655-456: The highest tactical importance." "To the Red army, Stalin has dealt a fearful blow. As a result of the latest judicial frameup, it has fallen several cubits in stature. The interests of the Soviet defense have been sacrificed in the interests of the self-preservation of the ruling clique." Trotsky on the Red Army purges of 1937. Red Army deep operations found their first formal expression in
17820-612: The hundreds of thousands, and possibly as many as two million. While the Soviets considered the surrender of Germany to be the end of the "Great Patriotic War", at the earlier Yalta Conference the Soviet Union agreed to enter the Pacific Theater portion of World War II within three months of the end of the war in Europe . This promise was reaffirmed at the Potsdam Conference held in July 1945. The Red Army began
17985-517: The initial stage of construction and only 9 km (25,000 m, 100,000 m) of tunnels were dug out. German code names of individual structures of the project are unknown because of the lack of documentation. Polish names were created after the war. Książ Castle (German: Fürstenstein) is located in the city of Wałbrzych (German: Waldenburg) 50°50′32″N 16°17′32″E / 50.84222°N 16.29222°E / 50.84222; 16.29222 ( Książ Castle ) . Its last owner in
18150-426: The institution of military political commissars . In the mid-1920s, the territorial principle of manning the Red Army was introduced. In each region, able-bodied men were called up for a limited period of active duty in territorial units, which constituted about half the army's strength, each year, for five years. The first call-up period was for three months, with one month a year thereafter. A regular cadre provided
18315-494: The inter-war period was the Hochberg family, one of the wealthiest and most influential European dynasties, Hans Heinrich XV , Prince of Pless and his English wife, Mary-Theresa Olivia Cornwallis-West ( Princess Daisy ). As a result of their extravagant lifestyle and the global economic crisis they fell into debt. In 1941, the castle and the lands were seized by the Nazi government, partly to pay taxes, partly as punishment for
18480-534: The internment and transportation to Europe of "the able-bodied male population between the ages of seventeen and forty-five" in the event of a successful invasion of the United Kingdom . Organisation Todt was a Nazi era civil and military engineering group in Nazi Germany, eponymously named for its founder Fritz Todt , an engineer and senior Nazi figure. The organization was responsible for
18645-417: The leadership knew what was happening, but did little to stop it. It was often rear echelon units who committed the rapes. According to professor Oleg Rzheshevsky, "4,148 Red Army officers and many privates were punished for committing atrocities". The exact number of German women and girls raped by Soviet troops during the war and occupation is uncertain, but historians estimate their numbers are likely in
18810-433: The length of 83 m. In 2013 it was explored when a shaft was dug from above, revealing 86 m of tunnel with mining equipment from 1945. The total length of the complex is 700 m (1,900 m, 4,000 m). Less than one per cent is reinforced by concrete. Above ground are foundations of machinery and a pumping station, a reservoir of water, depots of building materials, numerous unfinished or destroyed buildings,
18975-442: The level of the main underground, with guardrooms close to completion. Behind them there is a connection of two levels created by the collapse of the ceiling. The structure is a grid of tunnels (1,750 m, 6,700 m, 30,000 m) and underground halls, up to 8 m in height. Only 6.9% is reinforced by concrete. There is a shaft leading to the surface with a diameter of 6 m (48 m). Tunnel number 3 (107 m)
19140-423: The life of any soldier and (almost any) officer of the unit to which he was attached. In 1942, Stalin established the penal battalions composed of gulag inmates, Soviet PoWs, disgraced soldiers, and deserters, for hazardous front-line duty as tramplers clearing Nazi minefields, et cetera. Given the dangers, the maximum sentence was three months. Likewise, the Soviet treatment of Red Army personnel captured by
19305-440: The losses, excluding POWs, were ethnic Russians (5,756,000), followed by ethnic Ukrainians (1,377,400). Of the 4.5 million missing, 939,700 rejoined the ranks in liberated Soviet territory, and a further 1,836,000 returned from German captivity. The official grand total of losses amounted to 8,668,400. This is the official total dead , but other estimates give the number of total dead up to almost 11 million. Officials at
19470-487: The most dangerous and exhausting work was done by prisoners. The progress of digging tunnels was slow because the Owl Mountains consist of hard gneiss . Most similar facilities were bored in soft sandstone but harder, more stable rocks gave the advantage of total protection from Allied air raids and the possibility of building 12 m high underground halls with a volume of 6,000 m. In December 1943,
19635-556: The nearby town of Bad Charlottenbrunn (Polish: Jedlina-Zdrój ). An air-raid shelter was created in the cellar with armoured, gasproof doors. The corporation was responsible for construction work and supervising all companies and local businesses taking part in the project on behalf of the Main Building Commission of the Ministry of Arms. ( List of companies ) Most companies used forced labour. In April 1944,
19800-654: The northern portion of Korea . Other Red Army operations included the Soviet invasion of South Sakhalin , which was the Japanese portion of Sakhalin Island (and Russia had lost to Japan in 1905 in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War ), and the invasion of the Kuril Islands . Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan on 15 August. The commanding general of the Kwantung Army ordered
19965-763: The occupied countries (see Łapanka ) to provide labour in the German war industry, repair bombed railroads and bridges, or work on farms. Manual labour was in high demand, as much of the work that today would be done with machines was still done by hand in the 1930s and 1940s, such as digging, material handling , or machining . As the war progressed, the use of slave labour increased massively. Prisoners of war and civilian "undesirables" were brought in from occupied territories. Millions of Jews, Slavs and other conquered peoples were used as slave labourers by German corporations including Thyssen , Krupp , IG Farben , Bosch , Daimler-Benz , Demag , Henschel , Junkers , Messerschmitt , Siemens , and Volkswagen , not to mention
20130-598: The perceived treason of their sons. At that time one of them served in the British Army, another in the Polish Armed Forces in the West . The castle, under the leadership of architect Hermann Giesler , was first adapted to accommodate the management of the state-owned railways ( Deutsche Reichsbahn ) but in 1944 it became part of Project Riese. In 1941–1944, it was also a place where parts of the collection of
20295-740: The ports of Brest , Lorient and Saint-Nazaire became available, there were insufficient Germans to man these repair and maintenance facilities, so huge reliance was made on the French workforce. At the end of 1940, the Kriegsmarine requested 2,700 skilled workers from Wilhelmshaven to work in bases on the Atlantic coast, but this was out of a total available workforce of only 3,300. This same request included 870 men skilled in machinery and engine building, but there were only 725 people with these skills in Wilhelmshaven. This massive deficit
20460-504: The potential effect of withdrawal of French dockyard workers (considered possible after 32 French fatalities in an air raid at Lorient Submarine Base ) stated that all repairs on the surface fleet would cease and U-boat repairs would be cut by 30 per cent. Admiral François Darlan stated on 30 September 1940 that it was useless to decline German requests for collaboration. In September 1942, Rear Admiral Germain Paul Jardel, commander of
20625-490: The project, Adolf Hitler decided to hand over the supervision of construction to the Organisation Todt and assign prisoners of concentration camps to work. They were deployed in thirteen labour camps ( Arbeitslager, AL ), some in the vicinity of the tunnels. This network of camps has been named Arbeitslager Riese ( List of camps ) and was part of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp . The administration of AL Riese and
20790-482: The rear armies or directly to the front". Even those registered as "malicious" deserters were returned to the ranks when the demand for reinforcements became desperate". Forges also noted that the Red Army instituted amnesty weeks to prohibit punitive measures against desertion which encouraged the voluntary return of 98,000–132,000 deserters to the army. In September 1918, the Bolshevik militias consolidated under
20955-572: The remaining troops as numbering 10 million. While the Imperial Russian Army was being taken apart, "it became apparent that the rag-tag Red Guard units and elements of the imperial army who had gone over the side of the Bolsheviks were quite inadequate to the task of defending the new government against external foes." Therefore, the Council of People's Commissars decided to form the Red Army on 28 January 1918. They envisioned
21120-535: The rest from Poland, Greece, Romania, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Mortality was very high because of disease, malnutrition, exhaustion, dangerous underground work, and the treatment of prisoners by German guards. Many exhausted prisoners were sent back to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The deportation of 857 prisoners is documented as well as 14 executions after failed escape attempts. An estimated total of 5,000 victims lost their lives. At
21285-533: The rock at least 4.5 m. A narrow gauge railway network connected the tunnels with the railway station in the village of Głuszyca Górna (German: Oberwüstegiersdorf). Since 1996, the complex is open to the public. In August 1944, AL Säuferwasser was established for prisoners of concentration camps 50°40′17″N 16°24′50″E / 50.67139°N 16.41389°E / 50.67139; 16.41389 ( AL Säuferwasser ) . They were Jews, citizens of Poland, Hungary, and Greece. The remains of
21450-696: The same day the office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces was created, and initially assigned to Jukums Vācietis (and from July 1919 to Sergey Kamenev ). The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces existed until April 1924, the end of Russian Civil War . In November 1923, after the establishment of the Soviet Union, the Russian Narkom of War Affairs was transformed into the Soviet Narkom of War and Marine Affairs. At
21615-585: The same time as the general Soviet move into the areas abandoned by the Ober Ost garrisons that were being withdrawn to Germany in the aftermath of World War I . This merged into the 1919–1921 Polish–Soviet War , in which the Red Army invaded Poland, reaching the central part of the country in 1920, but then suffered a resounding defeat in Warsaw , which put an end to the war. During the Polish Campaign
21780-659: The structure is 460 m (1,360 m, 4,200 m). Less than one per cent is reinforced by concrete. Above ground are foundations of buildings, machinery, a pumping station, and a reservoir of water. A narrow gauge railway connected the tunnels with the railway siding in the village of Olszyniec (German: Erlenbusch) where AL Erlenbusch was established in May 1944 50°43′32″N 16°22′57″E / 50.72556°N 16.38250°E / 50.72556; 16.38250 ( AL Erlenbusch ) . Between 500 and 700 concentration camp prisoners lived in five barracks. They were Jews, citizens of Hungary and Poland. The camp
21945-686: The supreme command of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic ( Russian : Революционный Военный Совет , romanized : Revolyutsionny Voyenny Sovyet (Revvoyensoviet) ). The first chairman was Trotsky, and the first commander-in-chief was Jukums Vācietis of the Latvian Riflemen ; in July 1919 he was replaced by Sergey Kamenev . Soon afterwards Trotsky established the GRU (military intelligence) to provide political and military intelligence to Red Army commanders. Trotsky founded
22110-634: The time, the Imperial Russian Army had started to collapse. Approximately 23% (about 19 million) of the male population of the Russian Empire were mobilized; however, most of them were not equipped with any weapons and had support roles such as maintaining the lines of communication and the base areas. The Tsarist general Nikolay Dukhonin estimated that there had been 2 million deserters, 1.8 million dead, 5 million wounded and 2 million prisoners. He estimated
22275-631: The tradition of blessing arms before battle. To encourage the initiative of Red Army commanders, the CPSU temporarily abolished political commissars , reintroduced formal military ranks and decorations, and introduced the Guards unit concept. Exceptionally heroic or high-performing units earned the Guards title (for example 1st Guards Special Rifle Corps , 6th Guards Tank Army ), an elite designation denoting superior training, materiel, and pay. Punishment also
22440-463: The tunnel number 3 50°41′12″N 16°24′17″E / 50.68667°N 16.40472°E / 50.68667; 16.40472 ( AL Lärche ) . Evacuation of the camp took place in February 1945. The palace is located in the village of Jedlinka (German: Tannhausen) 50°42′44.28″N 16°21′33.52″E / 50.7123000°N 16.3593111°E / 50.7123000; 16.3593111 ( Jedlinka Palace ) . In 1943, it
22605-442: The vicinity of the camp. Evacuation of the prisoners started in February 1945. The complex is located inside Osówka Mountain (German: Säuferhöhen) 50°40′22″N 16°25′14″E / 50.67278°N 16.42056°E / 50.67278; 16.42056 ( Complex Osówka ) . It is accessible by tunnel number 1 (120 m) with chambers for guardrooms and tunnel number 2 (456 m), bored 10 m below
22770-517: The victims, at the entrances to a number of camps the lie 'work brings freedom' ( arbeit macht frei ) was placed, to encourage the false impression that cooperation would earn release. A notable example of a labour-concentration camp is Mittelbau-Dora , a labour camp complex that produced V-2 rockets . Extermination through labour was a Nazi German principle that regulated most of their labour and concentration camps. The rule demanded that inmates of German World War II camps be forced to work for
22935-748: The village of Olszyniec (German: Erlenbusch), was disassembled and scrapped after the war. In May 1944, AL Wolfsberg was established 50°42′14″N 16°25′26″E / 50.70389°N 16.42389°E / 50.70389; 16.42389 ( AL Wolfsberg ) , probably by taking over an existing camp from the Organization Schmelt . About 3,000 concentration camp prisoners lived in tents made of plywood, 3 m in diameter, 20 people in each one and several barracks. They were Jews, mainly from Hungary and Poland, but also from Greece, Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Romania. The ruins of concrete barracks for SS guards can still be found in
23100-405: The war with 1,943 victims. The camps were liberated in May 1945. In November 1943, Gemeinschaftslager IV Oberwüstegiersdorf was established in the village of Głuszyca Górna (German: Oberwüstegiersdorf) 50°40′27″N 16°22′44″E / 50.67417°N 16.37889°E / 50.67417; 16.37889 ( Gemeinschaftslager IV Oberwüstegiersdorf ) . The camp
23265-659: The war, Nazi Germany maintained a supply of slave labour . This practice started in the early days of labour camps for "unreliable elements" ( German : unzuverlässige Elemente ), such as homosexuals , criminals, political dissidents , communists , Jews , the homeless and anyone the regime wanted out of the way. During World War II the Nazis operated several categories of Arbeitslager (labour camps) for different categories of inmates. Prisoners in Nazi labour camps were worked to death on short rations in lethal conditions, or killed if they became unable to work. Many died as
23430-623: The war, German forces brought into the Reich 6.5 million civilians, in addition to Soviet POWs, for unfree labour in factories. Returning them home was a high priority for the Allies. However returning citizens of the USSR were often meant suspicion of collaboration or reincarceration in a Gulag prison camp. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), Red Cross , and military operations provided food, clothing, shelter, and assistance in returning home. In all, 5.2 million foreign workers and POWs were repatriated to
23595-406: The war. Besides Jews, the harshest deportation and forced labor policies were applied to the populations of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. By the end of the war, half of Belarus' population had been either killed or deported. The defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 freed approximately 11 million foreigners (categorized as "displaced persons"), most of whom were forced labourers and POWs. During
23760-681: The western military districts. The Axis forces deployed on the Eastern Front consisted of 181 divisions and 18 brigades (3 million soldiers). Three Fronts, the Northwestern , Western , and Southwestern conducted the defense of the western borders of the USSR. In the first weeks of the Great Patriotic War (as it is known in Russia), the Wehrmacht defeated many Red Army units. The Red Army lost millions of men as prisoners and lost much of its pre-war matériel. Stalin increased mobilization, and by 1 August 1941, despite 46 divisions lost in combat,
23925-710: The workers was regarded as dangerous, and targeted by pamphlet campaigns in 1940–1942. Soldiers in the Wehrmacht and SS officers were exempt from any such restrictions. It is estimated that at least 34,140 Eastern European women apprehended in Łapankas (military kidnapping raids), were forced to serve them as sex slaves in German military brothels and camp brothels during the Third Reich. In Warsaw alone, five such establishments were set up under military guard in September 1942, with over 20 rooms each. Alcohol
24090-486: Was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland . It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland . The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union on 14 December 1939. The Soviet forces led by Semyon Timoshenko had three times as many soldiers as the Finns, thirty times as many aircraft, and
24255-530: Was also a main storehouse of food and clothes, administration center, and headquarters for the commander of AL Riese. Evacuation of the camp took place in February 1945. In November 1943, Gemeinschaftslager II Dörnhau was established in the village of Kolce (German: Dörnhau). The camp occupied a closed textile factory of brothers Giersch 50°40′7″N 16°23′36″E / 50.66861°N 16.39333°E / 50.66861; 16.39333 ( Gemeinschaftslager II Dörnhau ) and
24420-408: Was built inside a nearby hill 50°41′13″N 16°22′38″E / 50.68694°N 16.37722°E / 50.68694; 16.37722 ( Air raid shelter ) . It consists of two tunnels, sixty per cent reinforced by concrete and bricks (240 m, 600 m, 1,800 m). In November 1943, Gemeinschaftslager III Wüstegiersdorf was established for forced labourers from
24585-443: Was built to secure a new road. A narrow gauge railway connected the tunnels with the railway siding in the village of Ludwikowice Kłodzkie (German: Ludwigsdorf). In April 1944, AL Falkenberg was established in the hamlet of Sowina (German: Eule) for prisoners of concentration camps 50°38′39″N 16°28′16″E / 50.64417°N 16.47111°E / 50.64417; 16.47111 ( AL Falkenberg ) . It
24750-592: Was closed in December ;1944 and the prisoners were transferred to AL Lärche. In April–June 1944, AL Märzbachtal was established in the valley of Potok Marcowy Duży (German: Grosser Märzbachtal) 50°41′16″N 16°23′16″E / 50.68778°N 16.38778°E / 50.68778; 16.38778 ( AL Märzbachtal ) for prisoners of concentration camps. Between 700 and 800 Jews, mainly from Hungary and Poland, lived in barracks of which remnants can still be seen today. Evacuation of
24915-473: Was conditional upon "guarantees being given by a military or civil committee functioning within the territory of the Soviet Power, or by party or trade union committees or, in extreme cases, by two persons belonging to one of the above organizations." In the event of an entire unit wanting to join the Red Army, a "collective guarantee and the affirmative vote of all its members would be necessary." Because
25080-491: Was created in the same location for prisoners of concentration camps. It was inhabited by 1,200 men of Jewish origin from Hungary, Poland, Greece, and other European countries. Next to the camp, Zentralrevier Tannhausen, central infirmary was set up in November ;1944 50°42′0″N 16°21′57″E / 50.70000°N 16.36583°E / 50.70000; 16.36583 ( Zentralrevier Tannhausen ) . It
25245-499: Was created to connect excavation sites with the nearby railway stations. Prisoners were reloading building materials, cutting trees, digging reservoirs and drainage ditches. Small dams were built across streams to create water supplies and sewage systems. Later the rocks of the mountains were drilled and blasted with explosives and the resulting caverns were reinforced by concrete and steel. For this purpose mining specialists were employed, mostly Germans, Italians, Ukrainians and Czechs, but
25410-479: Was inhabited by 1,500 men of Jewish origin from Poland, Hungary, and Greece. Evacuation of the camp took place in February 1945. The complex is located in the village of Jugowice (Jawornik) (German: Hausdorf (Jauering)), inside Dział Jawornicki Mountain (German: Mittelberg) 50°42′35″N 16°25′12″E / 50.70972°N 16.42000°E / 50.70972; 16.42000 ( Complex Jugowice ) . Tunnels number 2 (109 m) and 4 lead to
25575-421: Was inhabited by forced labourers from Poland and the Soviet Union. In June 1944, AL Dörnhau was created in the same location for prisoners of concentration camps from Hungary, Poland, and Greece of Jewish origin. Several barracks were added. That autumn, the camp was also designated as a central infirmary for severely ill with no prospects of recovery. Twenty-five local mass graves have been excavated after
25740-556: Was killed on 20 November 1917. Nikolai Podvoisky was appointed as the Narkom of War Affairs, leaving Dybenko in charge of the Narkom of Marine Affairs and Ovseyenko – the expeditionary forces to the Southern Russia on 28 November 1917. The Bolsheviks also sent out their own representatives to replace front commanders of the Russian Imperial Army . After the signing of Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918,
25905-417: Was liberated in May 1945. The complex is located inside Soboń Mountain (German: Ramenberg) 50°41′7″N 16°23′58″E / 50.68528°N 16.39944°E / 50.68528; 16.39944 ( Complex Soboń ) and is accessible by tunnels number 1 (216 m) and 2 (170 m). Tunnel number 3 is not connected to the main underground. It is collapsed in its initial part on
26070-538: Was located in the building of closed textile factory and existed until the end of the war. Its prisoners were forced labourers and POWs. In April–May 1944, AL Schotterwerk was created in the same village near the railway station for prisoners of concentration camps 50°40′18″N 16°22′4″E / 50.67167°N 16.36778°E / 50.67167; 16.36778 ( AL Schotterwerk ) . Between 1,200 and 1,300 Jews from Hungary, Poland, and Greece lived in 8–11 wooden barracks. Part of prisoners joined
26235-584: Was made up of French naval dockyard workers. In February 1941, the naval dockyard at Brest had only 470 German workers, compared with 6,349 French workers. In April 1941, French workers replaced defective superheater tubes on the Scharnhorst , carrying out the work slowly but, in the opinion of Scharnhorst's captain, to a better standard than could be obtained in the yards in Germany. An assessment commissioned by Vizeadmiral Walter Matthiae in October 1942 of
26400-514: Was not allowed, unlike on the Western front, and the victims underwent genital checkups once a week. French workers at naval bases provided the Kriegsmarine with an essential workforce, thereby supporting Nazi Germany in the Battle of the Atlantic . By 1939, the Kriegsmarine 's planning had presumed that they had time to build up resources before the war started. When France fell and
26565-451: Was opened in 1994, one of only two short tunnels which were found with mining equipment from 1945. It is located 250 m from tunnel number 3, on the same level but not connected. The total length of the complex is 1,090 m (3,025 m, 7,562 m). It is not reinforced by concrete. Above ground are foundations of buildings, machinery and two ramps for transportation of mine cars to different levels. A retaining wall (47 m)
26730-596: Was purchased by the Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt ( National Socialist People's Welfare ) from the Böhm family as a result of their financial problems. At the beginning of 1944 the plans to transform it into a hospital were disrupted because the building was confiscated by military authorities and adapted as headquarters for the Industriegemeinschaft Schlesien (Silesian Industrial Company) which, until then, occupied Haus Hermannshöhe in
26895-580: Was reserved for patients with good chance of recovery. They were housed in four brick barracks. Those prisoners, who were able to walk, were evacuated in February 1945. In the camp only the sick were left, who were liberated in May. In August 1944, AL Kaltwasser was established in the village of Zimna Woda (German: Kaltwasser) 50°40′30″N 16°23′14″E / 50.67500°N 16.38722°E / 50.67500; 16.38722 ( AL Kaltwasser ) . Concentration camp prisoners of Jewish origin from Poland lived in five barracks. The camp
27060-404: Was supervised by senior construction managers Leo Müller and Fritz Leonhardt . In July 1944, 30,788 people worked for OBL Riese. In February 1945, because the front line of the war was approaching, OBL Riese evolved into headquarters of Front-OT X Brigade. The task of the new formation was the reconstruction of damaged communication systems. The palace was occupied by
27225-402: Was used; slackers, malingerers, those avoiding combat with self-inflicted wounds cowards, thieves, and deserters were disciplined with beatings, demotions, undesirable/dangerous duties, and summary execution by NKVD punitive detachments. At the same time, the osobist (NKVD military counter-intelligence officers) became a key Red Army figure with the power to condemn to death and to spare
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