Friday, November 30, 2012

How many Russian-Germans served in the Labor Army?

Waves of Conscription of Russian-Germans into the Labor Army

August 1941-January 1942 - 20,800
January 1942 - June 1942 - 138,400
October 1942 - August 1943 - 153,500
Total - 312,700

Note these numbers are incomplete. The total number of Russian-Germans conscripted into the labor army from August 1941 until the end of January 1946 exceeds 316,000. Of which 182,000 served in NKVD camps (ITLs) and 133,000 served in civilian commissariats (the numbers are rounded and thus only total 315,000). Other figures are higher. GULag Chief Nasedkin in one document placed the number of Germans, Finns, Romanians, and others mobilized into the labor army from 1942-1944 at 400,000 of which 220,000 worked in NKVD camps and 180,000 in civilian commissariats. Determining the exact national breakdown of the men and women in the labor army is difficult. But, the lowest percentage of Germans among the labor army contingent at any of the camps where the data has been examined is 87% at Bakalstroi (Cheliabmetallurgstroi). Thus it is possible that the number of Russian-Germans to serve in the labor army might have been as many as 350,000.

Source: V.M. Kirillov and N.V. Matveeva, "Trudmobilizovannye nemtsy na Urale: sostoianie i novye aspekty issledovaniia problemy," in A.A. German (ed.), Nachal'nyi period Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny i deportatsiia rossiiskikh nemtsev: vzgliady i otsenki cherez 70 let (Moscow: MSNK-press, 2011), pp. 627-655.

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