After Stalingrad : Seven Years As a Soviet Prisoner of War

The battle for Stalingrad has been studied and recalled in exhaustive detail ever since the Red Army trapped the German 6th Army in the ruined city in 1942. But most of these accounts finish at the end of the battle, with columns of tens of thousands of German soldiers disappearing into Soviet captivity. Their fate is rarely described. That is why Adelbert Holl's harrowing and vivid memoir of his seven-year ordeal as a prisoner in the Soviet camps is such an important record as well as an absorbing story. As he moves from camp to camp across the Soviet Union, an unsparing inside view of the prison system and its population of ex-soldiers emerges. He describes the daily life in the camps the crowding, the dirt, the cold, the ever-present threat of disease, the forced marches, the indifference or cruelty of the guards in authentic detail. The Soviets treated German prisoners as slave labourers, working them exhaustively, in often appalling conditions. The prisoners could only struggled to survive, to support each other, and hope against hope to return home. [Elib] Machine generated contents note: 1. Prisoner! -- Gorodischtsche: the collecting point for prisoners from the northern cauldron -- First Stages: Barbukin, Bol-Rossoschka -- Road of Death -- In Kissel-Jakov Transit Camp -- Second Death March -- Ravine of Death -- Back in Stalingrad -- In the Beketovka Club -- From Beketovka to Kissner -- Third March of Death -- Monastery Camp at Jelabuga -- Typhus -- -- 2. Emigrants and the National Committee Freies Deutschland -- Arrested as Leader of a Band of Conspirators -- Further as ̀Conspiracy Leader' -- From Nunnery Camp to Kama Camp -- Block II -- Block VI -- First Hunger Strike -- Spy is Exposed -- Summer in Isolation -- Dispute in the Church -- Back in Block VI -- Under the Terror of the League of German Officers -- Announcement of Germany's Unconditional Surrender at Nunnery Camp in Jelabuga -- -- 3. White Slave of the Twentieth Century -- Woodland Camp of Xiltau (Kosiltau) -- Flour and Brick Trip -- Winter in Xiltau Woodland Camp, 1945/6 -- Back to the Main Camp -- In Seloni-Dolsk Camp -- On a Collective Farm -- On the Volga Ice -- Christmas 1946 and its Consequences -- Via the Main Camp from Seloni-Dolsk to Muni Camp -- From Seloni-Dolsk to Saporoschje -- In the Punishment Section of Camp 7100/2 -- Heroes' Cellar -- Sawod Komunar -- In Camp 7100/6: the assembling of the ̀Black Sheep' -- -- 4. Under Investigation for Refusing to Work -- Before the War Tribunal -- In the Rayon Prison of Saporoschje -- In Charkov Transit Prison -- On the Way to Siberian Banishment -- In the Banishment Camps of the Àngarlag' west of Lake Baikal -- Under False Suspicion -- In the 205th Column -- Strange Encounter in the Taiga -- Friend Falls by the Roadside -- Unsuccessful Escape Attempt -- There is No Exploitation of People by People in the Soviet Union -- 58 Degrees Cold -- As Factotum in the Ambulatorium -- -- 5. Journey Home -- Is This Really the Journey Home? -- Big Leap! -- Last Stage -- On German Soil -- 'Tell the truth'. This WWII memoir of a Nazi infantryman captured at Stalingrad offers a rare firsthand account of life inside Soviet POW camps. The Battle of Stalingrad has been studied and recalled in exhaustive detail ever since the Red Army trapped the German 6th Army in the ruined city in 1942. But most of these accounts finish at the end of the battle, with columns of tens of thousands of German soldiers disappearing into Soviet captivity. Their fate is rarely described. But in After Stalingrad , German infantryman Adelbert Holl vividly recounts his seven-year ordeal as a prisoner in the Soviet camps. As Holl moves from camp to camp across the Soviet Union, he provides an unsparing view of the prison system and its population of ex-soldiers. The Soviets treated German prisoners as slave laborers, working them exhaustively, in often appalling conditions. He describes the daily life in the camps: the crowding, the dirt, the cold, the ever-present threat of disease, the forced marches, and the indifference or outright cruelty of the guards. An eyewitness account by a German soldier of seven years in Soviet captivity after the Battle of Stalingrad.