Stalag VI-C
Encyclopedia
Stalag VI-C - Oberlangen was a World War II
German
POW camp located 6 km west of the village Oberlangen in Emsland
in north-western Germany
. It was originally built with five others in the same marshland area as a prison camp (Straflager) for Germans. From 1939 till 1945 the Oberlangen camp was a Prisoner of War camp, a sub-camp, first of Stalag VI-B Versen, then Stalag VI-C Bathorn. An exhibition of this and the other 14 Emsland camps 1933-1945 is shown in the Documentation and Information Center (DIZ) Emslandlager in Papenburg.
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
POW camp located 6 km west of the village Oberlangen in Emsland
Emsland
Landkreis Emsland is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany named after the river Ems. It is bounded by the districts of Leer, Cloppenburg and Osnabrück, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia , the district of Bentheim and the Netherlands .- History :For a long time the region of the Emsland was...
in north-western Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. It was originally built with five others in the same marshland area as a prison camp (Straflager) for Germans. From 1939 till 1945 the Oberlangen camp was a Prisoner of War camp, a sub-camp, first of Stalag VI-B Versen, then Stalag VI-C Bathorn. An exhibition of this and the other 14 Emsland camps 1933-1945 is shown in the Documentation and Information Center (DIZ) Emslandlager in Papenburg.
Timeline
- The camp was built in September 1933 and used as a prison camp for Germans considered undesirable by the Nazi government from 1934 till 1939.
- In September 1939 it became one of nine Prisoner of War camps in the Emsland area.
- June 1940 about 1,400 PolishPolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
officersOfficer (armed forces)An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
from the German September 1939 offensive were brought here from other camps. - April 1941 the Polish officers were transferred to another oflagOflagAn Oflag was a prisoner of war camp for officers only, established by the German Army in both World War I and World War II in accordance with the requirements of the Geneva Convention ....
, and that summer over 2,000 Soviet prisoners from Operation BarbarossaOperation BarbarossaOperation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
arrived. Conditions were appalling, starvation, epidemics and ill-treatment took a heavy toll of lives. The dead were buried in mass graves about 1 km north of the camp. - September 1943 the subcamp Wesuwe was administratively combined with Oberlangen as Oflag VI-G and nearly 5,000 Italian officers were brought here after the Allied Armistice with ItalyArmistice with ItalyThe Armistice with Italy was an armistice signed on September 3 and publicly declared on September 8, 1943, during World War II, between Italy and the Allied armed forces, who were then occupying the southern end of the country, entailing the capitulation of Italy...
. - September 1944 the Italian officers were reclassified as InterneesInternmentInternment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
, deprived of their rights under the Third Geneva ConventionThird Geneva ConventionThe Third Geneva Convention, relative to the treatment of prisoners of war, is one of the four treaties of the Geneva Conventions. It was first adopted in 1929, but was significantly updated in 1949...
and shipped out to various labor campLabor campA labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons...
s throughout Germany. - November 1944, 1,721 Polish women officers and soldiers from the Warsaw Rising arrived. The International Red Cross had been advised that the camp was closed and was unaware of the Polish prisoners .
- 12 April 1945 the camp was liberated by the Polish 1st Armoured DivisionPolish 1st Armoured DivisionThe Polish 1st Armoured Division was an Allied military unit during World War II, created in February 1942 at Duns in Scotland. At its peak it numbered approximately 16,000 soldiers...
. At that time there were 1,728 women in the camp.
Sources
- Polish women of the Home Army
- Stalag VI-B/Z Oberlangen in German
- Documentation and Information Center Emsland camps, Papenburg in German and English