Soviet prisoners of war in Germany: commemorative practices of the first post-war years

Abstract

The paper presents an important part of the Soviet memory policy in Germany in 1945–1949 – the activities of the Soviet military to identify and record the graves, as well as to establish the identity of the Soviet citizens who have died in captivity – the prisoners of war and the so-called “Eastern workers”. It was also of great importance to record the atrocities committed by the Nazis against Soviet citizens. The article shows the process of forming a system of interaction between the Soviet military and the German local self-governing authorities, as well as the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition; the establishment of the system was necessary for the implementation of the above mentioned objectives. The specifics of the activities of the Soviet military missions in the western zones of occupation in Germany is pointed out, with the emphasis laid on the zone of British occupation, where the infamous Nazi camps for the Soviet prisoners of war were located, and the death toll was extremely high. Special attention is paid to the change in the position of the Soviet military missions in West Germany in connection with the escalation of the Cold War. The present paper displays the position that the Soviet prisoners of war who have died in captivity and the “Eastern workers” have taken in the modern culture of memory of Russia. The conclusion is made about the need for their commemoration as a kind of return to their homeland after many years of silence and oblivion.