Forced Labor of Germans in The Soviet Union - Prisoners of War

Prisoners of War

Forced labour was also included in the Morgenthau Plan draft from September 1944, and was included in the final protocol of the Yalta conference the Soviet Union and the western allies employed German POW labor up until 1949

German POWs were impressed into forced labor during and after World War II by the Soviet Union. Russian sources list 2,571,600 German military taken prisoner and the deaths of 450,600 these POW including 356,700 in NKVD camps and 93,900 in transit. These figures are disputed by sources in the west that give a higher number of POW captured and estimate losses may be higher than those reported by the USSR. Richard Overy puts total number of German POW captured by the USSR at 3,300,000 The research project by Rudiger Overmans could confirm that 363,000 German POW died in Soviet custody In addition, Overmans believes that, it seems entirely plausible, while not provable, that 700,000 German military personnel reported missing actually died in Soviet custody; Overmans estimates the actual death toll of German POW is about 1.1 million men (including 1.0 million in the USSR), he maintains that among those reported as missing were men who actually died as POW.

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