Handover To East Germany
The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union decided on 28 September 1949 to hand the camps over to the authorities of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), that was about to be established from the Soviet occupation zone in Germany. The East German republic was founded on 7 October 1949. On 6 January 1950, Soviet Minister of Internal Affairs Kruglov ordered the handing over to the East German Ministry of Internal Affairs of 10,513 inmates for further detention and of 3,500 for trial.
These trials were the so-called Waldheim trials (German: Waldheimer Prozesse), show-trials ending with previously prepared and overly long sentences. Many of these sentences were revised in 1952.
Before the hand-over, a number of inmates were deported to Siberia - their fate remains unknown as of 2010.
Read more about this topic: Soviet Special Camps
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