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Adrian Preissinger:
Death Camps
of the Soviets, 1945-50
From Sachsenhausen
to Buchenwald
Ongoing investigations in the former East Germany have found evidence of tens of thousands of deaths in the Soviet concentration camp system that operated after WWII in the former Nazi camps. For example, excavations at the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp have revealed over fifty mass graves. The Soviets interned more than 60,000 people in Sachsenhausen alone between 1945 and 1950. With the fall of the East German Security Police, the Stasi, the survivors of Stalin's post-war camps are now free to speak of their hellish ordeals after decades of enforced silence. This is their story, which is also a book sensation in Europe.
Contents:
Preface.
One That Survived: There's Method to their Atrocities /
Upheaval / The German Path to Socialism / The Next Step / "We Will Destroy" /
To Cover Up / Fear of the Soviets / Our Hopes.
Liberation: "It will take a little while..." / The Liberators
Violate International Law / The First Arrests / Werewolves / Sachsenhausen,
"Special Camp No. 7" / A Werewolf in Waldheim and Torgau / "You Fascist!" /
Reeducation for Werewolves in Camp Jamlitz / Jamlitz, a Death Camp / A Pimpf
as Werewolf.
Ex Oriente Terror: In the Hell of Potulice / An Accidental
Escape from Death / Unspeakable Informants / Victims of the Antifa /
Ketschendorf, One of the First Camps / A Circus Wagon as a Hearse / A Child as
Werewolf in Camp Sachsenhausen / "Why you party?" / The Administrator of
Terror: Vladimir Semyonovich Semyonov / "You criminal! You set house on fire
and beat people to a pulp!" / "The Hunt for Nazis", a Ready Excuse / The
"Peaceful Paths of Revolutionary Renewal" / Six Years for a Bicycle Tire / "Their
lives aren't being made any more difficult than they have to be" / The
Proclamation of the Allied Control Council: Much Ado About Nothing /
Abducted, Dispossessed, Murdered / Democrats for Communist Expropriation /
No Charges, Just Vanished / Mühlberg: One Entire Barrack Liquidated
Every Month.
Peace from the East: Code of Criminal Procedure, an
Alien Concept / Trial Culture / "Just and Moderate" Punishment / Fearsome
Jurists / The "Dangerous German" / German Accomplices / Playing Germans Off
Against Each Other / "Disrupters of the Peace" / German Administrators do the
Soviets' Groundwork / The Courts As Instruments of Terror / Saboteurs and
Disrupters of the Great Socialist Renewal / The Most Stringent Terror Against
Comrades / The Antifa and Centralism / The Movers and Shakers / The People's
Police, Police for the People? / The German Police as "Hunt Beaters" for the
NKVD / With the "K5" to the "Red Ox" / Camp Bautzen: "Yellow Misery" /
"Social Entities Absorbed by the Species".
The Spider in the Web: Starvation and Mandatory
Inactivity. the System of Dystrophy / "Operative Groups" / Internees, Stripped of
their Rights to a Greater Extent Than Anyone Else / A Typical "Nazi Leader" /
Extermination was the Maxim / Concentration or Internment Camps? / Social
Prophylaxis / The Dystrophic / Completely Cut Off From the Outside World / Fur
Cap Transports: Off to Siberia / The Fate of No. 61948 / "Violations of the Rules"
/ Return Trip to Russia: Final Stop, Bautzen / Hohenschönhausen, Weesow
and Sachsenhausen - and then Siberia / Selections / The Death Penalty for
Twelve-Year-Olds / "Measures for Social Protection" / The First Sign of Life
After Seven-and-a-Half Years / Special Justice for "Dangerous Elements" /
Military Tribunals With Unlimited Jurisdiction /
Twenty-Five Years for a Song / Hardworking Special Courts / Vanished Without
a Trace / "The Young Lady is Doing Fine Here With Us!" / No Need for
Indignation / Arbitrary Justice / Convicted Under Russian Laws: German
"Counter-Revolutionaries" / Measures for Social Protection / The Soviet Criminal
Code: Open to Random and Excessive Interpretation / The 18th Birthday on
Death Row / Trials with Neither Prosecuting Attorneys nor Defense Counsels /
Sentenced to Bautzen by
Long-Distance Verdict from Moscow / The East German Judiciary Joins In:
Keyword "Waldheim" / VIPs / The Innocent / Soviets Still Active Even After
Waldheim / Waves of Prisoner Releases / A Camp Commandant as Prosecutor /
"Denazified" / Arno Esch: The Death of a National Liberal / They turned a Happy
Young Girl Into a Cripple / Propagandistic Exploitation of Prisoner Releases / The
"Return to Society" / Amnesties / Reappraisal and
Restitution - for German Victims as Well? / Arbitrary Preconditions for
Restitution / The Difficult Road to Restitution.
Appendix / Certificates: The Masks of Tragedy / Poems
by Former Prisoners / Resolution by the League of Victims of Stalinist
Persecution / Lists of Names / Bibliography / Endnotes.
(317 pages, 16 x 23.5 cm, hardcover with dust jacket [jackets are slightly
scuffed], numerous b/w photos, documents, sketches, drawings, inmate lists,
endnotes, bibliography.)
