After Stalingrad: Seven Years as a Soviet Prisoner of War

by Adelbert Holl, Tony Le Tissier (Translator)

Overview

The battle for Stalingrad has been studied and recalled in exhaustive detail ever since the Red Army trapped the German 6th Army in the ruined city in 1942. Graphic firsthand accounts of the fighting have been published by soldiers of all ranks on both sides, so we have today an extraordinarily precise picture of the grim experience of the struggle from the individual's viewpoint. But most of these accounts finish at the end of the battle, with columns of tens of thousands of German soldiers disappearing into Soviet captivity. Their fate is rarely described. That is why Adelbert Holl's harrowing and vivid memoir of his seven-year ordeal as a prisoner in the Soviet camps is such an important record as well as an absorbing story.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781526761194
Publisher:	Pen and Sword
Publication date:	11/27/2019
Pages:	232
Sales rank:	644,144
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

During many years working in several senior official positions in Berlin – including spells as provost marshal and British governor of Spandau prison – Tony Le Tissier accumulated a vast knowledge of the Second World War on the Eastern Front. He has published a series of outstanding books on the subject including The Battle of Berlin 1945, Zhukov at the Oder, Race for the Reichstag, Berlin Battlefield Guide and The Siege of Küstrin 1945. He has also translated Prussian Apocalypse: The Fall of Danzig 1945, Soviet Conquest: Berlin 1945, With Paulus at Stalingrad and Panzers on the Vistula.

Table of Contents

Preface viii

1 Prisoner! 1

Gorodischtsche: the collecting point for prisoners from the northern cauldron 4

The First Stages: Barbukin, Bol-Rossoschka 7

The Road of Death 10

In Kissel-Jakov Transit Camp 13

A Second Death March 16

A Ravine of Death 22

Back in Stalingrad 23

In the Beketovka Club 29

From Beketovka to Kissner 31

A Third March of Death 34

The Monastery Camp at Jelabuga 37

Typhus 41

2 The Emigrants and the National Committee Freies Deutschland 48

Arrested as Leader of a Band of Conspirators 51

Further as 'Conspiracy Leader' 53

From Nunnery Camp to Kama Camp 56

Block II 59

Block VI 63

The First Hunger Strike 64

A Spy is Exposed 67

A Summer in Isolation 69

The Dispute in the Church 73

Back in Block VI 84

Under the Terror of the League of German Officers 88

The Announcement of Germany's Unconditional Surrender at Nunnery Camp in Jelabuga 92

3 A White Slave of the Twentieth Century 94

The Woodland Camp of Xiltau (Kosiltau) 95

The Flour and Brick Trip 101

Winter in Xiltau Woodland Camp, 1945/6 103

Back to the Main Camp 109

In Seloni-Dolsk Camp 111

On a Collective Farm 115

On the Volga Ice 117

Christmas 1946 and its Consequences 119

Via the Main Camp from Seloni-Dolsk to Muni Camp 122

From Seloni-Dolsk to Saporoschje 127

In the Punishment Section of Camp 7100/2 130

The Heroes' Cellar 137

The Sawod Komunar 140

In Camp 7100/6: the assembling of the 'Black Sheep' 148

4 Under Investigation for Refusing to Work 152

Before the War Tribunal 154

In the Rayon Prison of Saporoschje 158

In Charkov Transit Prison 165

On the Way to Siberian Banishment 169

In the Banishment Camps of the 'Angarlag' west of Lake Baikal 175

Under False Suspicion 181

In the 205th Column 182

Strange Encounter in the Taiga 188

A Friend Falls by the Roadside 191

An Unsuccessful Escape Attempt 196

There is No Exploitation of People by People in the Soviet Union 198

58 Degrees Cold 203

As Factotum in the Ambulatorium 208

5 The Journey Home 211

Is This Really the Journey Home? 218

The Big Leap! 219

The Last Stage 220

On German Soil 221

'Tell the Truth' 222

Editorial Reviews

"Much has been written about the battle of Stalingrad with most accounts finishing as German troops surrendered themselves to Russian forces in early 1943. Adelbert Holl’s account begins in his last desperate hours before the surrender he and his comrades huddled together in their bunker preparing for an uncertain future..."

GD Aufklärung - Neil Barlow

"This series will be of equal interest to people who love reading about local history, and to the people of Alnwick as they learn about their townsfolk and how they coped during the Great War. The series should win an award"

Books Monthly

Much has been written about the battle of Stalingrad with most accounts finishing as German troops surrendered themselves to Russian forces in early 1943. Adelbert Holl’s account begins in his last desperate hours before the surrender he and his comrades huddled together in their bunker preparing for an uncertain future...

GD Aufklärung Neil Barlow