Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen, 1941–1945[1][2] (transl. No Comrades: The Wehrmacht and Soviet Prisoners of War, 1941–1945) is a book by German historian Christian Streit first published in 1978. Streit concluded that of 5.7 million Red Army soldiers taken captive by Nazi Germany, 3.3 million died of "ideologically motivated mishandling"[3]—findings which caused a sensation in Germany when first published.[4] It was the first major study on the topic[5][6][7] and has been described as "landmark",[8] a "major breakthrough",[5] and by Mark Edele as "the gold standard against which later accounts have to be judged".[9] In 1980, one reviewer wrote that the book "necessitates revision—more or less—to all previous books on the Russo-German war".[10] The book had a major impact on the historiography of Nazi Germany and particularly the war crimes of the Wehrmacht, and was followed by other books exposing the ideological inclination and criminal behavior of the Wehrmacht.[5]
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| Subject | Second World War |
|---|---|
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Published | 1978 |
Streit focuses on the criminal orders issued by the Wehrmacht high command prior to the invasion—calling for cooperation with the death squads of the SS and SD, limiting military justice in the occupied areas, mandating the execution of captured commissars, and ordering soldiers to act ruthlessly against Jews, partisans, and Bolsheviks. He compares and contrasts the logistical effort to feed and house the prisoners taken during the conquest of Western Europe with the lack of planning on how to organize transport, food, and shelter for the millions of Soviet prisoners the Wehrmacht expected to take. Streit attributes the massive death rate from starvation, exhaustion, exposure, and disease in 1941 to intentional neglect and argues that the treatment improved in 1942 but only for pragmatic reasons; the labor of the prisoners was needed.[5]
It originated as a doctoral dissertation at Heidelberg University in 1977, was first published in 1978, and has gone through several editions since then.[11] As of 1994[update], it has not been released in English translation.[5]
References
edit- ^ Kreker, J. (1980). "Review of Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945 (Studien zur Zeitgeschichte. Bd. 13)". Osteuropa. 30 (1): 89–90. ISSN 0030-6428. JSTOR 44909716.
- ^ Christian Streit: Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945 (Book Review) Förster, Jürgen. Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen; Freiburg Vol. 0, Iss. 1, (1 January 1980): 209.
- ^ Conway, John S. (1987). "Review of The Policies of Genocide: Jews and Soviet Prisoners of War in Nazi Germany". The International History Review. 9 (3): 479–481. ISSN 0707-5332. JSTOR 40105821.
- ^ Badia, Gilbert (1995). "Review of Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945". Le Mouvement Social (171): 115–117. doi:10.2307/3779552. ISSN 0027-2671. JSTOR 3779552.
- ^ a b c d e Bartov, Omer (1994). "Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die Sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen, 1941–1945 . Christian Streit". The Journal of Modern History. 66 (2): 441–442. doi:10.1086/244877.
- ^ Zeitung, Süddeutsche (8 August 2021). ""Der Kommunist ist kein Kamerad"". Süddeutsche.de (in German). Retrieved 27 June 2023.
- ^ Langerbein, Helmut (2019). "Stalin's Defectors: How Red Army Soldiers became Hitler's Collaborators, 1941–45 by Mark Edele (review)". Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 33 (1): 127–129. doi:10.1093/hgs/dcz015. ISSN 1476-7937.
- ^ Meier, Esther; Winkel, Heike (2021). "Unpleasant memories. Soviet prisoners of war in collective memory, in Germany and the Soviet Union / Russia". Dimensionen eines Verbrechens: Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene im Zweiten Weltkrieg | Dimensions of a Crime. Soviet Prisoners of War in World War II (in German and English). Metropol Verlag. pp. 224–239. ISBN 978-3-86331-582-5.
- ^ Edele, Mark (2017). Stalin's Defectors: How Red Army Soldiers became Hitler's Collaborators, 1941–1945. Oxford University Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-19-251914-6.
- ^ Cecil, R. (1980). "Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangen 1941–1945". International Affairs. 56 (1): 156–157. doi:10.2307/2615767. JSTOR 2615767.
- ^ Erickson, J. (1993). "Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen, 1941–1945 by Christian Streit;Kaukasien, 1942-3. Das deutsche Heer und die Orientvölker der Sowjetunion by Joachim Hoffmann". The English Historical Review. 108 (426): 153–155. doi:10.1093/ehr/CVIII.426.153. JSTOR 573562.