(S+) Camp detention: "Because of the blatant undersupply, there were cases of cannibalism"

German soldiers surrender to Red Army soldiers (East Prussia, 1945)

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akg images

SPIEGEL:

Ms. Gryglewski, Ms. Stelzl-Marx, how many Germans or Austrians had a father, grandfather, or great-grandfather who was a prisoner of war himself?

Gryglewski:

The great majority.

When I started working in memorial site education in 1992, we regularly asked school classes who had former Wehrmacht soldiers in their families.

That was almost everyone.

The experience of being a prisoner of war must be correspondingly widespread in the families.

Stelzl-Marx:

I'm always surprised how many people have a grandfather or great-grandfather who was a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union.

Our Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on the Consequences of War in Graz has received inquiries from descendants since it was founded in 1993.

Prisoners of war is a topic that also interests and moves the younger generation, throughout the decades.

SPIEGEL:

Up until the 20th century, the number of captured soldiers was comparatively small.

In the Franco-Prussian War, for example, around 400,000 front-line fighters were in custody.

During the First World War, up to eight million soldiers fell into enemy hands.

What had changed compared to previous wars?

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