From Incarceration to Repatriation

From Incarceration to Repatriation explores the lives and memories of the nearly 1.5 million German POWs who were held by the Soviet Union during and after World War II and released in phases through 1956, seven years longer than the prisoners of any other Allied nation. Susan C. I. Grunewald argues that Soviet leadership deliberately kept able-bodied German POWs to supplement their labor force after the end of the war. The Soviet Union lost 27 million citizens and a quarter of its physical assets during the war, motivating Soviet leadership to harness the labor of German POWs for as long as possible.

Engaging with recently declassified documents in former Soviet archives, archival material from multiple German governments, as well as innovative use of digital humanities methods and geographic information system (GIS) mapping, Grunewald demonstrates that Soviet authorities detained German POWs primarily for economic rather than punitive reasons. In fact, the GIS mapping of the historical materials makes it clear that most of the four thousand POW camps across the USSR were strategically located near industrial, infrastructure, and natural resource sites that were critical to postwar economic reconstruction.

From Incarceration to Repatriation is the first book to draw together the distinct fields of Soviet and German history to provide a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of German POW captivity in the USSR during and after World War II. Attending to the ways that the memory of German POWs remains in circulation in both the former Soviet Union and Germany, Grunewald tracks the political repercussions of war commemoration.

Susan C. I. Grunewald is Assistant Professor of Twentieth-Century European History at Louisiana State University. She specializes in Soviet and German history, the Second World War, and the early Cold War. She is also an expert in digital humanities, especially geographic information system (GIS) mapping.

[Grunewald's] research in Soviet documents brilliantly illuminates the processes of incarceration and repatriation that have largely been told from the German side until now.

Judith Pallot, coauthor of Waiting at the Prison Gate:

From Incarceration to Repatriation is methodologically innovative and interdisciplinary, while remaining firmly in the empiricist tradition in history. From the German POW experiences of camp life to repatriation to commemoration, Grunewald weaves together the changing priorities of Soviet and Russian international and domestic politics. It is a fascinating read.

Alexis Peri, author of The War Within:

From Incarceration to Repatriation breaks new ground as the first composite picture of German POWs in the USSR, and it provides a treasure trove of information from internal camp documents to newspapers, monuments, and maps. Susan C. I. Grunewald presents a nuanced and layered study that balances labor, social, diplomatic, and cultural histories.