NKVD special camps () were NKVD-run late and post-World War II internment camps in the Soviet-occupied parts of Germany from May 1945 to January 6, 1950. They were set up by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) and run by the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD).Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, p.126, On 8 August 1948, the camps were made subordinate to the Gulag. Because the camp inmates were permitted no contact with the outside world, the special camps were also known as silence camps ().Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, pp.126,133-134,

The Soviet occupation authorities did not admit to the existence of the camps until the Western press led the Soviet Union to respond with a moderate propaganda campaign of their own admitting and defending the camps' existence.Petra Haustein, Instrumentalisierung, Verdrängung, Aufarbeitung: die sowjetischen Speziallager in der gesellschaftlichen Wahrnehmung 1945 bis heute, Wallstein Verlag, 2006, p.12, No inmates were released before 1948. On January 6, 1950, the camps were handed over to the East German government, who tried the remaining detainees. Officially, 157,837 people were detained, including 122,671 Germans and 35,166 citizens of other nations, at least 43,035 of whom did not survive. The actual number of German prisoners was about 30,000 higher.Alexander von Plato. Sowjetische Speziallager in Deutschland 1945 bis 1950: Ergebnisse eines deutsch-russischen Kooperationsprojektes. In: Peter Reif-Spirek et al. (ed.): Speziallager in der SBZ. Gedenkstätten mit "doppelter Vergangenheit". Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 1999, p. 133. There are no known contemporary photos of the conditions behind the special camp walls.

Inmates The NKVD Main Camp Administration (GULAG) controlled the special camps from Moscow. All of the camp commanders were senior Soviet military officers and the camps were laid out to GULAG camp specifications just as in Siberia or Central Asia. The camps, however, were not slave labor camps attached to factories or collective farms. On the contrary, prisoners were not allowed to work. Strictly speaking they were not death camps such as the Nazi annihilation camps in Poland, but the death rate nevertheless was very high due to malnourishment and disease.Merten, Ulrich, The Gulag in East Germany: Soviet Special Camps 1945-1950, Teneo Press, Amherst, New York, Page 121,

Charges

People were arrested because of alleged ties to the Nazis, because they were hindering the establishment of Stalinism, or at random.Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, p.128, The legal basis for the arrests was the Beria-order No. 00315 of 18 April 1945, ordering the internment without prior investigation by the Soviet military of "spies, saboteurs, terrorists and active NSDAP members", heads of Nazi organizations, people maintaining "illegal" print and broadcasting devices or weapon deposits, members of the civil administration, and journalists.Petra Weber, Justiz und Diktatur: Justizverwaltung und politische Strafjustiz in Thüringen 1945-1961 : Veröffentlichungen zur SBZ-/DDR -Forschung im Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2000, p.98, This was the same type of NKVD order for administrative arrest and deportation to Gulag camps in the Soviet Union used extensively by the Soviet security services where the victims had absolutely no legal recourse.Merten, Ulrich, The Gulag in East Germany: Soviet Special Camps 1945-1950, Teneo Press, Amherst, New York, Pages 9,123,

Inmates were classified "sentenced" or "interned" depending on whether they were tried by a Soviet military tribunal (SMT) or not. A decreeKontrollratsdirektive Nr.38 issued by the Allied Control Council on 30 October 1946 made a trial prior to internment obligatory, yet in November 1946 only 10% of the inmates were "sentenced", this proportion rose to 55% in early 1950.

Of the "interned", 80% were members of the Nazi Party in early 1945, two thirds in late 1945, and less than half after February 1946. Of the "sentenced", 25% were members of the Nazi Party in 1945, 20% in 1946, 15% in 1947, just above 10% in 1948, and less than 10% since 1949. A significant actual prosecution of Nazi war crimes by the SMT did not take place. Among the alleged Nazis were also boys suspected to be Werwolf members:Petra Weber, Justiz und Diktatur: Justizverwaltung und politische Strafjustiz in Thüringen 1945-1961 : Veröffentlichungen zur SBZ-/DDR -Forschung im Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2000, p.99, About 10,000 internees were youths and children, half of whom did not return.

Among the inmates were many supporters or members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which the Soviet authorities sought to suppress, particularly from 1946.Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, p.129, When the Social Democratic Party was merged into the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), renamed Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), Social Democrats were interned to ensure Marxist–Leninist dominance in the party. Also, people were interned as "spies" because they were suspected of opposing the authoritarian regime, e.g. for having contacts with organizations based in the Western occupation zones, on the basis of Article 58 of the Soviet penal code dealing with "anti-Soviet activities". In the Bautzen special camp, 66% of the inmates fell into this category.

Isolation policy

The Soviet authorities enforced a policy of total isolation of the inmates. A decree of 27 July 1945 reads: "The primary purpose of the special camp is the total isolation of the contingent therein and the prevention of flights", and prohibits all mail and visitors.Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, pp.133-134, Another decree of 25 July 1946 confirmed the "total isolation from the outside world" as a primary purpose, and further reads:

[Inmates of special camps] are to be isolated from the society by special measures, they are not to be legally charged, and in contrast to the usual procedure in legal cases, their cases are not to be documented.Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, p.134, : "... werden nach Sonderregelungen von der Gesellschaft isoliert, sie werden nicht angeklagt, und über sie werden keine Gerichtsakten, wie in der Strafprozeßordnung vorgesehen, angelegt."

No inmate could contact a relative, nor the other way around (with some exceptions in the early stage of the camps). Relatives were not able to retrieve any information and were not even informed of inmate deaths.Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, p.135, Exceptions were not made. In one case, the chief of special camp No. 8 asked the supreme chief of the special camps, Colonel , whether people arrested in their summer clothes were allowed to request winter clothes from their relatives, and pointed out that the situation was very urgent and that some of the inmates did not even have shoes. Sviridov forbade contact.

In late 1947 the inmates were allowed limited access to Communist newspapers, which represented their first contact with the outside world since their arrests.Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, p.136,

First releases

A first 27,749 were released mid-1948 after a revision of 43,853 cases by a joint commission of SMAD, MGB and MVD (the successor of the NKVD).Kai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, p.131, Among the released were primarily people whose arrest was based on a suspected Nazi background, which was found to be of low significance by the commission.

Numbers and casualties

The total number of detainees and deaths is uncertain. In 1990 the Soviet Ministry for the Interior released numbers, which were based upon a collection of data compiled after the dissolution of the camps by the last head of its administration in 1950. According to these numbers, 122,671 Germans, 34,706 citizens of the Soviet Union, and 460 foreign citizens had been received. While 40,244 detainees were deported to the Soviet Union, 45,635 were released, 786 were shot and 43,035 died. 6,680 Germans were turned over to POW camps, 128 inmates managed to escape. 14,202 German detainees were handed over to the East German Ministry of the Interior.Alexander von Plato. Sowjetische Speziallager in Deutschland 1945 bis 1950: Ergebnisse eines deutsch-russischen Kooperationsprojektes. In: Peter Reif-Spirek et al. (ed.): Speziallager in der SBZ. Gedenkstätten mit "doppelter Vergangenheit". Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 1999, p.132.. A critical examination of the data by Natalja Jeske concluded that approximately 30,000 more Germans were detained in the special camps than officially acknowledged. The official number of deaths is nonetheless considered to be accurate. Older estimates, according to which 65,000 to 130,000 or between 50,000 and 80,000 interned persons had died, are too high.Alexander von Plato. Sowjetische Speziallager in Deutschland 1945 bis 1950: Ergebnisse eines deutsch-russischen Kooperationsprojektes. In: Peter Reif-Spirek et al. (ed.): Speziallager in der SBZ. Gedenkstätten mit "doppelter Vergangenheit". Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 1999, p. 141; Jörg Morré: Einleitung. – Sowjetische Internierungslager in der SBZ. In: Jörg Morré: Speziallager des NKWD. Sowjetische Internierungslager in Brandenburg 1945–1950 . Potsdam: Brandenburgische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung, 1997, p. 9. Most people died from starvation and diseases. The death rate was particularly high from the end of 1946 to early 1947, when the already low food rations had been reduced further. The food rations for detainees did not differ significantly from the food rations in the Soviet occupation zone in general, but the prisoners were cut off from the black market.Alexander von Plato. Sowjetische Speziallager in Deutschland 1945 bis 1950: Ergebnisse eines deutsch-russischen Kooperationsprojektes. In: Peter Reif-Spirek et al. (ed.): Speziallager in der SBZ. Gedenkstätten mit "doppelter Vergangenheit". Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 1999, p. 141–2.

Among the dead were an estimated 12,000 discovered in 1990 in mass graves near the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Six thousand of the captives in Sachsenhausen were German officers sent there from Western Allied camps. The major causes of death of the prisoners were starvation, disease, particularly tuberculosis and dysentery or torture and execution. Their health was completely neglected.Merten, Ulrich, The Gulag in East Germany: Soviet Special Camps 1945-1950, Teneo Press, Amherst, New York, Page 7,

Camps in Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD)

A total of ten camps existed, set up in former Nazi concentration camps, former stalags, barracks, or prisons.

NKVD special camp Nr. 1 in the former Stalag IV-B near Mühlberg NKVD special camp Nr. 2 in Buchenwald NKVD special camp Nr. 3 in Hohenschönhausen (later Stasi-Arbeitslager X) in Bautzen (since 1948 Nr. 3) in Ketschendorf / Fürstenwalde in Jamlitz near Lieberose NKVD special camp Nr. 7 in Weesow near Werneuchen (until August 1945) and Sachsenhausen (since August 1945) in Torgau () NKVD special camp Nr. 9 in Fünfeichen, NeubrandenburgKai Cornelius, Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen, BWV Verlag, 2004, p.127, in Torgau (Seydlitz-Kaserne)