Stalag XI-C

Stalag 311/XI-C
Bergen, Lower Saxony
Site information
Type	Prisoner-of-war camp
Controlled by	Nazi Germany
Location
Stalag 311/XI-C
Coordinates	52°45′48.13″N9°53′42.43″E / 52.7633694°N 9.8951194°E / 52.7633694; 9.8951194
Site history
In use	1941–1943
Battles/wars	World War II
Garrison information
Occupants	Soviet prisoners of war

Stalag XI-C Bergen-Belsen, initially called Stalag 311, was a German Army prisoner-of-war camp located near the town of Bergen in Lower Saxony.

Timeline

• May 1940: The camp was built to house Belgian and French enlisted men captured in the Battle of France; initial count: 600.
• July 1941: About 5,000 Soviet prisoners captured during Operation Barbarossa arrived from the Oflag 52 and Oflag 53 camps. ^[1] They were housed in the open while huts were being built. By the spring of 1942 an estimated 18,000 had died of hunger and disease, mainly typhus fever.
• August 1941: About 3,000 Soviet POWs arrived from the Oflag 56 camp. ^[1]
• August 1941: Hospital for sick and injured POWs opened. ^[1]
• October 1941: 11,000 POWs arrived, including from Stalag 333. Some POWs were moved to the Stalag XI-A, Stalag XI-D and Oflag XIII-D camps. ^[1]
• November 1941: 1,000 POWs arrived, captured at Vyazma and Yelnya. ^[1]
• December 1941: Some POWs sent to the Stalag XI-A and Stalag XI-B camps. ^[1]
• Until April 1942, some 14,000 POWs died in the camp from typhus, starvation and cold. ^[1]
• April 1943: Part of the camp is turned into a hospital for POWs. The remainder of the camp is separated and taken over by the SS to house Jews ostensibly for shipment overseas in exchange for German civilians.
• Late 1943: The POW camp is closed and the entire facility becomes Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

Sources

• Official web-site of the Bergen-Belsen memorial Archived 2008-01-27 at the Wayback Machine
• Official list of Stalags in German.

References

1. Megargee, Geoffrey P.; Overmans, Rüdiger; Vogt, Wolfgang (2022). The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933–1945. Volume IV. Indiana University Press, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. p. 299. ISBN   978-0-253-06089-1.

• Bergen-Belsen: Wehrmacht POW Camp 1940–1945, Concentration Camp 1943–1945, Displaced Persons Camp 1945–1950. ed. by Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation, Göttingen 2010. ISBN   978-3-8353-0794-0.