What is it about?
The article discusses the organization and process of repatriation of American prisoners of war and interned civilians liberated from German captivity by the Red Army. It presents legal grounds of repatriation, the adopted principles of arranging the repatriation process, the territorial network of komendanturas and camps where the liberated citizens were kept, the living, medical and sanitary conditions in the mentioned units, the evacuation routes, the means of transport, the number of the repatriated, the rules of the work of teams of contact officers. A detailed analysis of the above-mentioned issues reveals the complicated and tense relations between the United States and the Soviet Union in the final years of World War II. It also perfectly illustrates the attitude of the USSR towards the American ally, which was characterized by failure to follow agreements, disregarding the requests and petitions from US representatives, and delaying a lot of shared actions.
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Why is it important?
The article, for the first time in American, Polish, and Russian historiography, addresses various aspects related to the repatriation of American prisoners of war and civilians liberated from German captivity by the Red Army and repatriated, in accordance with the procedures in place at that time, by repatriation units located in Poland. This issue is presented against the backdrop of the complex relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "soft policy" towards the Kremlin, Joseph Stalin's true political and military objectives, the emergence of the Cold War, and the bureaucratized and fear-filled system of power in the USSR. The article also illustrates how the policies implemented by leaders directly impacted the work of the subordinate bodies responsible for the repatriation process. On the American side, it was the U.S. Military Mission in Moscow (directly subordinate to the American embassy), while on the Soviet side, it was the Plenipotentiary Board of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR for Repatriation.
Perspectives
Writing this article was a true scholarly adventure for me. The extensive research of a vast array of documents stored in American, Polish, and Russian archives, through which the entirety of the examined topic began to emerge for the first time, was captivating and diverse.
Aleksandra Arkusz
Uniwersytet Jagiellonski w Krakowie
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Repatriation Of American Prisoners of War and Interned Civilians Liberated from German Captivity by the Red Army, The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review, August 2023, Brill Deutschland GmbH,
DOI: 10.30965/18763324-bja10084.
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