Stalag IVB near Mühlberg

Stalag IVB

Stalag IVB was a World War Two, Prisoner of War camp, located 8 kms north east of Mühlberg on the River Elbe. Opened in September of 1939, it became one of the largest German POW camps. The camp occupying 75 acres, had good facilities, including swimming pool, soccer field, and a church. First to be imprisoned were 17,000 Polish soldiers. In May 1940, French soldiers were taken prisoner there from the Fall of France. Serbian and Soviets followed in 1941. From 1943, soldiers from Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands were detained. British and US prisoners followed soon after. In October 1944, several thousand Polish soldiers including women captured from the Warsaw Uprising. The women were later transferred to other camps. The majority of prisoners though remained Soviet. Many prisoners were temporarily detained before transfer to other camps. Following the Battle of the Bulge, 3,000 Americans were likewise transferred, with 4,500 remaining at Stalag IVB. 

The last camp head count on 1 January 1945 numbered 25,052 prisoners of war. Between 1942 and 1945, at least 46,000 prisoners of war were interned at Stalag IVB from 33 different countries of which 3,000 died there, mainly of tuberculosis and typhus. They were buried in the cemetery at Neuburxdorf, 8 kms northeast of Mühlberg. The most bizarre death occurred on the 30th of April 1944, when a Luftwaffe pilot made a low-flying pass in his Junkers 88, while training over the camp. He clipped the camp’s perimeter fence and electrical wires, where he instantly struck dead Canadian WO2 Herbert David Mallory. The pilot managed to return his plane to nearby Lonnewitz airfield. There were some more near misses as well. American Mustangs sprayed rounds into the camp huts while dog fighting a Focke-Wulf 190. An American B-17 pilot also parachuted out of his aircraft right outside the camp and was immediately taken POW. The German experimental rocket jet (ME 163 B Komet) also attacked B-17s high above the camp. Over 500 American B-17s flew overhead toward bombing runs on Dresden, while in the evenings as many as 700 Avro Lancaster heavy bombers rumbled through the night. Thousands of British and American Stalag IVB prisoners were on work details in the city of Dresden on 13th and 14th of February 1945 when at least 35,000 people lost their lives during allied bombing. Although Dresden was devastated, it was estimated that 1,300,000 people were in the city. The American novelist Kurt Vonnegut, author of ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ about the Dresden bombing, was a prisoner at Stalag IVB. He was transferred to ‘Slaughterhouse Five,’ an abattoir converted into a sub-camp in Dresden. This was the most concentrated attack of the war in which 733 RAF British bombers and 311 US B-17s participated. Winston Churchill stated afterwards, ‘the destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing.’ This implied that much of the 771 tonnes of bombs were deliberately dropped wide of their targets by allied pilots sympathetic to the loss of life. 

Stalag IVB under Soviet Control

The Soviet Red Army liberated Stalag IVB on the night of the 23rd of April 1945. Soviet liberators were in no hurry to repatriate the British and American prisoners, being held in the camp for another month. Individual soldiers ‘escaped’ and made their way on foot to the American lines. Previously under German control escapes were not as common. In yet an escape tunnel from the schoolhouse was almost completed before being found out in late 1944. Two days later on the 25th of April 1945, Winston Churchill announced the Americans and Russians met at Torgau (25 kms northwest of Stalag IVB and Mühlberg). They actually met near Strehla on east bank of the Elbe, only 9kms south of Mühlberg. This historic moment was coined ‘Elbe Day,’ when ‘East met West.’ Coincidentally this occurred one-day after the Battle of Mühlberg ended the Schmalkaldic War, 398 years before. On this occasion as well the forces met on the east bank, when the Imperial Army of Charles V,  battled the Saxon Army. Five days later Hitler suicided in his Berlin bunker. According to Kilian, the camp continued in use between 1945-1948 as Soviet special camp No. 1 of the NKVD MVD, with purpose to ‘register, examine and filter’ Soviet citizens. Kilian claims that the conditions of the camp under Soviet rule was worse with Soviet transfers interned as prisoners, denied of their liberty and contact with the external world. No notification of arrests to next of kins, insufficient nutrition and medical supply and above average mortality rate. 6,765 deaths occurred between 1945 and 1948, with bodies disposed in mass graves around the fringe of the camp area. 

Mühlberg Motor Club

Notable Prisoners of War

Horace Montacue Redding 

During interviews for this book, Leon Redding who married granddaughter of Alma Ottilie Mangelsdorf (nee Muehlberg), identified the image below as being a postcards sent to released prisoners after the war by German Officers. Leon Redding’s uncle, Horace Montacue Redding, was visiting his girlfriend in South Africa when he was conscripted into a South African rifle group. He was taken prisoner at the Siege of Tobruk, before being transferred to Stalag IVB via Italy. He was detained there for four years, spending much of his time detailed to labour in a margarine factory.