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Stalag IV-A Hohnstein

Stalag IV-A Hohnstein

Posted: 1 Dec 2011 7:55PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 15 Sep 2012 12:54PM GMT
Surnames: Braithwaite
I'm trying to find
(a) the date this POW camp was liberated, and
(b) which unit liberated it.
I've turned the internet upside down and tried all the usual avenues, to no avail! So now I'm hoping YOUR relation may have been a "guest" in the camp and can remember these details...or perhaps he was part of the liberating unit...?
In April 1945, Stalag IV-A Hohnstein (20km E of Dresden) was close to the Russian advance, but Gnl.Patton's 3rd.US Armoured Division was also near.
VE Day was 8th.May 1945 and it's unlikely the POWs were still captive after that, so their liberation must've been sometime between 1st.April and mid-May.
Any help or hint would be very much appreciated!

Re: Stalag IV-A Hohnstein

Posted: 3 Dec 2011 4:14AM GMT
Classification: Query
I did a Google search and Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalag_IV-A) cites a Book written in German http://www.elsterhorst.de/
Here is the time line from the book for the camp:
*Spring 1938 the building of the camp was started to house about 350 Czech prisoners who originally lived in tents during construction.
*October 1939 Polish prisoners arrived from the September 1939 invasion of Poland. Finally 40 huts were built[1].
*June 1940 the camp was divided, part of it became Oflag IV-D for Belgian. British, and French officers. Also a separate part of the cazmp was set aside as hospital for prisoners Reserve Lazarett 742.
*May-June 1941 the Polish prisoners were transferred to other camps. In their place came Greek and Yugoslavian prisoners from the Balkans Campaign.
*June-September 1941 Soviet prisoners from Operation Barbarossa were placed in another separated camp. Conditions were appalling, starvation, epidemics and ill-treatment took a heavy toll of lives. The dead Soviet prisoners were buried in mass graves at the cemetery in neighboring Nardt.
*May 1945 the camp was liberated by the Red Army. Before that many prisoners had been marched south-west.

Re: Stalag IV-A Hohnstein

Posted: 3 Dec 2011 5:14AM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 3 Dec 2011 5:15AM GMT
Dear DecMay:
Unfortunately the Elsterhorst camp is NOT the one I seek.
Most camps had their names/numbers changed now and then, when areas were reorganised administratively (as only the Germans can!).
Elsterhorst ended up as Stalag IV-D, 80km N of Dresden...
The camp I'm interested in, Stalag IV-A, was DEFINITELY at Hohnstein, which is 25km ESE of Dresden.
However, thank you for making the effort for me.
The quest continues...

Re: Stalag IV-A Hohnstein

Posted: 29 Dec 2011 12:57PM GMT
Classification: Query
Could the camp you are searching for actually have been an Oflag IV-A camp as this was located in Hohnstein, and is the only camp Ive come across that was in Hohnstein?
(Im aware this was a camp for officers but thought it could be worth a look!)
My grandad was captured at arnhem bridge and I too have struggled to find info on where he was held.

Re: Stalag IV-A Hohnstein

Posted: 1 Jan 2012 2:55AM GMT
Classification: Query
Dear Natalie:
Nice to hear from you. I sure know what you mean with regards the struggle to find WWII information.
I've just heard from a man who visited the UK National Archives before Christmas. He was hoping to find my father's liberation questionnaire, but didn't. Dad may/may not have completed one...
However, he DID find the questionnaire of a Sgt.Raymond Smith, who was the Chief British Man of Confidence in the Stalag. His account is that he was a captive until 8 May 1945 (although there's no indication of who liberated him). So it looks as if POWs were there until the ceasefire on the date above: VE Day. This is the most concrete evidence I've seen so far for the liberation date of Stalag IV-A. Now to discover the liberation unit!!! I don't ask for much... LOL

As for details of where your father was held, have you tried the International Welfare Dept of the British Red Cross (9 Grosvenor Cres., London SW1X 7EJ)? They were able to provide me with Dad's date of capture and three POW camps he 'attended'. Good luck!

Re: Stalag IV-A Hohnstein

Posted: 17 Jun 2012 4:23AM GMT
Classification: Query
Hi Phil,

Just found your query re Stalag iVA Hohnstein.

My grandfather was a POW (Polish) and I have just found some photos with info that hopefully can help us.

I will be scanning this stuff in today, so if you're interested I can email them for you. I also have what looks like a POW dog tag?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Simone


Re: Stalag IV-A Hohnstein G.H.Green Service No 2355190

Posted: 14 Sep 2012 11:30PM GMT
Classification: Query
Hi Phil,
I too have tried to find out more details of Stalag IV-A to no avail? My father was a pow at this camp he spoke to me as a child that the Americans liberated him from this camp. He stated that the Americans took over a town near the camp and removed the german residents from their properties and allocated the liberated pow's into the properties and told them to remain in doors and not to come out as the Russians were about to meet up with them and they did not know what would happen? My father was captured in North Africa on the 1st June 1942 at Acomar Libiya North Africa and was imprisoned with the Italians in Campo 65. He then was transfered to Germany to Stalag IV-A Hohnstein. His Prison No was 252848. On his service record it states Liberated 12-5-1945 then home 13-5-1945.He was in the Royal Corp Signals 50th (N) Division. Hope this helps with your research.
Regards Barry Green

Re: Stalag IV-A Hohnstein G.H.Green Service No 2355190

Posted: 16 Nov 2012 3:36PM GMT
Classification: Query
Guys,

As I write this, I have in front of me a couple of photographs of myself as a small boy, sent by my mother to my father who was a POW in Germany. On the back of the later of the two is written in my mother's handwriting:
To: RFN. F. Harrison, No. 225984, Stalag IV A, ARB-KDO 1007, Germany.
On the back of the earlier one is written:
To: RFM. F. Harrison, No. 225984, Stalag IV A, Germany.
Both have been rubber-stamped "gepruft 37 Stalag IV A" and the later one has a date stamp 7 SEP, but the year is illegible. From the picture I guess it would have been 1944. The earlier photo would have been 1942.

It is by Googling for Stalag IV A that I came across this thread.

I was born in January 1941, and a month or two later my father was posted abroad as a Rifleman in the Cheshire regiment/ King's Royal Rifle Corps (if I have the detail correct!). Later that year he was captured somewhere in the desert in North Africa and taken via Italy to Germany, ending up in Stalag IV A where he remained until 1945.

Unfortunately, he did not speak very much about his war time experience (though he never bore any animosity to the Germans as a result of it) but he did give me to believe that he worked in a sugar factory during some of the time he was a POW.
According to my brother-in-law, Dad once told him that, when they heard the news that the Allies were approaching at the end of the war, the prison guards simply abandoned the camp, leaving the prisoners to their own devices.
Apparently somebody advised Dad and another/some other prisoners to make themselves scarce in order to avoid being "liberated" by the Russians who were also heading towards the area. So Dad and his friend(s) hid in the woods, presumably for a day or two, until they heard an American column approaching, then they handed themselves over to the Yanks. In due course he and many other ex-POWs were flown back to England by the U.S.A.F.
I guess he still had the photos with him, because they re-surfaced when we sorted through my mother's effects after she died in 2007.

This may help explain why there is so little information about who actually "liberated" Stalag IV A, and why there appears to be some confusion about dates.

Regards

(Fred) Graham Harrison

Re: Stalag IV-A Hohnstein G.H.Green Service No 2355190

Posted: 17 Nov 2012 3:41PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 17 Nov 2012 3:43PM GMT
It's difficult since there are two seperate Stalag IV-A camps. There was a Stalag IV-A at Elsterhorst northeast of Dresden. And then there was the camp Stalag IV-A that was North northeast of Hohnstein.


Here is a blog someone started about Stalag IV-A Hohnstein-
http://stalagiva.blogspot.com/p/home-page.html

If Hohnstein is east of the Elbe, it's highly unlikely they were liberated by US forces as that side of the Elbe River was the Soviet area of operations. The closest US troops would have been VIII Corps of the US 1st Army around 50 miles away near Chemnitz. The Soviets weren't very good at all about record keeping.
The date issue may be from when they were technically "liberated" by the Soviets, and then the later date when the Soviets "invited" the Americans across the Elbe into thier area to pick up and remove the masses of freed POW's they didn't want to have to be responsible for. There were dozens of seperate work camps attached to the camp. So depending on when the Russians showed up (the german guards rarely stayed to meet them), and when the Soviet troops gathered them up and then kicked them loose to the nearest Allies may be the answer to your date question.

This is the description of the camp used on US records-
Stalag 4A Hohnstein (Airfield at Dresden-Klotsche) (No Base Camps: 13 Work Camps) Saxony 51-14
from this US PoW record-
http://aad.archives.gov/aad/record-detail.jsp?dt=466&mtc...



Re: Stalag IV-A Hohnstein

Posted: 16 Feb 2013 4:51PM GMT
Classification: Query
Hi,

some pictures of STALAG IVA - HOHNSTEIN (Polish part);

http://hannak-familie.eu/hohnstein/

best regards
Witold
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