Qualla: Stalag VI-C

Stalag VI-C: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DennisPeeters, Public domain. On 12 April 1945 the lead tanks of the Polish 1st Armoured Division rolled into a clearing in the Emsland bog and found 1,721 women in uniform waiting for them. The women had been told nothing. The International Red Cross had been informed the camp was closed and had no idea they were there. The tanks belonged to soldiers who had fought their way west from Falaise through Belgium and the Netherlands, and at Oberlangen they liberated their own sisters and wives and comrades - women of the Polish Home Army who had surrendered in Warsaw the previous October. The first words spoken when the tank hatches opened were in Polish. The witnesses afterwards called it the most unexpected liberation of the war.

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Image: DennisPeeters | Public domain

Stalag VI-C: Building the Bog Camps

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jusos, Public domain. Stalag VI-C was one of fifteen camps the Nazi regime built across the Emsland bogs between 1933 and 1939. The location was chosen because the wetlands were sparsely populated and easy to keep hidden. The first prisoners were Germans the regime considered politically dangerous: co...

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Image: Jusos | Public domain

Stalag VI-C: The Soviet Dead

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ein Dahmer, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the summer of 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, roughly 2,000 Soviet prisoners of war arrived at Stalag VI-C. They were not protected by the Third Geneva Convention - the Soviet Union had not signed it, and the Nazi leadership used this as justification to t...

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Image: Ein Dahmer | CC BY-SA 4.0

Stalag VI-C: Italian Officers, Then None

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Harmonia Amanda, CC BY-SA 3.0. In September 1943, after Italy signed an armistice with the Allies, the German military designated the combined Oberlangen-Wesuwe complex as Oflag VI-G and shipped in nearly 5,000 Italian officers. These were men who, a few weeks earlier, had been allies of Germany. Now they were...

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Image: Harmonia Amanda | CC BY-SA 3.0

Stalag VI-C: The Women of Warsaw

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The Warsaw Uprising began on 1 August 1944 and was crushed by 2 October. Among those who surrendered to the Wehrmacht in Warsaw were thousands of women: nurses, couriers, signal operators, soldiers of the Polish Home Army who had fought house to house for two months. The German m...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Stalag VI-C: What the Liberation Meant

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nicole-Koehler, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Polish 1st Armoured Division had landed in Normandy in August 1944 and fought through the closing of the Falaise pocket, the liberation of Belgian cities, and the crossings into the Netherlands and Germany. When they reached Oberlangen on 12 April 1945 they were exhausted, fa...

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Image: Nicole-Koehler | CC BY-SA 3.0