Life in the Gulag
Warfare
History Hit
4.5 • 943 Ratings
🗓️ 17 May 2021
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It was not until 1956 that the Soviet Union repatriated the last of their German prisoners of war. To find out more about the experience of these men, Susan Grunewald has been mapping the locations of the camps where they were kept. Listen as Susan and James explore why the Germans were detained for so long and how they were treated, from building Soviet cities to facing re-education programmes. Susan is the Digital History Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh World History Center, her maps of the prisoner of war camps can be found here: https://susangrunewald.com/
© Memorial Museum of German Anti-Fascists
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Oh, he's cute. Mr. I can never sleep when I'm traveling. He's hugging his pillow like a sloth on a branch. |
| 0:10.0 | He couldn't sleep before. Now listen to him. Sounds like an elephant with a chest infection. |
| 0:15.0 | Well, they call him a dreamer. And now they're right. |
| 0:19.0 | All aboard, Mr. I can never sleep when I'm traveling. |
| 0:23.0 | Find all the comfort you need in the quiet lounge. |
| 0:26.0 | Piando Ferries, there is another way. |
| 0:29.0 | Hello everyone, welcome back to the history hit warfare podcast I'm your host James Rogers and in this |
| 0:36.7 | episode we're asking what happened to the German POWs after the Second World War |
| 0:42.0 | specifically what happened to those who were picked up by the |
| 0:45.3 | Soviets? For some, it was seen as a fate worsened death to be captured by the formidable |
| 0:51.0 | Red Army. But what was life really like in a Soviet gulag? Well to find out |
| 0:57.0 | we have the amazing Dr. Susan Grumwold, a Soviet historian who has spent the last few |
| 1:02.4 | years tracking down every single Soviet |
| 1:05.6 | Gulag where German prisoners of war were kept. She takes us through what it was |
| 1:10.1 | like a day in the life of a German POW. |
| 1:13.3 | She shows us how they were made to help rebuild the Soviet economy, how they were put into |
| 1:18.1 | industry, even the war-making industry, and how they were set about rebuilding bombed out cities. |
| 1:25.0 | It is a remarkable story, one that I had not heard before, |
| 1:29.0 | and it's even more fascinating because so many of them were not allowed to go home until |
| 1:34.6 | 1957. I know you're going to find this one absolutely amazing so here is the |
| 1:40.1 | brilliant Dr. Susan Grumwald. Hi Susan, thanks so much for coming on the warfare podcast. How you doing today? |
| 2:01.8 | I'm doing well, How are you doing? |
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