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Stalag XI-A
 Stalag XI-A (also known as Stalag 341) was a German World War II prisoner-of-war camp (Stammlager), located just to the east of the village of Altengrabow and in the south of Dörnitz in Saxony-Anhalt, about 90 km (56 mi) south-west of Berlin. Camp historyPre-warThe camp was located on Truppenübungsplatz Altengrabow ("Altengrabow Military Training Area"), which had been in use by the German Army since 1893,[1] and had served as the prisoner-of-war camp Dörnitz Altengrabow during World War I, holding around 12,000 POW of various nationalities.[2] World War II During the German invasion of Poland which started World War II, in September 1939 it again became a prisoner-of-war camp,[3] and was designated Stalag XI, before it was renumbered Stalag XI-A in November 1939.[3] The camp housed Australian, French, British, Belgian, Serb, Russian, Italian, American, Dutch, Slovak and Polish PoWs, all in separate compounds, and served as the centre from which most of the PoWs were assigned to Arbeitskommandos ("fatigue details"). On 1 January 1945 more than 60,000 PoWs were registered there.[2] On 25 April 1945, one of the last airborne operations of the ETO, code named Operation Violet, took place. Six teams composed of officers and men of Commonwealth, French and United States armed services and under the command of Major Worrall were to be dropped near the camp to assure the protection of the PoWs, to assess the humanitarian need of the PoWs and to ensure a peaceful handover of the camp into Allied authority. However the teams were scattered during the drop and all members were soon captured and transferred to the Altengrabow camp. There, the new PoWs urged the Camp Commandant, Col. Ochernal to cooperate and a radio link between the camp and SHAEF, then SAARF Headquarters was established.[4]
After the war the area was taken over by the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSFG) and was the headquarters of the 10th Guards Uralsko-Lvovskaya Tank Division until 1990.[2] The military base has since been taken over by Bundeswehr and NATO units.[5] DeathsThe first Soviet POW arrived in mid-1941, and in November a typhus epidemic broke out in the Russian compound, which remained under quarantine for several months.[6] The number of deaths incurred, assumed to be substantial, are as yet unknown as investigations of the area since the 1990s have discovered no burials, apart from a number of Italian POWs, whose remains were returned to Italy for interment. Since 2006 the Förderverein Gedenkstätte Kriegsgefangenenlager und Sammlung Truppenübungsplatz Altengrabow have been dedicated to researching the history of the site, and raising a memorial to the prisoners of war who died there.[2] Notable prisoners
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