There was inadequate food and deplorable sanitary conditions. Prisoners could have no clothing
other than what they were wearing when arrested. Disease and epidemics ran through the barracks
where the prisoners had to sleep on the bare wood frames with only a block of wood for a pillow for
two years until blankets and bags of straw were finally distributed in 1947. They were not allowed
any activities, and even singing was prohibited. The windows of the overcrowded barracks were
blacked out and the prisoners were kept in almost total darkness. A total of approximately 60,000
German prisoners were held in Special Camp No. 7 after World War II ended, and 12,000 were
buried in unmarked mass graves. None were released by the Soviets until 1948, and most prisoners
remained there until 1950, and some were sent on to the Soviet gulags or handed over to the East
German Communist government for even more punishment.
When approximately 6,000 German Army officers were released by the Western Allies in the first
half of 1945, they were then re-arrested by the Soviets and held in Zone II at Sachsenhausen Prison
Camp which had formerly held the Communist political prisoners of the Nazis. Later, Special Camp
No. 7 was filled with German prisoners who had been sentenced by a Soviet military tribunal to 15
years of hard labor. By the end of 1945, it held 12,000 to 16,000 prisoners, among them 2,000
female prisoners, but the population grew.
In eleven Soviet camps set up within the GDR such as Muehlberg, Saxonia or Oranienburg, many
thousands also lost their lives. Between 1945 and 1950 there were 122,671 interned, from which
42,889 died of diseases and 756 were executed. However in Muehlberg at 7,000 to 9,000 out of
22,000 perished painfully from hunger, malnutrition and epidemics and were then thrown into mass
graves. Prisoners here as young as fifteen were completely isolated and not allowed to write or
receive any letters. Most were kept for years without ever knowing why they were arrested, since in
those camps there were no prominent national socialists. There were eleven silent or secret camps as
well "Five Oaks" at New Brandenburg where about 6500 prisoners died.
Established in April, 1945, near the village of Ketschendorf in Furstenwalde south-east of Berlin, the
Soviet occupation forces ran a camp named 'Special Camp Number 5'. which housed internees. At
first the prisoners were primarily members NS and members of the SS. But then the Soviets began
including many German teenage who were arrested without reason or kidnapped, taken away by the
Russian military forces and simply "disappeared". Months later, in November, 1945, there were still
9,395 persons interned in Camp Ketschendorf. During this time it is believed that over 5,000
internees died due to the catastrophic conditions under which they were forced to live. During 1952
and 1953 many mass graves were discovered. Around 4,500 bodies were exhumed and reburied in a
mass grave at Halbe. Another camp 'Special Camp Number 2' was set up in the former concentration
camp at Buchenwald which held 28,000 internees, 7,000 of whom died from neglect and hunger.
These camps were unknown to the outside world until years after the war.