Information required on location of WW2 prisoner of war working parties ( arbeits kommandos ) in Poland

Throughout WW2, a member of my family spent the duration of the war in a POW camp, Stalag VIIIB, in Łambinowice, then known as Lamsdorf.

Prisoners were typically sent out from this camp to undergo forced labour in working parties in the surrounding areas and further afield. My family member, for example, was forced to work 12 hours a day underground in a coal mine.

Often, these working parties corresponded to areas and towns within Poland. This is what I am interested in.
Last week I received copies of some German prisoner of war records for my family member. The rest are in the Russian State Archives.There is not a great deal of information in them, but some of it is in German. I was hoping somebody here may be able to translate, although the handwriting isn't very legible.

Under 'Kommandos', two camps are referenced, E3 and E88. E3 corresponds to one of the working parties at Blechhammmer, ( Blachownia Sląską) where POW's were involved in building the Upper Silesian Hydrogenation works, producing synthetic gasoline from coal for the German armed forces.

More information here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blechhammer
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blachownia_%C5%9Al%C4%85ska
lamsdorf.com/uploads/6/4/2/7/6427590/blechhammer.pdf

E88 corresponds to working parties Hohrnlohehutte/Konigshutte. I have no idea what type of work POW's had to undertake at either of these camps, and there is no other information on the Lamsdorf website about them. I do know that Konigshutte is the German for Chorzów. It's a long shot expecting anyone to be able to translate or know anything about these working parties, but if anyone can help I would very much appreciate it.

Hope I can post the photos now!

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Our German members should solve it, I suppose.

if your family memeber worked in a coal mine then it's probably in Koenigshuette/Chorzów because it's in a coal bearing region - Blachownia/Blechhammer is near Kędzierzyn-Koźle - there is no coal on the site but it is near enough to the Upper Silesia coal bearing region and on a major railway line - that's why it was probably chosen as the side of the hydrogenation plant

the first scan shows medical records - your family member received some sort of vaccination in 1940 (I guess TY stands for typhus)

I was hoping that BB or Tacitus might be around but it's a busy time of year at the moment. I don't know who else here reads German.


Thanks for the reply Gumishu. You could well be right. What isn't listed though, is that he was in a working party named Agneshutte/Agnieszka. I have some handwritten notes of his mentioning this, and there was also a probable coal mine there. It was located in Dąb,Katowice. This information is on the Lamsdorf website, but it's a word document and I've no idea how to copy/paste it.


That's the only bit of the writing I managed to understand! I guessed it was either Typhus or Typhoid. Am having problems just understanding the German font used! Thanks again :)

Agneshütte

translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolonia_Agnieszka&prev=search

Cologne Agnieszka - a colony of workers, established for employees zinc smelter "Agnes" in Deba , now a district of Katowice .

Huta "Agnes" founded in 1842 , the inspector metallurgical Chorzele of Oak. In 1859 in the group of 24 people lived. During the first Silesian Uprising in the group took a short battle with a detachment of insurgents defending Grenzschutz transformer station. In the year 1924 Agnes was annexed along with adjacent Józefowcem to the municipality Wełnowiec . In the year 1951 the whole community became a part of Katowice . Currently, only fragments survive nineteenth-century building.

In 1931 unemployed coal miners took over an abandoned coal mine at Agneshütte and brought it back into operation. British POWs from 1940-1945 mentioned working at Agneshütte so it might well have been this mine.

As an update I have since found out that my family member was put to work in the East Field of this mine in Chorzów, although during WW2 it was known as Königsgrube Ostfeld.

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopalnia_W%C4%99gla_Kamiennego_Prezydent

More information but in German:

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopalnia_W%C4%99gla_Kamiennego_Kr%C3%B3l?fbclid=IwY2xjawF_loBleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHV1Z5cdOJ0fwafKEgXZaHLIhWtDYq0CP9cWAFO19NIv5H6f0gru2MOBuVQ_aem_mWPZ0buFUuu1hJpDUKtaRw


The Eastern shaft of the mine was known as Agnieszka.

Maybe one day I'll go on the Industrial Monuments Route to see the hoisting tower of the Prezydent shaft.

Don't suppose anyone here would have any idea about how to find out if wartime records were kept about this mine? Long shot I know.

Probably about as likely as getting the rest of my family member's POW records out of the Russian State Archives.....

I can`t help you with it but knowing your amazing perseverance, I am sure you will find it out one day. Even if you had to move Heaven and Earth. Wow, a new idiom! :):):)

I think I've got as far as I'm going to to be honest as I doubt anyone here will have an interest in old Polish mines or know anyone that does. Always worth an ask though :)

If it's about a translation Google would do a good first try for the whole website:

de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Kopalnia_W%C4%99gla_Kamiennego_Kr%C3%B3l?fbclid=IwY2xjawF_loBleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHV1Z5cdOJ0fwafKEgXZaHLIhWtDYq0CP9cWAFO19NIv5H6f0gru2MOBuVQ_aem_mWPZ0buFUuu1hJpDUKtaRw&_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

It isn't BB as I've already run the article through GT, but it does contain some different information to the Polish link I provided.

I was wondering only if wartime records about this mine were kept but thanks for replying anyway :)

Did you already also have the Info from the Lexikon der Wehrmacht über den Standort Königshütte?....of course in German but online translation is possible:

lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Kasernen/Wehrkreis08/KasernenKoenigshuette-R.htm

....and some numbers for the files:




tenhumbergreinhard.de/deutsche-kriegsgefangenenlager/deutsche-kriegsgefangenenlager-k.html

You could need them to ask more efficiently....

Here is some more info....even with a foto from some prisoners.....tell me if you have all that already...have to go now! :)

deutsch.wikibrief.org/wiki/Stalag_VIII-B

For some info links about the prisoners:

google.com/search?newwindow=1&sca_esv=808cf4c753ad636e&sxsrf=ADLYWIJX-YfNcH37xRg0LNYXS7m_mBS1Fw:1729365130369&q=stalag+Stalag+VIIIB+prisoner+list&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiI8KCSk5uJAxUNS_EDHV8KIfEQBSgAegQIChAB&biw=1238&bih=644&dpr=1.5

Most of it I already knew BB because of information contained in the Lamsdorf /Stalag VIIIB/344 website, now the prisoners of war museum website. The same goes for your wikibrief link but it did specifically mention E88 Kommando, the working party attached to the Prezydent mine:

E88 Hohenlohe Hut - Wełnowiec - (District in Katowice-1951) Coal Mine "Król" (King) East Shaft - "Agneschaft" - Agnes Hut Colony
prisoner of war (177); Shaft "Agnieszka" - eastern shaft of the mine "Król" ("Król-Święty Jacek") in the Agnieszka colony; ("Königsgrube" - Königshütte / mine "Prezydent" - Chorzów)


I see a lot of photos of Stalag VIIIB POW from various websites, so far I've not been lucky and spotted one of my family member but it's a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack.

I was incredibly lucky to find mention of him in a fellow POW war diary which had been uploaded to a website along with hundreds of others. I picked one diary at random to read and found that not only was this POW in the same regiment as my family member but that both had been captured on the same day in the same place in France. Their POW numbers were consecutive too meaning it was likely they were both processed at the same time. What are the chances of that!

I have been told by a member of staff at the Centralne Muzeum Jencow Wojennych that the majority of records of Stalag VIIIB prisoners are in the Russian State Archives. They were seized by the Soviet Army after the camp had been evacuated. I did contact them using Google Translate and I did get a reply that confirmed that they did hold British POW records but didn't have the resources to search for them.

Thanks very much for your help :)

Fate! :)


Hmm.....I read the camp was called "Britenlager", because of the high number of british POWs....did you look already into the british archives too? Probably...but here are still some more links....

commandoveterans.org/stalag_v111b_344

discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C805767

pegasusarchive.org/pow/S8Bt/cSt_8Bt_RedCross14Sep44.htm

bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/63/a3521963.shtml

...they might have more resources to look into your family member, especially if you have the names and numbers, also maybe contacting the Russians...because of the high number of Brits this camp seems actually quite well known!

Good luck! *waves*

Thanks for taking the time to look for me BB. I have got all the paperwork I could find from British sources.

I have military records, papers from ICRC and all records from The National Archives.

Sadly, my relative didn't complete a Liberation Questionnaire which would have been useful.


Yes, I've read that too. Stalag VIIIB was one of the largest and most notorious POW camps.


Done, but no joy.


Thank you BB, and for taking the time to reply.

* waves back*