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This article details the experiences of the several groups of American prisoners of war who came into the custody of the Red Army at the end of World War II, describes the difficult conditions under which they were held, and the confused procedures by which they were repatriated, but principally takes issue with those accounts that allege up to 23,000 were not repatriated but disappeared into the Soviet Gulag.
DURING World War II about 28,000 American prisoners of war (POWs) were held by Axis powers in areas eventually overrun by military forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). Their repatriation, which became a contentious issue between the United States and the U.S.S.R., was a major element of the negotiations at the February 1945 Yalta Conference. The actual fate of these POWs, however, was determined not by negotiations but by the actions of the Red Army, which was mostly unhelpful or at least indifferent to their repatriation. In the early 1990s, in fact, several accounts alleged that up to 23,000 American POWs from World War II had disappeared into the Soviet Gulag, abandoned, forgotten, never to be repatriated. This did not happen. But an examination of the reasons why authors claimed such a scenario, an analysis of their sources, and an accounting of what actually happened to the American POWs who came into Soviet custody, should illuminate the myths and realities of the experience of those American service members liberated by the Red Army.
The diplomatic aspects of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. POW saga have been well told and accurately documented, especially in the work of historians Russell D. Buhite and Mark R. Elliott.1 As early as the summer of 1944, officials at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, particularly those with the Military Mission to Moscow (headed by Major General John R. Deane), tried to engage the interest of the Soviets in POW repatriations. Anticipating that the Red Army would uncover German POW camps holding soldiers from the Western Allied armies and that British and American forces would liberate camps in which Soviet soldiers were held, U.S. authorities in Moscow wanted agreement on a number of basic issues. These included requirements that both sides would keep the other informed of impending or actual...