Bruno Hermann from Berlin Neukölln was born in 1902 and worked as a salesman.  He served in the following units: Landeschutzen Btl 325  Landeschutzen Btl 321 – 1942 / 1943  Wach Kompanie Dulag 102 – September 1943  DURCHGANGSLAGER (DULAG) 102 The Wehrmacht established Dulag 102 on March 17, 1941, from the staff of Frontstalag 102.1 Its first provisional deployment was to Poland. It received field post number (Feldpostnummer) 38 028 between February 28 and July 27, 1941; the number was struck on November 8, 1944. The first camp commandant was Oberstleutnant Georg Böhm. Two others followed, but their names are unknown. The unit came under the jurisdiction of the Security Division (Sicherungsdivision) 207 in May 1941 and deployed to different locations in the Army Group North Rear Area (Heeresgebiet Nord). In July and August 1941, Dulag 102 deployed to the city of Šiauliai (map 9b), where the camp personnel also participated in the massacres of Jews. They guarded the small synagogue in which the Jews were imprisoned and then transported them in trucks to the execution site. An execution squad from the unit shot a Soviet commissar and other prisoners in Šiauliai. In 1943, Dulag 102 deployed to different locations in Russia and Ukraine under the Fourth Panzer Army Rear Area Commander (Kommandant rückwärtiges Armeegebiet, Korück 593, later 585). For example, in the autumn of 1943, the unit was stationed in the village of Kustovoe (9d).8 In late 1943 and early 1944 the camp was located in various places in Ukraine. In August 1943, Dulag 102 was stationed in the village of Nikolaevka (today Mykolaivka, Sums’ka oblast’) (9f) with subcamps in the cities of Vorozhba, Buryn’, and Konotop. In September 1943, the unit deployed to the village of Dmitrievka (today Dmytrivka, Chernihivs’ka oblast’) (9f) with branches in the villages of Khmelev (today Khmeliv, Sums’ka oblast’) and Velikii Sambor (today Velykyi Sambir, Sums’ka oblast’). At the end of 1943, Dulag 102 deployed to the city of Novograd-Volynskii (today Novohrad Volyns’kyi). The conditions in the camp were the same as those in other camps for Soviet prisoners, and they were particularly bad while the camp was located in Volosovo. The prisonershad to endure scarce food, overcrowding, lack of proper medical care, and harassment by the guards, which led to massive hunger and illness and a high mortality rate. As in other camps, the Germans separated out from among the newly arrived prisoners the Jews and Communists, who were then shot near the camp by the guards or a Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst, SD) detachment. The order for the camp’s disbandment was issued on November 14, 1944. Armee-Kriegsgefangenensammelstelle (AGSSt) 52 During the Second World War, both the High Command of the Wehrmacht and the High Command of the Army were responsible for prisoner of war issues. All prisoner of war camps in the Reich were subordinate to the OKW, while the camps in the operational area were subordinate to the Quartermaster General in the Army General Staff. The Luftwaffe prisoner of war camps were subordinate to the Luftwaffe High Command, and those of the Navy to the Navy High Command. There were different types of camp for different purposes: Captured soldiers were disarmed and separated into soldiers and non-commissioned officers / enlisted men. They were then taken by the fighting troops to prisoner of war reception camps (Auflag) or army prisoner of war collection points (AGSST) set up just behind the front. The prisoner of war collection points were subordinate to the commander of the rear army area (Korück), and guards were provided by the field gendarmerie and army guards. From the collection points, the prisoners of war were then sent to transit camps (Dulag) in the rear army area, which were under the responsibility of the respective security division. There were also main front camps (Frontstalag), in which captured soldiers of all ranks were registered and then quickly taken to their destination. In the transit camps and front stalags, responsibility for the prisoners of war was then transferred to the OKH, which organized their onward transport to the officers’ and men’s camps in the Reich. This system had proven its worth in the first months of the war in Poland, France, Norway and the Balkans. With the start of the Russian campaign with its huge territorial gains in the first months, this system reached its limits and went beyond them. In addition, the war against Russia was planned from the start as a war of extermination, in which the rights of prisoners of war were massively curtailed. On the way to the transit camps and then to the main or officers’ camps, thousands of Red Army soldiers were shot by the escort teams. In many camps, the new arrivals were left to fend for themselves, had to live in the open air or in self-dug caves, received too little food and little or no medical care. Until September 1941, the daily rations were still relatively sufficient, after which the military leaders cut the allocations considerably. The reasons for this were the unexpected failure of a lightning victory, the lack of supplies for the army, which found too little food in the conquered areas, a lack of transport capacity and a general supply crisis that began especially at the end of 1941, the impending winter and Hitler’s initial ban on transporting Soviet prisoners to the Reich.  Hermann Göring did not want to endanger the mood of the German population by the lack of grain deliveries and falsely claimed on September 16, 1941 that, unlike other prisoners, the Bolshevik prisoners were not “bound by any international obligations”: “Their food can therefore only be based on the work they do for us.” In fact, Article 82 of the Geneva Convention of 1929, which Germany had signed in 1934, also applied to enemy states that had not joined the treaty. But at the beginning of October 1941, Quartermaster General Eduard Wagner decreed: “Non-working prisoners of war in the prison camps must starve to death. Working prisoners…

Really nice original M44, nicely marked and lightly worn. In the tunic pocket I found a Ticket for entry to a dance in Eschwege. No missing buttons, seems to be a 45 stamp beside the makers RBNR. Period applied Belt hooks as found, all the insignia seems to be period applied. Price is shipped tracked World Wide!