Memorial for Soviet POWs at Soldiers' Cemetery St. Johann/Wolfsberg

More than three million members of the Red Army died in German war captivity during World War II. This means that at least one out of every two interned individuals starved, froze, succumbed to disease, or was executed. The living conditions in the camps for Soviet war prisoners on today's Austrian territory were also catastrophic. In Stalag XVIII A in Wolfsberg, a typhus epidemic raged in December 1941. Between November 1941 and January 1, 1942, the number of Soviet war prisoners incarcerated there dropped from 1,749 to 493. It must therefore be assumed that more than one thousand people fell victim to the disease in the camp. After further deliveries, 4,000 Soviet war prisoners were housed in the camp by the end of 1942. How many of them survived the war is not known. While Western Allied prisoners of war were buried on the city cemetery in Wolfsberg, deceased Soviet prisoners of war were interred in mass graves on the St. Johann camp cemetery. The names of 356 people buried here are recorded in a memorial book. The total number of deaths is estimated at around 1,500. The deceased came from all parts of the Soviet Union; they are remembered by an obelisk adorned with a red star and a plaque inscribed in Russian.