Order 7161 is the top secret

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

State Defense Committee Order no 7161ss (Постановление № 7161cc ГКО СССР) of December 16, 1944 about mobilisation and internment of able-bodied

Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...

for reparation works in the USSR. (The Cyrillic "cc" after the order number is the Russian abbreviation for "top secret".) It was part of the organisation of

forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union was considered by the Soviet Union to be part of German war reparations for the damage inflicted by Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union during the Axis-Soviet campaigns (1941-1945) of World War II. Soviet a ...

since the ending period of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Order 7161 instructed recipients to intern all able-bodied Germans of ages 17–45 (men) and 18-30 (women) residing within the territories of

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

(69,332 persons),

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

(31,923 persons),

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

(10,935 persons),

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

(215 persons) and

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

(75 persons), which were under the control of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...

, for deportation to the Soviet Union in order to perform manual, reparation works. The order remained secret in the Soviet-dominated eastern bloc until the

dissolution of the USSR The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

. The implementation of the order was assigned to the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

secret police and was taken up by its department of the Main Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees (Russian abbreviation: GUPVI).

References

Pavel Polian Pavel Markovich Polian, pseudonym: Pavel Nerler (russian: Павел Маркович Полян; born 31 August 1952) is a Russian geographer and historian, and Doctor of Geographical Sciences with the Institute of Geography (1998) of the Russian ...

, '' Against Their Will... A History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR''), ОГИ Мемориал, Moscow, 2001, (in

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

) *Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa./ Bearb. von T. Schieder. Bd. 1–5. Wolfenbattel, 1953–1961 (in

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

) *Die Deutschen Vertreibungsverluste. Bevolkerungsbilanzen fuer die deutschen Vertreibungsgebiete 1939/50. Wiesbaden, 1958 (in

) *Rhode G. Phasen und Formen der Massenzwangswanderungen in Europa. // Die Vertriebenen in Westdeutschland. Bd. 1. Kiel, 1959 (in

) *Karner, Stefan, ''Im Archipel GUPVI. Kriegsgefangenschaft und Internierung in der Sowjetunion 1941-1956.'' Wien-München 1995 (in

) *Sharkov, Anatoli, ''GUPVI Archipelago: Prisoners of War and Internees on the Territory of Belarus: 1944-1951'' (2003), Minsk, Belarus, (in

) Post–World War II forced migrations Unfree labor in the Soviet Union Aftermath of World War II in Germany Aftermath of World War II in the Soviet Union Government documents of the Soviet Union Unfree labor during World War II 1944 in the Soviet Union 1944 documents {{USSR-stub

See also

References