Stalag X-B

Stalag X-B was a World War II German Prisoner-of-war camp located near Sandbostel in Lower Saxony in north-western Germany. Between 1939 and 1945 several hundred thousand POWs of 55 nations passed through the camp. Due to the bad conditions in which they were housed, thousands died there of hunger, disease, or were killed by the guards. Estimates of the number of dead range from 8,000 to 50,000.Establishment and operationSandbostel lies 9 km south of Bremervörde, 43 km northeast of Bremen. In what was then the Province of Hanover, the Lutheran Church of the State of Hanover opened a camp for out of work singles and employed them in public works (roadworks, amelioration) in 1932, during the Great Depression.In 1933, the Reichsarbeitsdienst took over the camp and used it later as a Nazi internment camp for undesirables.In August 1939, a commission of Heeresbauamt Bremen (military construction department) decided to create a Mannschafts-Stammlager (POW camp) for the local Wehrkreis X. In September, construction of the camp began between the village of Sandbostel and the Arbeitsdienstlager in the Teufelsmoor. The latter area was now used as barracks to house the Wehrmacht guards.