Das deutsche Kriegsgefangenenwesen 1939 - 1945

Zusammenfassung: Die vorliegende Untersuchung zum deutschen Kriegsgefangenenwesen (KGW) im Zweiten Weltkrieg schließt eine wichtige Lücke innerhalb der geschichtswissenschaftlichen Forschungen zum Themenkreis der Kriegsgefangenschaft in deutschem Gewahrsam. Bisherige Studien (bis einschließlich 1997) behandeln vor allem sozial- und kulturgeschichtliche Aspekte der Kriegsgefangenen (Kgf.), der Lagergesellschaft und dem Alltag von Soldaten in Kriegsgefangenschaft. Der Verfasser indes legt mit seiner Magisterarbeit erstmals eine Organisations- und Strukturgeschichte des deutschen Kriegsgefangenenwesens von 1939 bis 1945 vor, welche fundamentale Grundlagen der deutschen militärischen Lagerorganisation und Verwaltung dokumentiert. So wird die Entwicklung von den Vorkriegsplanungen bis zum Kriegsende anhand der zentralen Dienststellen herausgearbeitet und im Kontext des Genfer Kriegsgefangenenabkommens von 1929 und völkerrechtlicher Implikationen gewichtet. Hiermit untrennbar verbundene Einflußnahmen nichtmilitärischer Stellen in die Entscheidungsgewalt der Streitkräfte im Heimatkriegsgebiet und in den Wehrmachtbefehlshaberbereichen werden nicht zuletzt auch anhand mehrerer Organigramme veranschaulicht. Zudem dokumentiert und analysiert die Untersuchung die im Kriegsverlauf stetig verschärften Maßnahmen zur Fluchtprävention und der konzertierten Fahndung nach geflohenen Kriegsgefangenen: Die Machterosion des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht (OKW) zugunsten des Reichsführers-SS, des Reichssicherheitshauptamts und nicht zuletzt der Parteikanzlei der NSDAP wird so augenfällig. Trotz eminenter Schriftgutverluste kann der Verfasser vor allem anhand einer nahezu vollständig erhaltenen Schlüsselquelle die Stellenbesetzung und Organisationsstruktur der mit Kriegsgefangenenfragen befassten Stellen im OKW rekonstruieren. Die Auswertung dieser Sammelmitteilungen / Befehlssammlung für das Kriegsgefangenenwesen sowie an anderer Stelle überlieferter Organisationsbefehle ermöglicht wichtige Änderungen am derzeitigen Forschungsstand. Darüber hinaus beschäftigt sich die vorliegende Untersuchung mit dem Arbeitseinsatz Kriegsgefangener in der deutschen Wirtschaft als in der zweiten Kriegshälfte zentralem Element der Kriegsgefangenschaft. Außerdem wird beleuchtet, welche politischen, (rassen)ideologischen oder reziprok konnotierten Faktoren den Stellenwert gefangener Soldaten unterschiedlicher Nationalität innerhalb der Gefangenenhierarchie im deutschen Kriegsgefangenenwesen bestimmten. Inhalt: 1. Einführung; 2. Die Entwicklung des Kriegsvölkerrechts und das Genfer Kriegsgefangenenabkommen von 1929; 3. Einleitende Bemerkungen zum deutschen Kriegsgefangenenwesen: Quellenlage, Grundlagen; 4. Organisationsstruktur und Aufgaben des KGW: Zuständigkeiten für Kgf. in OKW und OKH, Abt. Wehrmachtverluste und Kriegsgefangene, der General z.b.V. für das KGW 1939 bis Ende 1941, Allgemeine und Organisationsabteilung seit Januar 1942, Generalinspekteur und Inspekteur des KGW von Juli 1943 bis Oktober 1944, das Kriegsgefangenenwesen unter Himmler seit Oktober 1944; 5. Die Kriegsgefangenenlager: Lagertypen, Anzahl und Verwendung, die Gesamtzahl Kgf. und Belegstärken ausgewählter Lager; 6. Richtlinien für KGL: Die Sammelmitteilungen / Befehlssammlung für das KGW, Lagerorganisation und Behandlung Kriegsgefangener; 7. Die Post der Kriegsgefangenen: Tätigkeit von Auslandsbriefprüfstelle, Abwehr III Referat Kgf. und Abwehrstellen der Wehrkreise, Vorgaben für Postüberwachung und Stimmungsberichte der Asten, Befehle zur Kgf-Post und Kooperation mit Hilfsorganisationen und Schutzmächten; 8. Fluchtprävention: Bestimmungen und Maßnahmen zur Fluchtvereitelung, der Fluchterlass vom 22.09.1942, der Sonderfahndungsplan der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD vom 28.09.1942, Erlass zur Kriegsfahndung vom 5.12.1942, der Fluchterlaß vom 02.07.1943, der Erlaß zur Mitarbeit NSDAP bei Groß- und Kriegsfahndungen vom 10.07.1943, Schulung zur Fluchtprävention auf Wehrkreisebene 1944, Preisausschreiben "Wie verhindere ich Fluchten?" vom 09.04.1945, Anwerbung von V-Leuten durch die Abwehr; 9. Arbeitseinsatz Kriegsgefangener in der deutschen Wirtschaft und beteiligte Stellen; 10. Der Status Kriegsgefangener unterschiedlicher Nationalitäten im Vergleich; 11. Schluss

The shaping of foreign policy: Vietnamese grand strategy after the Cold War

This study examines the case of Vietnam and uses the method of process tracing to explore the sources of foreign policy choice and change. Foreign policy is derived from grand strategy, which refers to the full package of a state’s domestic and foreign policies. I argue that a state’s grand strategy results from the interaction of four factors—its society’s historical experience, social motivation, international power, and political contest among domestic groups. Grand strategies emerge as a response to perceived shifts in the balance of international economic, political, and military power. However, this is not to say that international pressures and incentives are translated into foreign policy. Rather, pressures and incentives are given meaning by worldviews, which reflect a society’s historical experiences of its place in the international system at traumatic junctures of its encounter with the outside world. Strategic changes in foreign policy follow what I call the “strategic algorithm,” which incorporates four major mechanisms—balancing against threat, bandwagoning with power, learning, and survival by transformation. This case study generates hypotheses for a theory of strategic choice, a theory of foreign policy transformation, and a theory of grand strategy emergence.

Copper and zinc stable isotope ratios as tracers of biogeochemical processes, sources and transport of Cu and Zn in soils

Copper and Zn are essential micronutrients for plants, animals, and humans; however, they may also be pollutants if they occur at high concentrations in soil. Therefore, knowledge of Cu and Zn cycling in soils is required both for guaranteeing proper nutrition and to control possible risks arising from pollution.rnThe overall objective of my study was to test if Cu and Zn stable isotope ratios can be used to investigate into the biogeochemistry, source and transport of these metals in soils. The use of stable isotope ratios might be especially suitable to trace long-term processes occurring during soil genesis and transport of pollutants through the soil. In detail, I aimed to answer the questions, whether (1) Cu stable isotopes are fractionated during complexation with humic acid, (2) 65Cu values can be a tracer for soil genetic processes in redoximorphic soils (3) 65Cu values can help to understand soil genetic processes under oxic weathering conditions, and (4) 65Cu and 66Zn values can act as tracers of sources and transport of Cu and Zn in polluted soils.rnTo answer these questions, I ran adsorption experiments at different pH values in the laboratory and modelled Cu adsorption to humic acid. Furthermore, eight soils were sampled representing different redox and weathering regimes of which two were influenced by stagnic water, two by groundwater, two by oxic weathering (Cambisols), and two by podzolation. In all horizons of these soils, I determined selected basic soil properties, partitioned Cu into seven operationally defined fractions and determined Cu concentrations and Cu isotope ratios (65Cu values). Finally, three additional soils were sampled along a deposition gradient at different distances to a Cu smelter in Slovakia and analyzed together with bedrock and waste material from the smelter for selected basic soil properties, Cu and Zn concentrations and 65Cu and 66Zn values.rnMy results demonstrated that (1) Copper was fractionated during adsorption on humic acid resulting in an isotope fractionation between the immobilized humic acid and the solution (65CuIHA-solution) of 0.26 ± 0.11‰ (2SD) and that the extent of fractionation was independent of pH and involved functional groups of the humic acid. (2) Soil genesis and plant cycling causes measurable Cu isotope fractionation in hydromorphic soils. The results suggested that an increasing number of redox cycles depleted 63Cu with increasing depth resulting in heavier 65Cu values. (3) Organic horizons usually had isotopically lighter Cu than mineral soils presumably because of the preferred uptake and recycling of 63Cu by plants. (4) In a strongly developed Podzol, eluviation zones had lighter and illuviation zones heavier 65Cu values because of the higher stability of organo-65Cu complexes compared to organo-63Cu complexes. In the Cambisols and a little developed Podzol, oxic weathering caused increasingly lighter 65Cu values with increasing depth, resulting in the opposite depth trend as in redoximorphic soils, because of the preferential vertical transport of 63Cu. (5) The 66Zn values were fractionated during the smelting process and isotopically light Zn was emitted allowing source identification of Zn pollution while 65Cu values were unaffected by the smelting and Cu emissions isotopically indistinguishable from soil. The 65Cu values in polluted soils became lighter down to a depth of 0.4 m indicating isotope fractionation during transport and a transport depth of 0.4 m in 60 years. 66Zn values had an opposite depth trend becoming heavier with depth because of fractionation by plant cycling, speciation changes, and mixing of native and smelter-derived Zn. rnCopper showed measurable isotope fractionation of approximately 1‰ in unpolluted soils, allowing to draw conclusions on plant cycling, transport, and redox processes occurring during soil genesis and 65Cu and 66Zn values in contaminated soils allow for conclusions on sources (in my study only possible for Zn), biogeochemical behavior, and depth of dislocation of Cu and Zn pollution in soil. I conclude that stable Cu and Zn isotope ratios are a suitable novel tool to trace long-term processes in soils which are difficult to assess otherwise.rn

Generation of FLT3-ITD-reactive T-cell populations from different sources

Approximately 25% of acute myeloid leukemias (AMLs) carry internal tandem duplications (ITD) of various lengths within the gene encoding the FMS-like tyrosine kinase receptor 3 (FLT3). Although varying duplication sites exist, most of these length mutations affect the protein´s juxtamembrane domain. FLT3-ITDs support leukemic transformation by constitutive phosphorylation resulting in uncontrolled activation, and their presence is associated with worse prognosis. As known form previous work, they represent leukemia- and patient-specific neoantigens that can be recognized by autologous AML-reactive CD8+ T cells (Graf et al., 2007; Graf et al., unpublished). Herein, in patient FL, diagnosed with FLT3-ITD+ AML and in first complete remission after induction chemotherapy, T cells against her leukemia´s individual FLT3-ITD were detected at a frequency up to 1.7x10-3 among peripheral blood CD8+ T lymphocytes. This rather high frequency suggested, that FLT3-ITD-reactive T cells had been expanded in vivo due to the induction of an anti-leukemia response.rnrnCell material from AML patients is limited, and the patients´ anti-leukemia T-cell repertoire might be skewed, e.g. due to complex previous leukemia-host interactions and chemotherapy. Therefore, allogeneic sources, i.e. buffy coats (BCs) from health donors and umbilical cord blood (UCB) donations, were exploited for the presence and the expansion of FLT3-ITD-reactive T-cell populations. BC- and UCB-derived CD8+ T cells, were distributed at 105 cells per well on microtiter plates and, were stimulated with antigen-presenting cells (APCs) transfected with in vitro-transcribed mRNA (IVT-mRNA) encoding selected FTL3-ITDs. APCs were autologous CD8- blood mononuclear cells, monocytes or FastDCs.rnrnBuffy coat lymphocytes from 19 healthy individuals were analyzed for CD8+ T-cell reactivity against three immunogenic FLT3-ITDs previously identified in patients VE, IN and QQ and designated as VE_, IN_ and QQ_FLT3-ITD, respectively. These healthy donors carried at least one of the HLA I alleles known to present an ITD-derived peptide from one of these FLT3-ITDs. Reactivities against single ITDs were observed in 8/19 donors. In 4 donors the frequencies of ITD-reactive T cells were determined and were estimated to be in the range of 1.25x10-6 to 2.83x10-7 CD8+ T cells. These frequencies were 1,000- to 10,000-fold lower than the frequency of autologous FLT3-ITD-reactive T cells observed in patient FL. Restricting HLA I molecules were identified in two donors. In one of them, the recognition of VE_FLT3-ITD was found to be restricted by HLA-C*07:02, which is different from the HLA allele restricting the anti-ITD T cells of patient VE. In another donor, the recognition of IN_FLT3-ITD was restricted by HLA-B*35:01, which also had been observed in patient IN (Graf et al., unpublished). By gradual 3´-fragmentation of the IN_FLT3-ITD cDNA, the 10-mer peptide CPSDNEYFYV was identified as the target of allogeneic T cells against IN_FLT3-ITD. rnLymphocytes in umbilical cord blood predominantly exhibit a naïve phenotype. Seven UCB donations were analyzed for T-cell responses against the FLT3-ITDs of patients VE, IN, QQ, JC and FL irrespective of their HLA phenotype. ITD-reactive responses against all stimulatory FLT3-ITDs were observed in 5/7 UCB donations. The frequencies of T cells against single FLT3-ITDs in CD8+ lymphocytes were estimated to be in the range of 1.8x10-5 to 3.6x10-6, which is nearly 15-fold higher than the frequencies observed in BCs. Restricting HLA I molecules were identified in 4 of these 5 positive UCB donations. They were mostly different from those observed in the respective patients. But in one UCB donation T cells against the JC_FLT3-ITD had exactly the same peptide specificity and HLA restriction as seen before in patient JC (Graf et al., 2007). Analyses of UCB responder lymphocytes led to the identification of the 10-mer peptide YESDNEYFYV, encoded by FL_FLT3-ITD, that was recognized in association with the frequent allele HLA-A*02:01. This peptide was able to stimulate and enrich ITD-reactive T cells from UCB lymphocytes in vitro. Peptide responders not only recognized the peptide, but also COS-7 cells co-transfected with FL_FLT3-ITD and HLA-A*02:01.rnrnIn conclusion, T cells against AML- and individual-specific FLT3-ITDs were successfully generated not only from patient-derived blood, but also from allogeneic sources. Thereby, ITD-reactive T cells were detected more readily and at higher frequencies in umbilical cord blood than in buffy coat lymphocytes. It occurred that peptide specificity and HLA restriction of allogeneic, ITD-reactive T cells were identical to autologous patient-derived T cells. As shown herein, allogeneic, FLT3-ITD-reactive T cells can be used for the identification of FLT3-ITD-encoded peptides, e.g. for future therapeutic vaccination studies. In addition, these T cells or their receptors can be applied to adoptive transfer.