Hey everybody,
So my mother used to tell me a story about my grandfather that I would like to know if it could be true or not. I unfortunately couldn't ask him personally about it, because he suffered from parkinson's later in life and died before I developed a deeper interest in history.
So, my grandfather got drafted into the Wehrmacht very late in the war, because he was relativly young. I'm guesing we are talking 44/45 here. I don't know much about where he was stationed or anything else. It was not something which we discussed very often. I know that he was captured on the Austrian border. I don't know if it was by the Russians or Allies and I also don't know on which border excactly.
Now, here is the part of the story that I don't know is true or not:
Because he was from Upper Silesia, he was supposed to be send back there and basically live in the USSR. He didn't want to be send there (I think the rest of his family at that time has already fled the region) so he "accidentally" got his hand stuck in the train door, which led to him being sent to a rehabilitation center in Allied occupied territory. He met my grandmother there and my family basically stayed in the region until today.
Sorry for the wall of text and the little information I can give. I am prepared to accept the whole story as completly false. Any perspective on this story would be appreciated. In summary I think my main questions are this:
TL;DR: Were german POWs transfered into the USSR? Could he avoid this by getting hurt?
Short answer: this story seems unlikely but not impossible. There were some three million Germans taken as POWs by the Soviet Union during the war, mostly as the Soviets pushed the Germans back out of Russia and into Germany. Many of the Germans that were taken as POWs were used as forced labor and, in general, were not treated all the well. It also seems unlikely that the Soviets would turn a prisoner over to the other allies, but maybe there were extenuating circumstances. I'm sure that are others in this subreddit that can help you more than I can but I guess I would say that what your family says happened to your grandad isn't impossible but, if it did happen, he was incredibly lucky.
If he was captured near Austria he would have been in Bavaria, which was under US control at the end of the War.
Not all POWs wanted to return into the hands of the Soviets. Basically US, French, or English didn't want them in their territory. So shipping them into Soviet Controlled Territory would have been done. Since his home was now Poland, he would have been handed over the Soviets in most circumstances.
Any idea when he was born? If 1930 or 1931, most soldiers would have realized he was just a kid during "Operation Keelhaul" and looked the other way.
Horrible time as "White Russians" (i.e. non communist) residing in Britain were shipped back to Russia, and immediately shipped off to gulags.
Your story is very reasonable.
Any idea when he was born? What year he meet your Oma?