Immediately after the occupation of eastern Germany by the Red Army, Soviet secret service officers from the Ministry of the Interior (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs - NKVD) and the army (Army Counterintelligence - Smersch) began arresting numerous Germans whom they considered a threat to the occupying regime.
This mainly concerned former NSDAP functionaries, [Nazi?] state officials and members of the police. Later, however, the Soviet secret service also began arresting people who had expressed hostility towards the Soviet occupying power, or had been denounced by other people. Many disappeared without a trace and were arrested without charge or trial. Their families were not informed about their whereabouts.
Point 1 of the order specified which groups of people were to be committed to the special camps. Above all, it specified “active members” of the NSDAP, functionaries of the Hitler Youth, employees of the Gestapo, and leading officials of the local administration.
As the Red Army advanced into Germany in 1945, the Soviet secret service began setting up numerous provisional detention centers. Thuringia alone had around 70 confirmed places of detention. People were usually imprisoned there on suspicion of espionage, having a Nazi past, or posing a threat to the occupying power. In many cases, however, this detention was arbitrary.
