Abstract: The subject of this article is the specifics of staffing the leadership of the special camps of the NKVD/MVD, which existed on the territory of East Germany in 1945-1950. The indicators obtained as a result of the creation and processing of the database of the leadership of the special camps are analyzed. The information potential of the created database accumulating information from the studied array of documentary sources is characterized. Special attention is paid to the consideration of the following characteristics of the senior staff of special camps, reflecting the career trajectories of employees: departmental origin; previous service experience; promotion in the system of special camps; partisanship and party seniority. In addition, through the analysis of identified archival sources, general changes in the staffing of special camps and their personnel structure are considered. Based on the queries constructed to the database and the analysis of the information structured in it, the general and specific essential characteristics of the senior staff of special camps in their dynamics are revealed. The research is based on database methods and technologies closely related to the tradition of using quantitative methods in historical research. By its type, the created database is a datalogical relational model consisting of tables connected to each other. The database was created in the Microsoft Access database management system program. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the fact that for the first time, on the basis of a wide range of archival sources, using database methods and technologies, such a little-studied problem in historiography as staffing of NKVD/MVD special camps in East Germany is considered comprehensively. A relational database created as part of the study, containing information about 80 senior employees of the special camps system, made it possible to identify the principles of filling the senior staff. It is shown that the staffing was heterogeneous. Its sources were both directly the structures of the NKVD/Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, as well as the SMERSH counterintelligence units and purely army structures. It is noted that non-core personnel were actively involved due to the constant shortage of personnel in the system of special camps, which became a characteristic feature of their functioning outside the USSR, in the occupied territory.

Abstract: The article characterizes Soviet prisoners of NKVD/MVD special camps located in East Germany in 1945-1950. On the basis of a relational database created the author analyzes gender, age and nationality of Soviet citizens (special camp prisoners) as well as their distribution according to articles of conviction, sentences and places in the camps on the USSR's territory. The sources are documents of the fund of the special camp department stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation. First of all, these are the so called echelon lists of convicted prisoners. The main methods of the study are database methods and technologies. They are used to structure the archival information about Soviet special camps prisoners and characterize them. Until now the studies about the history of special camps have somewhat ignored Soviet prisoners who made up a big part of the total number of prisoners since the extensive German historiography mainly have addressed Stalinist repressions against the Germans living in the Soviet zone of Germany occupation. The article concludes that with regard to Soviet prisoners special camps were a place of temporary detention and preservation of labor balance demanded by Gulag economy.

Abstract: The subject of this study is the liquidation process of special camps of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, which operated in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany during the period of 1945 - 1950. Based on a wide range of sources, above all sources from the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GA RF) and the Archives of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation (AVP RF), the author analyzes the complex of reasons (pertaining to both foreign and domestic policies) that prompted I. V. Stalin to make the decision to gradually release the detainees from the special camps (consisting, for the most part, of interned German citizens). The author gives particular attention to the examination of the features behind the operation of special camps in the period under review. The methodological basis of this study is constituted by the principles of historicism, analysis and synthesis, as well as the historical-genetic method, which allowed the author to consistently analyze the stages of the camp network closure within the context of the Soviet policy towards Germany. The article demonstrates how the need for the dissolution of special camps, due to their inefficiency and the high costs of their operation, gradually saturated at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, as well as presents an analysis of this process' ties with Stalin's policies in East Germany. The article substantiates the idea that the easing of the repressive policies in East Germany was directly linked to the creation of the German Democratic Republic and Stalin’s desire to consolidate as wide a range of citizens as possible around the ruling party (SED - Socialist Unity Party of Germany) to further Sovietize the country.