I bet of those 3000 Germans turned over to Russia, only a handful ever saw Germany again.
Yes, the Germans basically knew it was a death sentence. On Wikipedia, they have all sorts of historical data on Russian prison camps, and their mortality rates by various years in the war. There is also some fascinating information about each and every single German POW camp. I stumbled across this stuff last night. Wikipedia is awesome. I’ve also enjoyed the complete summary of each and every U Boat.