Altogether 141 prisoners died in Oflag VI-B. Adventure, Drama, War. Reports from December30th 1942show 250 other ranks held here. Once the military complex was completed in 1938/39, the workers' camp fell into disuse. New Zealand Brigadiers James Hargest and Reginald Miles escaped to Switzerland. Oflag IVC, Colditz, 1941. Many prisoners escaped into the Apennine Mountains when guards deserted as the Italian Armistice was announced on 8th September 1943. The men were marched along country roads towards the Oder, first north towards Dresden, then when the Germans changed their mind, south towards Bavaria, eventually reaching Stalag XIII-D near Nuremberg. Stalag X-B was a World War II German Prisoner-of-war camp located near Sandbostel in north-western Germany. On 12 April 1945 large numbers were marched to Stalag VII-A, and on 16 April the camp was liberated by advance elements of the United States Army, Stalag XVII-A Kaisersteinbruck Bei Bruck Austria Location N/E 48-16. There were 4 sub camps located in the vicinity also. Director: Search them here now. Disguised as members of the league of German girls. This camp was unique in that it comprised several buildings in the centre of the small town, from which the remaining Polish inhabitants had been removed. They were then transported to the Buchenwald concentration camp and executed. 2411 POWs mostly USAAF, evacuated to Stalag IV on 14/7/44. The main centre used during the war was at Oberursel near Frankfurt. The author himself narrates the audiobook - I truly enjoyed listening to the tales of this strange Nazi castle and the many brave men who were so determined to escape. A card index to additional more comprehensive Liberation reports in WO 208/3328-3340 is located in the Document Reading Room at The National Archives. Jack Watson, PG Allied prisoners - British, Dutch, French and Polish - pool their resources to plan numerous escapes from the "escape-proof" German P.O.W. Originally opened in May1941 the camp reported having 1officers and 10other ranks on 26th February 1943. Broadcast Sun 26 Feb 2023 at 9:30pm. Stalag II-E Schwerin Mecklenberg Location N/E 53-11. It is possible that the large number or escape attempts and the close proximity to the Swiss border (only 110 km/68 miles away) prompted the authorities to move the prisoners. Discover Colditz Castle in Colditz, Germany: An officers prison camp believed to be impregnable by the Germans saw over 30 successful escapes. Grumello del Piano/del silenzio /Grumillina. The Colditz Story: Directed by Guy Hamilton. The camp was located on the outskirts of the village of Wutzezt. On 24 November 1941, N was put in a punishment cell after being found with a (home made) chitty and behaving against the rules. Housed up to 2,000 eastern European POWs, this was the biggest POW camp in Umbria. 86 min Starting in 1940, this gloomy, Saxon castle above a small town in eastern Germany was used to house the most "difficult" of the Allied POWs. In July 1942 a new camp at Mhrisch-Trbau, about 200 km (120 mi) to the south, was designated Oflag VIII-F, while the original camp was redesignated Oflag VIII F/Z, a sub-camp of Mhrisch-Trbau. It can take a year or more to receive information back, however, the ICRC archive records are usually also cross-referenced against the original German records and a copy of the original record is supplied which confirms all details held, these can range from a single A4 sheet to a few pages depending on whether a complaint was placed with the ICRC during the war. Located in Laufen Castle, in Laufen in south-eastern Bavaria from 1940 to 1942. SHAEF report of February 1945 shows 5390 Polish POWs here. Fort 12 (XII) named after Wladyslawa Jagielty. Reports on the condition of British and Dominion PoWs in German and Japanese camps towards the end of the war occur in AIR 40/2361 and 2366. Stalag VIII-C Sagan (Moved to Kunau Sprottau) (9 work camps) Silesia Location N/E 51-15. In October 1944 a small number of higher ranking officers arrived from the Warsaw Uprising. The Kommandatur contained the headquarters and administration buildings, while the Stabslager and the Wache contained accommodation for the administrative personnel and the camp guards. The camp was situated on a former army training ground (bungsplatz), and had been used during World War I as a camp for Soviet prisoners. According to Oflag IVC on 29 August 1941, N tried to escape from the camp after evening roll call, using a fake German uniform, but was stopped at the gate post and seized. | Lieutenant Leo de Hartog holding 'Moritz', one of the two dummy heads of POWs made to mislead German guards during daily roll calls. It was designed to hold 10,000 men, was the largest in the 3rd Military District, and was considered a model for other camps. They were then moved out to other camps, the Commonwealth flying personnel to Stalag Luft III Sagan, others to Oflag XXI-C Ostrzeszw. Despite these precautions, Upham bolted from his little courtyard, straight through the German barracks and out through the front gate of the camp. Introduction: The Colditz Phenomenon View chapter 1 Capture and Interrogation View chapter 2 Transit and Processing View chapter 3 Compounds and Commandants View chapter 4 Leaders and Followers View chapter 5 Body and Soul View chapter 6 Work and Play View chapter 7 Reprisals and Rewards View chapter 8 Allies and Aliens View chapter Oflag VII-B Eichstatt (British) Bavaria 49-11, Oflag X-B Nienburg An Der Weser Hanover, Prussia 52-09, Oflag XII-B Hadamar Hessen-Nassau, Prussia 50-08. If one is interested in spy craft and traitors during World War II and the Cold War there are few authors that have produced more satisfying works than Ben Macintyre. The camp was eventually dissolved, and its attendees were sent to fight on the Eastern Front, or interned in concentration camps after 1943. This camp was used after the armistice to house the 40,000 Jews from Modena/Bologna before their transfer to Auschwitz. Size salary was dependent of your military rank and was for Colonel 150 (eg, Brigadier 180), Col. 120, Major 108, Captain 98, Lt. 81, Lieutenant 72. It could have ended much worse. This is sometimes confusing as Italy also had concentration camps in the normal sense of the word for holding of Political opponents and Jews. Official position given is 43:14N - 13:41E Located at Lichterfelde-Sud in the south west of Berlin also known as Steglitz-Berlin. $10.85M, Approved Also at Suwalki, Poland. On the night of 17 September 1943 a large group of prisoners escaped. When a prison guard pointed a pistol at his head and threatened to shoot, Upham calmly ignored him and lit a cigarette. This information will help us make improvements to the website. 20,770 POWs here (53 British) with 1735 Officers. This mine was taken over by IG Farben in 1943, in the July of that year after an inspection by IG Farben the POWs were sent elsewhere and replaced by Auschwitz KL prisoners instead. Virginia McKenna, | Despite the designation of "escape proof," Colditz turned out to be the ideal camp for escape-inclined Allied prisoners. The Senior British Officer was Major-General V. M. Fortune. Became a branch camp of Stalag IIIb in June 1942. The camp housed around 2,500 British and 900 other commonwealth and allied nations' POWs and 7,500 USAAF in huts (10 x 12 metres) for 15 men with 3 tier bunks. Kriegslazarett Kriegslazarett-Abteilung 604 - Military Hospital in the, (3.10.1944) Stalag 304 Zeithain (Soviet POWS), British & Imperial Prisoners of War held in Germany WWII. Rachel Kempson, Within months two officers from Dssel, Lieutenant Jock Hamilton-Baillie and Captain Frank Weldon, proposed digging a tunnel north from Block 2's latrine to a villager's chicken coop about 30 m (98 ft) away. Reports from 26th February 1943 show 1000 other ranks here, the camp opened originally in October 1942. In June 1940, Belgian and French POWs were housed in the former Bergen-Belsen construction workers camp. | In the summer of 1941 Australians and New Zealanders captured in Greece and Crete during the Balkans Campaign arrived in the camp. In April 1944 the count of internees in Laufen included 459 British internees (417 Channel Islanders) and 120 American civilians who had been trapped in Europe when war was suddenly declared in December 1941. Stalag XXa (also known as Stalag 301, 312 and 357). | Gross: The camp was adjoined on one side to Stalag VIIIc, the 'other ranks' army camp, although the administration of both camps was entirely seperate. Richard Attenborough, Then a separate camp, Oflag II-E, was built for them on the west side of the main road. He was also recaptured. The sentry was not satisfied with their gate pass, so Stevens marched his party back into the camp. Besides, some include dates of death, exchange, repatriation and arrival back in the United Kingdom. For this item, that is: If you would like to use IWM collections materials in a way that is not covered above, require a commercial licence, high-resolution copies, or have manipulation requests, please contact theMedia Sales & Licensing Team. P.G. There were about 500 Soviets, 200 Frenchmen, 100 Americans and 25 Canadians in the march. On the way to the border they were stopped by an SS policeman, but their forged papers were sufficient to pass inspection. 172 min His job was to keep them imprisoned and their job was to escape. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. H 203 Castel S.Pietro (Bologna) Military Hospital. The War Office Registered Files (WO 32 (code 91)) and the Directorate of Military Operations Collation Files (WO 193/343-359) both contain material on Allied POWs. 150 feet above sea level, bungalows surrounded by playing fields and gardens, educational courses also were held here! As the war progressed, prisoners of other nationalities arrived at Stalag V-A. They give details of name, rank and service/army number as well as regiment/corps, prisoner of war number and, presumably, the camp location when the register was made. | From May/June 1940 Dutch and Belgian prisoners arrived from the Battle of France, followed by French. 50 Caserna Genova Cavalleria Macao (Rome). Drama, Romance, War. 111 min Jean Negulesco They hatched a plan to escape through a kitchen window and then make a dash to freedom, through the courtyard and through the walls across the dry moat to the final row of barbed wire. He relates stories of British, Polish, and French prisoners, and . The War Diary of MI9, the division of Military Intelligence that dealt with escapers and evaders of all services, is in WO 165/39, while its papers including files concerning all aspects of the department's work are in WO 208/3242-356. The camp was burned between May 16 and May 25 and the last 350 patients left the hospital on June 3. Opened 02/41 Closed 10/44 - mostly French officers. They awoke one morning to discover that their guards had deserted them. Pneumonia, diphtheria, pellagra, typhus, trench foot, tuberculosis and other diseases ran rampant among the POWs. BBC News. Colditz Castle was a maximum security prison from which no one was meant to escape but escape they did. The first transport numbering 2254 POWs (1618 officers and 636 other ranks) arrived at the camp on 6th November 1939. Part of one barrack was set aside for use as a chapel. In October 1944, as the Red Army approached, the guards abandoned the camp leaving 4,029 Soviet prisoners behind. Work parties were drawn from this camp to work at Agricultural tasks under Campo 106 and 107. Several escape attempts, one successful on March 29th 1943 - Six British and New Zealand officers escaped through a tunnel from Castello di Vincigliata (Campo 12) near Florence, Italy. The unlucky ones got "liberated" by the Soviets, who instead of turning them over quickly to the western allies, held them as virtual hostages for several more months. Nominal rolls for some Japanese camps are among papers prepared for a history of the RAF services in AIR 49/383-388, but they are generally disappointing. They were divided among the 25 huts to work as orderlies, in addition to the lower ranks that were already doing this work. When the Soviet front approached, orders were given to move the prisoners to other camps further west. Oflag XIII-A was opened in August 1940 to accommodate mainly French officers captured during the Battle of France. According to the German Security Officer, Captain Reinhold Eggers, the Dutch officers appeared to be model prisoners at first. Every report includes a narrative, of variable length, which describes an individual's experiences as an escaper, evader or prisoner of war. Under contruction according to USSME reports in 1943. Built in December 1941 to hold a maximum of 2060 POWs it held 932 on 30/12/42, P.G. Moved from Spittal to Wagna in 1942. They were housed in the open while huts were being built. The castle sits on a steep hill overlooking the Mulde River as it flows through the small Saxon town of Colditz, about 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Leipzig. There were also seven Dutch and 27 Polish generals, with orderlies. On the night of 27 September 1944 British aircraft attacking the nearby railroad junction in Nrde, dropped some bombs on the camp, killing 90 officers. The camp covered an area of 37,000 square metres, divided into two sections but not separated by barbed wire. The Italian camps were in operation right up until the armistice on September 8th 1943, however the Germans very quickly took control of the north of Italy immediately afterwards and any POWs either still in the camps (under the stand fast order of the British high command) or in the vicinity were quickly rounded up and sent north to camps in Germany. Broke into Kommandant's office, cut hole into storeroom, out of storeroom in German and Polish orderly uniforms. It grew quickly from a few tents to a large POW camp with concrete buildings for the German officers and guards, and 40 large wooden barracks for the prisoners. Below is a list of attempts to escape from Oflag IV-C, the famous prisoner-of-war camp. The north and south parts of the camp consisted of tall storage buildings housing up to 2000 POWs each on just the one floor. Director: The military authorities decided to conscript local German civilian women to assist with the rescue and clean up work. Forty-six prisoners and several guards were killed. By 1941 a theatre had been built. Infamous for the unprecedented murder under the orders of Hitler/Himmler by the Gestapo of 50 Prisoners of War and the attempted cover up of these murders afterwards. Upham was only allowed to visit the toilet when the train was travelling at high speed, to prevent him from jumping through a window. The POW population in Stalag XVII B was around 100,000 with up to 40,000 in the camp proper and another 60,000 prisoners outside the camp assigned to Arbeitskommando (Work Detail) groups to provide labour for nearby farms, factories and businesses. The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz - Denis Avey [see here]. The camp was located at Waggum near Braunschweig in Germany, also known by the English name of Brunswick. Most of the men were moved by train to Stalag XX-A in West Prussia, but some 900 were taken to the port of Memel, where they were put aboard the merchant ship Insterburg for a 60-hour journey to Swinemnde. Conditions in this camp were deplorable, as the rules of the Third Geneva Convention were not observed for Soviet prisoners. Walter Fitzgerald, Director: Stalag XX-A was a German World War II prisoner of war camp located in Thorn/Torun, Poland. In August 1943 the first American prisoners arrived having been taken prisoner in Tunisia. Stalag XII-A to IX-B Limburg An Der Lahn Hessen-Nassau, Prussia Location N/E 50-08. They were escorted to the main gate by another prisoner, John Milner, dressed in a German officers uniform that had been found in an apparently forgotten set of attic rooms. They crossed a bridge over the river Oder on 21 January, reached Goldberg on 5 February, and were loaded onto a train. for POWs to be transferred to Stalag II-D Stargard according to SHAEF reports dated 10/2/45. Airey Neave was sent there in May 1941 after escaping from his previous camp. The castle was first used as a camp in 1933-34, named KZ Hohnstein. 47083 (5191 British) POWs with 927 officers held here. This march was one of the "Long Marches". Nordeney Forced Labour camp, mostly Soviet, 1500 prisoners. There are also unconfirmed listings of another OFLAG 83 LXXXIII at Winniza in the Ukraine. There are document pouches for individual seamen in BT 373/360-3716. 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