Stalag Luft III

Model of the film set of Busted Chains , Stammlager Luft III in the Sagan Museum of the Martyrdom of Prisoners of War

The Stalag Luft III (abbreviation for main camp of the Luftwaffe ) was founded in May 1942 in a forest near the city of Sagan (now Polish: Żagań ) and the POW camp of the Army Stalag VIII C in Lower Silesia - about 160 km southeast of Berlin - founded. It was one of six German prisoner-of-war camps that were specifically designed for the increasing number of enemy air force prisoners being captured. While in the beginning mainly British and Americans were imprisoned, pilots from other nations also joined later. In June 1944, the camp housed 10,494 officers and NCOs of the Luftwaffe.

Stalag III became known mainly through a few eruptions. During the largest escape operation, over 80 soldiers temporarily found their way to freedom. This outbreak was filmed in 1962 under the title Broken Chains .

Towards the end of the Second World War , 2000 captured officers were transferred from Stalag Luft III to main camp VII A in Moosburg an der Isar (Upper Bavaria) (access there on February 2, 1945).

The camp commandant was Friedrich Wilhelm von Lindeiner-Wildau.

The escape from Stalag Luft III in March 1944

Preparations

Under the direction of Squadron Leader Roger Bushell (1910-1944), the prisoners dug three tunnels named "Tom", "Dick" and "Harry". “Tom” was supposed to be the most important and actual escape tunnel; it was worked on most intensively. "Harry" was the reserve tunnel and "Dick" the sacrificial tunnel. It was intended to be discovered if the activities in the camp were linked to the construction of a tunnel. Should the camp management then specifically look for a tunnel, "Dick" should be discovered by them in order to distract from the other two.

“Tom” was discovered by accident after just five months of construction. Little is known about the career of "Dick" - American sources write that "Dick" was never discovered by the Germans, but only became known when the camp was liberated. It is more likely, however, that "Dick" was also discovered in the course of the large-scale search of the warehouse after the discovery of "Tom" to secure the tools. In the following, all work concentrated on "Harry", who had his entrance in a washroom.

Nationalities of the 50 executed
United Kingdom 21 British
Canada 6 Canadians
Poland 6 Poland
Australia 5 Australians
South Africa 3 South Africans
Norway 2 Norwegians
New Zealand 2 New Zealanders
Greece 1 Greek
France 1 French
Lithuania 1 Lithuanian
Czechoslovakia 1 Czech
Belgium 1 Belgian

The outbreak

On the night of March 24th to March 25th, 1944, the escape through the remaining tunnel "Harry" began at around 10:30 p.m. "Harry" was 102 m long, had three intermediate stations, measured 0.70 m × 0.70 m and ran around 8.5 m below the sward . The actual start of the escape, namely the exit outside the camp, was delayed due to the fact that the ground was still frozen at this time of the year and it took around four hours longer than planned to penetrate to the surface.

The tunnel was also around ten meters too short, so that it did not end in the forest as planned, but just before it. This in turn required a synchronization of the exit from the tunnel with the guard patrol. This again delayed the planned course of the outbreak, and it quickly became clear to those involved that not 220 people, as planned and prepared, would be able to flee, but only about 100. The escape was discovered around 4:55 a.m. At this time, 87 people had passed the tunnel, but 11 of them were already in the adjacent forest and were therefore not counted as escaped. Then 76 people managed to escape. However, due to the winter weather conditions at the time with ice and snow, all but three of these were recaptured.

Execution and criminal prosecution

On Hitler's orders (the so-called Sagan order), 50 of those captured were selected on the instruction of Arthur Nebe and shot by a Gestapo commando allegedly “while on the run” between April 6 and 18, 1944 . The police - and Gestapo -Staff were after the war in the British interrogation center London Cage heard. On September 3, 1947, a British military tribunal sentenced 14 people involved in the shooting to death (13 death sentences were carried out in the Hameln penitentiary in early 1948 ) and a further four people to long prison terms. In a second trial, three other parties were on trial a little later. The British were still looking for Nebe months after the war because they did not trust the information that he had been executed in early March 1945 for participating in the attempted coup of July 20, 1944 .

A memorial plaque for four prisoners who came to Flintbek in Schleswig-Holstein and were killed there by the Gestapo has been commemorating this murder since March 29, 2018.

Prominent prisoners

Peter Butterworth - British comedian and actor
Rupert Davies - British actor
Nicholas Katzenbach - American lawyer, politician and Minister of Justice ( Attorney General )
Romualdas Marcinkus - Lithuanian football player and fighter pilot
Talbot Rothwell - British novelist and screenwriter
Peter Thomas - British Conservative Party politician
Alvin W. Vogtle - American industrialist