We trace the route of the tunnel before ending at the memorial at its exit before walking through the woods heading for the train station, as the POWs did on the night of The Great Escape. At the station we explain why the station route went wrong for so many as they were caught out by the Air Raid shelter blocking their way — the shelter whose existence we discovered a few years ago and shed light on this tragic part fo the tale.
A moving day is ended a short walk away and outside the camp at the small cemetery where other POWs were buired. Here there is a memorial the POWs build to the murdered 50 airmen. After a hearty breakfast we travel by taxi to the train station. Here we go into detail about how the POWs would arrive at the camp. We follow their route along the tracks to enter into the camp system via the oldest part of the camp, the East Compound.
Before we enter we see the famous Grain Store, still used today, and the location of the German Labour Service camp, whose buildings are still there. We then go through the East Compound entrance and into the Vorlager. We then head into the large German administrative area called the Kommandantur where there are lots of German Camp remains to see.
Finally we end up next door in the North Compound on the perimeter road by the Harry Exit. We walk back to the train station where, after collecting our luggage from the hotel by taxi, we are able to have lunch before heading back to central Berlin to arrive by train early evening.
To visit Stalag Luft III on the anniversary of The Great Escape, as we do every year, is a very moving experience and one we very much hope you wish to share with us. As is the 75th Anniversary of The Great Escape there will be official commemorations which, when details are released, we will work in to our itinerary.
The scanned page was taken from a logbook written by my father, 2LT Robert G. He was downed by flak on a mission to Berlin in May of Ink drawing of Leonard D. Culbertson by William P. This was one of many drawings found in Bill's Wartime Journal. Compared to other prisoner of war camps throughout the Axis world, it was a model of civilized internment. The Geneva Convention of on the treatment of prisoners of war was complied with as much as possible, but it was still war, still prison, and still grim.
Prisoner of War POW. He was shot down on 14 May in P He became involved in a dogfight with FW's in support of Bs. He came down in North Sea near Belgian coast and By September the prisoners at the camp were mainly French, with officers up the rank of colonel, and 28 generals. There were also seven Dutch and 27 Polish generals, with orderlies.
By the end of October all these prisoners had been transferred to other camps, and the castle was then used to accommodate evacuee children from Hamburg and Berlin.
At the start of the war most high-ranking Polish officers were imprisoned there. The staff officers were imprisoned in the casemates and the generals in one of the forts. The lower-ranking officers were incarcerated in the lower levels of the fortress. Despite harsh conditions in the living chambers, the officers were granted relative freedom and had a part of the fortress gardens at their disposal. Apart from Antoni Szylling and Tadeusz Piskor, who were imprisoned in Murnau, all Polish army commanders taken by the Germans in were held there.
After being freed in , an orderly to a French admiral wrote that that life there was boring but "not particularly onerous", with "adequate by European prison standards" sanitation, inadequate but regular rations, and cigarettes for purchase. The prisoners quickly found German bugs in their rooms, and discovered that an "English general" imprisoned with them was a German agent. The camp was surrendered to the Red Army on May 9, The Soviets stayed only long enough to remove anything of value, and loading up the German guards, they returned to their HQ leaving the French Generals alone.
A short while afterwards, a French light aircraft landed and the pilot informed them that he had come to collect General Saint Ceran of the French Air Force. The remaining inmates asked that he inform the Americans of their plight which he did, and despite Koenigstein being in the Soviet zone, a decision was taken to swiftly remove the French generals from the castle on May They were flown back to Paris on May 12, many of them free for the first time in five years.
Located in Colditz Castle situated on a cliff overlooking the town of Colditz in Saxony. However, later most of them were transferred to other Oflags. They were soon joined by a handful of British Army officers and later by Belgian officers. By Christmas there were 60 Polish officers, 12 Belgians, 50 French, and 30 British, a total of no more than with their orderlies. By the end of July , there were more than officers: over French, Polish, 50 British and Commonwealth , 2 Yugoslavian.
On 24 July, 68 Dutch officers arrived, mostly members of the Royal Dutch East Indies Army, who had refused to sign a declaration that they would take no part in the war against Germany. Importantly for other internees in the camp, among the 68 Dutch was Hans Larive with his knowledge of the Singen route. This route into Switzerland was discovered by Larive in on his first escape attempt from an Oflag in Soest.
Larive was caught at the Swiss border near Singen. The interrogating Gestapo officer was so confident the war would soon be won by Germany that he told Larive the safe way across the border near Singen. On 13 August the first two Dutchmen escaped successfully from the castle followed by many more of which six officers made it to England.
Afterwards a number of would-be escapees would borrow Dutch greatcoats as their disguise. When the Wehrmacht invaded the Netherlands they were short on material for uniforms, so they confiscated anything available. The coats in Dutch field grey in particular remained unchanged in colour, since it was similar to the tone already in use by the Germans, thus these greatcoats would be nearly identical with very minor alterations.
Some of the French officers held at Colditz In May, the Wehrmacht High Command decided that Colditz should house only Americans and British, so in June the Dutch were moved out, followed shortly thereafter by the Poles, the Belgians, and the French; with the final French group leaving 12 July, They were all counter-intelligence operatives parachuted into Hungary to prevent it joining forces with Germany. Population was approximately at the start of the early winter that year, with 71 other ranks orderlies etc.
In March, French prisoners were brought to Colditz Castle, with more being imprisoned in the town below. The escape committee were supplied with full detailed survey and building plans of the castle by SOE during the war, these were better and far more detailed than the Germans had themselves! Also a separate part of the camp was set aside as a hospital for prisoners Reserve Lazarett One of the most highly decorated POWs of the war was kept here, the only fighting soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross twice.
One attempt to escape occurred when a group of POWs were being transported in open trucks through Italy. Upham jumped from the truck at a bend and managed to get yards m away before being recaptured. He had broken an ankle in jumping from the moving truck. Another attempt occurred when he was being moved between prison camps on a civilian train while guarded by two Germans.
Upham was only allowed to visit the toilet when the train was travelling at high speed, to prevent him from jumping through a window. Nevertheless, Upham prised open the toilet window and jumped onto the tracks, knocking himself unconscious. On a third occasion, he tried to escape a camp by climbing its fences in broad daylight.
He became entangled in barbed wire when he fell down between the two fences. When a prison guard pointed a pistol at his head and threatened to shoot, Upham calmly ignored him and lit a cigarette. This scene was photographed by the Germans as "evidence" and later reprinted in his biography Mark of the Lion, by Kenneth Sandford. After this incident, Upham was considered extremely dangerous and was placed in solitary confinement.
He was only allowed to exercise alone, while accompanied by two armed guards and while covered by a machinegun in a tower. Despite these precautions, Upham bolted from his little courtyard, straight through the German barracks and out through the front gate of the camp. The camp was originally built as barracks for German Army infantry early in and consisted of concrete single storey buildings on a plateau north-west of the town.
It was named "Lindele". In good weather there was a fine view of the Alps to the south. In May the first British and Commonwealth officers captured in the battle of France arrived. The camp was clean and living conditions were satisfactory. The first officers from the battle of Greece arrived on 16 June They were surprised at the good conditions after several weeks of travel and grim conditions in transit camps.
For three months after their removal the camp was used as a transit camp for Soviet prisoners. It was then used as a temporary camp for French and Serbian officers. There were several escape attempts during the summer of The largest such attempt was on 13th September, when 26 prisoners got out through a tunnel. Four managed to reach Switzerland, the rest were recaptured. The successful escapes by Lt. POW camp in the castle of Bad Wurzach, although this was unlike Colditz in that it was really a large country house, not a castle as such.
It was a Catholic college before the nazi state closed it in , used to house French officers only. The camp was opened in September on what had been originally intended to be a military airfield.
At first French, and then British officers were housed there. The camp was the setting for two remarkable escape attempts. The sentry was not satisfied with their gate pass, so Stevens marched his party back into the camp. As the sentry was apparently unaware that the party was not genuine, a second attempt was made a week later.
This time the sentry demanded to see their Army paybooks, so the escape party fled, although two were arrested. On 30 August the camp was the scene of "Operation Olympia", also known as the "Warburg Wire Job", another mass escape attempt.
Skelton "Skelly" Ginn fused the perimeter floodlights, 41 prisoners carrying four foot 3. One ladder collapsed, so of the 41 involved, only 28 escaped the camp, and only three of those made it home.
In September the British prisoners were transferred to other camps, and were replaced with Polish officers, with 1, brought from Romania, where they had been interned since September , and another 1, transferred from other camps in Germany. The British had begun an escape tunnel, and the Poles continued working on it, and on 20 September , 47 of them escaped. Within four days, 20 had been captured and returned to the camp.
They were then transported to the Buchenwald concentration camp and executed. In the next few days 17 more were captured and taken to the Gestapo prison in Dortmund where they were killed. Only 10 managed to remain free, some returned to Poland, others finding their way to the Allied lines.
Altogether prisoners died in Oflag VI-B. They are buried in the cemetery near the centre of the village of Dossel. A memorial was erected there in The barracks in the Landwehr Road was built in for the Wehrmacht. After the French campaign French prisoners of war were imprisoned here. They lived in 30 barracks, which were mostly built of wood. In each of the barracks surrounded by barbed wire lived people.
A cruel irony is that of the POWs kept here were Jewish and allowed complete freedom of religion and non persecution although had they not been POWs their fate would certainly have been far worse as regular concentration camp bound trains passed the camp. Later renamed Quebec barracks and a base of the British Army after the war.
It was located 2 km 1. The camp was created in September It consisted of an enclosure m ft square, surrounded with barbed wire and guard towers. After the failed Warsaw Uprising and "Operation Tempest" more prisoners were brought there from Poland. By early the number of POWs held in the camp reached over 5, The camp was built in September to house Polish prisoners from the German invasion of Poland.
The first prisoners arrived there on 18 October On 31 August Canadian officers captured during the Dieppe Raid arrived. Soon after their arrival the senior Canadian officer, Brigadier W. Southam, convened a conference which compiled an after action report on the Raid. This was recorded in shorthand in a notebook labelled "Shorthand Reading Exercises. Work began in December , but the rocky ground made digging difficult.
The Germans found spoil from the tunnel and searched the camp, but failed to find it. Most of them headed south, towards Switzerland, sleeping by day and travelling by night. Eventually, all 65 were recaptured, but had occupied over 50, police, soldiers, home guard and Hitler Youth for a week. On 14 April , as the U.
Army approached, the officers were marched out of the camp. Unfortunately, only a short distance from the camp the column was attacked by American aircraft, who mistook it for a formation of German troops.
Fourteen British officers were killed and 46 were wounded. In a memorial plaque was erected by local German authorities at the site. The camp was liberated by the U.
Army on 16 April Within days the POWs were repatriated to their home countries. Located in Laufen Castle, in Laufen in south-eastern Bavaria from to Most of the prisoners were British officers captured during the Battle of France in The Oflag existed only for a short time.
Previously, in September , after lengthy negotiations, elderly and sick prisoners were repatriated to Great Britain via Sweden. In April the count of internees in Laufen included British internees Channel Islanders and American civilians who had been trapped in Europe when war was suddenly declared in December Even though the camp housed civilians, it continued to be operated by the German Army. Notable POWs who were held here include briefly Colditz inmate and escape officer Pat Reid who was held for 3 months before escaping, being recaptured and sent to Colditz where he finally escaped to freedom from later.
The camp was liberated in May Originally a Hitler Youth camp, in October it was modified to house about 15, Polish prisoners from the German September offensive. By June most of the Poles had been transferred to other camps and replaced with Belgian and French troops taken prisoner during the Battle of France.
At one time there were over 30, jammed into facilities designed for 15, In a separate compound was created to house Soviet prisoners. In 2, British Commonwealth soldiers came from the battles in Italy, and later in the same year an undefined number of Italian soldiers came from Albania.
Finally in late December 1, Americans arrived, captured in the Battle of the Bulge. On 14 February the Americans and British were marched out of the camp westward in advance of the Soviet offensive into Germany. The camp, a former spa hotel, was opened in July and housed approximately 70 Allied generals and their aides. Among those officers imprisoned were 30 from Poland, 30 from France, 9 from the Netherlands, 1 from the United Kingdom, and a Colonel from Norway.
Soon after all the other prisoners were also transferred, and the camp was closed on 1 July It was located in a former Benedictine Abbey dedicated to Saint Hedwig of Silesia, that had been a military school between and , and used by the Nazis as a "National Political Educational Institution" from In April , most of the prisoners were transferred to Oflag 79 near Braunschweig and the camp was closed.
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 passed through the gate, and then, wearing faked Luftwaffe uniforms, headed to an airfield near Kassel intending to steal a Ju 52, which Newborn had flown before the war, and fly home.
Unfortunately, there were no suitable aircraft, so they decided to head to France and contact an escape line. After ten days they arrived at Frankenberg, but were challenged by soldiers suspicious of their uniforms. Speaking little German they were soon identified as escapees and arrested. Returned to Spangenberg, the three were each sentenced to fifty-three days in solitary. As a result of this, and other escape attempts, the camp was evacuated in October with all prisoners being sent to Oflag VI-B.
The camp was reopened in January , and housed senior British Army officers, until being liberated in April It had the reputation of being one of the worst Stalags, especially when it was overcrowded in In December it was taken over by the Army and used to house Polish prisoners sent to work in the area, especially the salt mines. They were joined in June by French taken prisoner during the Battle of France, and in Yugoslavian prisoners arrived from the Balkans Campaign, mainly Serbs.
In the first Soviet prisoners arrived at the camp, and in after the armistice, Italian prisoners arrived. Finally, in late December , Americans captured in the Battle of the Bulge arrived.
Approximately 4, U. Placed on swampy ground, with a damp, cold climate, it is one of the most notorious prisoner-of-war camps. Between and 1 million POWs of 46 nations passed through. Nearly 50, died there of hunger, disease, or were just simply murdered.
Among the Italian prisoners, who were mostly soldiers who did not surrender to the German army after the Cassibile armistice, was journalist and writer Giovannino Guareschi, who wrote here La favola di Natale A Christmas Fable on Christmas, Marlag und Milag Nord, the camps for captured Navy personnel and civilian sailors respectively, were originally in two separate enclosures at the Sandbostel camp.
They were moved to a different location closer to Cuxhaven, Westertimke, in Oflag X-B was opened in May , and was used to hold French officers captured during the battle of France. The camp was roughly square, about m ft to each side. To the north of the road were seven prisoner accommodation blocks. Six were built of brick, while the seventh was wood. To the south were four more blocks; three were for senior officers, while the fourth housed their ordonnance "orderlies".
The accommodation blocks were divided into rooms, each containing from 8 to 12 men. In the centre of the camp was camp kitchen and canteen. The camp was opened in June for French officers captured during the Battle of France. The camp was liberated on 2 May by troops of the British 2nd Army. The camp was established in May Located at Hadamar, near Limburg an der Lahn in western Germany. It was created in November for Polish officers captured in the September campaign.
November - Polish officers and a small number of orderlies were transported to Hadamar from other collection camps in Poland. In their place British, French and other Allied officers were transferred to Hadamar from the citadel of Mainz.
In , after the withdrawal of Italy from the war, the German army transferred Allied officers from camps in Italy, such as Sulmona, to Hadamar. The fortress had also served as an Oflag in World War I. In June British, Belgian, Dutch and French senior officers and a small number of orderlies were transported to Mainz from transit camps in France and Belgium after the end of the Battle of France.
They were transferred to other camps, and the camp was closed on 29 October This camp was moved to Hammelburg in April under the same designation.
In June a new compound Oflag 62 was opened for high-ranking Soviet officers captured during Operation Barbarossa. This camp was closed April and the surviving officers many had died during the winter due to an epidemic were transferred to other camps. From December to March XIII-D was designated Oflag 73 and used to accommodate officers of various nationalities evacuated hastily from camps in the east that were threatened by the rapid advance of the Red Army.
On 16 April the United States Army liberated the camp, finding only Serbian officers and those too sick to have been marched out, including some Americans that had been wounded by strafing American planes while being marched from Hammelburg. The barracks were enclosed by a barbed-wire fence and watchtowers to form a camp approximately by metres, and was opened in June to house officers, mostly French, captured in the Battle of France, as well as several hundred Poles.
Approximately 6, officers and orderlies were in the camp. The guards were mainly Austrian army veterans and conditions in the camp were better than in many other POW camps in Germany. The POWs lived in barrack huts that were divided into two dormitories each housing around men, with a small kitchen and a washroom between them. There was a separate shower block, and prisoners were allowed two showers a month.
Part of one barrack was set aside for use as a chapel. On the night of 17 September a large group of prisoners escaped. Most posed as French civilian workers, of whom there were many in Germany at the time. Their disappearance went unnoticed the next day, so the next night another group escaped, a total of men altogether. Some of the first escapees were recaptured and returned to the camp before the escape had even been discovered by the camp authorities.
Only two of the escapees managed to return to France. Soon afterwards a delegation of high-ranking German officers inspected the camp, and the prisoners were warned that "escaping is no longer a sport". On 17 April , the camp was evacuated in the face of the approaching Red Army. The prisoners were marched towards Linz, some km 80 mi to the west.
The column generally covered less than 10 km 6. Located to the south of the town of Wolfsberg, in the southern Austrian state of Carinthia, then a part of the German reich.
The first occupants were Polish officers captured during the invasion of Poland. The first British and Commonwealth prisoners arrived in July from a transit camp in Thessaloniki, Greece, having been captured during the battles of Greece and Crete.
The first Soviet prisoners arrived in October , and were housed in a separate enclosure. In December a typhus epidemic broke out, and the entire camp was quarantined until March Many prisoners died, mainly Soviets, as their living conditions and rations were substantially inferior to the other prisoners. In March a Lazarett "Camp Hospital" was built there.
In November , after the Italian armistice, Italian and Commonwealth prisoners arrived from Italy. That month there were a total of 38, prisoners registered at the camp. Of these 10, were British and Commonwealth troops, of which only were in the main camp, while the rest were attached to various Arbeitskommando "Labour Units". On 18 December the camp was bombed by U. Forty-six prisoners and several guards were killed. Both the British and French camp hospitals were hit, with the British hut being almost completely destroyed.
Officially, the camp was liberated by elements of the British 8th Army on 11 May In fact the prisoners had been in control of the camp since the 8th, the day of the German surrender. French and British prisoners disarmed their guards and took control of the camp armoury, and the local Post Office, Railway Station and Police Station. Over the next few weeks the prisoners were transported via Klagenfurt to transit camps in Bari and Naples, from where they were eventually repatriated.
The camp then served as a British detention centre for ex-Nazis, before finally closing in mid Located at Szubin a few miles south of Bydgoszcz, in Pomorze, Poland, which at that time was occupied by Nazi Germany.
Army officers. At most other camps there were several nationalities, although they were usually separated into national compounds. The camp was built around a Polish boys' school by adding barracks. Located in Warthegau, a western province of Poland that had been incorporated into the German Reich in It held Norwegian officers captured in and Originally most soldiers and officers had been released after the end of the Norwegian campaign, but as resistance activities increased, the officers were rearrested and sent to POW camps.
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.
These buildings were not adjacent to each other and were surrounded by barbed-wire fences. In the Norwegian officers were located as follows: in the Seminary; in the high-school; in the primary school; 80 in the Richter house; 30 in hospital.
On 21 April the Red Army liberated the camp. On 5 May the Norwegians were transported east to a camp near Lignica in Silesia, then travelled for several days by train to Hamburg and Aarhus, Denmark, finally arriving in Oslo on 28 May On June 6, the camp was redesignated Oflag 64; it became an American officers-only camp with the arrival of officers captured in the North Africa Campaign in Tunisia.
In late an escape committee started digging a tunnel which was to pass under the barbed wire fence, but in March , upon receiving news of the disastrous results of the "Great Escape" from Stalag Luft III the escape committee ordered a shut-down of the operation.
On January 21, , the roll call established a total of 1, Because of approaching Soviet troops, all POWs capable of walking were marched out. The senior U. Two days, later, on January 23, , the camp was liberated by the Soviet 61st Army. There were approximately Americans, sick and medical personnel, and a few that had hidden in the old escape tunnel.
About escaped from the marching column and returned to the camp. Released were Italians, 58 Yugoslavs, 3 Poles, Soviets, 3 medical staff unknown nationality. Today, the site of the camp is a memorial. Then a separate camp, Oflag II-E, was built for them on the west side of the main road.
The camp was located at Waggum near Braunschweig in Germany, also known by the English name of Brunswick. On 24 August the camp was strafed by American and British aircraft.
Three men were killed, and 14 seriously wounded. Ninth Army on 12 April From January , Wietzendorf was the site of one of the largest camps for Italian officers known as Oflag There was a hospital for Italian military internees in the Oerbke camp, but its patients were transferred to a separate section of the Bergen-Belsen POW hospital in late July Most of these Italian prisoners were suffering from tuberculosis or had been injured while working.
This camp has been noted as both Oflag 68 and 88 so there appears to be some confusion over the numbering. See Stalag Xb. Stalag I-A was a German prisoner-of-war camp located near the village of Stablack, about 8. It was designed with a holding capacity of 10, only despite as many holding many more than this for most of its existence.
The camp was built in late by Polish prisoners of war. In the Poles were joined by Belgian and French prisoners, and by Soviets in Some British and Italian prisoners were also there. However other reports show on 25th January , as Soviet troops approached, the camp was abandoned and all prisoners were evacuated to the west. The camp was partially located on the grounds of the Tannenberg Memorial and initially included a set of wooden structures intended to house World War I veterans during Nazi festivities.
Established in to house Polish soldiers captured in the course of the September Campaign, with time it was extended to house also Belgians, French, Italian, Serbian and Soviet soldiers. Harsh conditions, malnutrition, maltreatment and recurring typhoid epidemics led to many deaths among the prisoners. Notably during the winter of roughly 25 thousand people died there, mostly Soviet soldiers.
It is estimated that altogether , people passed through this camp and its' sub-camps. The camp was built in and designated Stalag I-C. By July it housed 9, Allied airmen. When the Soviet front approached, orders were given to move the prisoners to other camps further west.
After another train journey the men were force marched from Kiefheide, with many men being bayoneted or shot before they reached Stalag Luft IV in Gross Tychow. This march was one of the "Long Marches". Opened in and also located close to a Jewish forced labour camp working at the local caustic soda factory. Over POWs died in the camps in this location. Also at Suwalki, Poland. Construction of the camp began in April , before the attack on Russia, to accommodate the expected POWs. It was carried out by French and Polish prisoners.
Covering 50 hectares acres the camp contained a kitchen, bakery, latrines and bathhouse, and was surrounded by a double barbed-wire fence with five gates and four guard towers later increased to nine. The prisoners lived outdoors in dugouts until when 43 barrack huts were built, though due to overcrowding, many were still forced to live underground.
More than , prisoners, mostly Soviet, passed through Stalag I-F, of whom over 50, died, mostly from malnutrition, exposure and typhus. In October , as the Red Army approached, the guards abandoned the camp leaving 4, Soviet prisoners behind.
The Soviets handed out some of the Red cross parcels stockpiled here and the water supply had been cut off by 1st May. Camp for Soviet pilots in the district Litzmannstadt'u - Erzhausen Lodz region today called Ruda Pabianicka at the south-western area of the city , the square of the current streets Oder German Wallensteinerstrasse, from the south-west Retmanskiej German Paracelsusweg; from the north-west. The conditions in the camp, as well as with all Soviet prisoners of war, led to their gradual extinction.
They slept on the bare bunks, without blankets, in unheated areas and in very cramped conditions. POWs worked in Lodz city. They performed a variety of heavy earthworks, roadbuilding, agricultural work, and were also worked on the construction of freight railway station Olechowo and others. Small groups of prisoners were employed also in Lodz factories. The jobs allowed some Poles to help them — by giving food and cigarettes.
The camp was supposed to be closed completely late in when most of the camp were transferred to Sagan Stalag Luft III but a few of the sick remained to be liberated by the Soviet a few months later. The camp was built in September to house Polish prisoners from the German September offensive. The first POWs arrived on 12 September. Some were used for completing the camp construction while housed in tents during the winter. Others were sent to work on farms.
A number of the French were from African colonial regiments and were used for the worst work such as collecting refuse. A new camp for officers, Oflag II-E was created close by and Polish warrant officers and ensigns were transferred to it. In more prisoners arrived from the Balkans Campaign mostly British and Yugoslavians mostly Serbs.
In late summer Soviet prisoners from Operation Barbarossa arrived and were placed in a separate enclosure built south of the main camp. From November to early January American soldiers captured in various operations during the Allied drive eastward arrived. Most were immediately sent to Arbeitskommandos work details.
From February to April Neubrandenburg was a waypoint in the forced march westward of Allied prisoners from POW camps further east. The camp was finally liberated on 28 April when a Soviet armoured division reached Neubrandenburg. In the middle of April most of the prisoners in the camp and in the outlying Arbeitskommandos were marched westward ahead of the advancing Red Army.
Within a few days they were liberated by British troops pushing eastward. In it was established as one of the first Nazi concentration camps, to house German communists. In late September the camp was changed to a prisoner-of-war camp to house Polish soldiers from the September Campaign, particularly those from the Pomorze Army.
In December , 1, Polish prisoners were recorded as being there. At first they lived in tents, throughout the severe winter of , and construction of all the huts was not completed until To make room for them many of the Poles were forced to give up their status as POWs and become civilian slave labourers.
The construction of the second camp, Lager-Ost "East Compound" began in June to accommodate the large numbers of Soviet prisoners taken in Operation Barbarossa. It was located south of the railway tracks. In November a typhoid fever epidemic broke out in Lager-Ost. It lasted until March and an estimated 45, prisoners died and were buried in mass graves. The camp administration did not start any preventive measures until some German soldiers became infected.
In August the first American prisoners arrived having been taken prisoner in Tunisia. In April the camp was liberated by the Soviet Red Army although there were plans and some movements? Located at 53 degrees, 41 minutes North, 16 degrees, 55 minutes East in the far North of Germany on the Baltic coast.
Located at 53 degrees, 20 minutes, 35 seconds North, 15 degrees, 0 minutes East in the far North of Germany on the Baltic coast. The camp was established on a military training ground in September to detain Polish prisoners from the German September offensive.
For the first few months they lived in the open or in tents during a very cold winter, while they built the wooden and brick huts for the permanent camp. These were followed by Soviet prisoners from Operation Barbarossa in the summer of
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