Stalag Luft III: The German Pow Camp That Inspired The Great Escape

By Charles Messenger

A pictorial history of the infamous, World War II Nazi POW camp for Allied soldiers made famous in Hollywood.
 
In early 1942, the Third Reich opened a maximum-security prisoner-of-war camp for captured Allied airmen in Lower Silesia, now Poland. Called Stalag Luft III, the camp soon came to contain some of the most inventive escapers ever known.
 
The escapers were led by Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, codenamed “Big X.” In March 1944, Bushell masterminded an attempt to smuggle hundreds of POWs down a tunnel built right under the noses of their guards. In fact, 76 Allied airmen clambered into the tunnel and only three made successful escapes.
 
This remarkable breakout would be immortalized in the classic Steve McQueen film, The Great Escape, in which the bravery of the men was rightly celebrated. Behind the scenes photographs from the film are included, along with rare photographs from wartime archives, in this definitive pictorial work on the most famous POW camp of World War II.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781784384470

Charles Messenger

Charles Messenger served for twenty years in the Royal Tank Regiment before retiring to become a military historian and defense analyst. He is the author of some forty books, mainly on twentieth century warfare. Some have been published in several languages and have been widely acclaimed. He has also written and helped to direct several TV documentary series and carried out a large number of historical studies for the Ministry of Defence.

Book preview

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Chapter One

The Camp

In its final state, Stalag Luft III comprised a number of self-contained compounds. One was the Kommandantur, which held the camp staff and guards. The five POW compounds were of varying sizes, with the North Compound being the largest in terms of space, especially on account of its large sports field. The Germans had planned to use part of the field for extra huts, but this never came to fruition. The North, South and West Compounds shared what the Germans called a Vorlager . There is no direct English translation for this word, but ‘outer camp’ approximates to its meaning. It consisted of the sick bay, coal stores, a mail room and the cells, besides two guard rooms. Both the Centre and East Compounds were served by another Vorlager .

Each compound was surrounded by two 9ft-tall barbed wire fences, made up of vertical and horizontal rows of barbed wire. They had inward facing overhangs to make it more difficult to get over them and were 7ft apart. Rolls of barbed wire lay on the ground between them as a further escape deterrent. Approximately 30ft from the inner fence was a cable 2ft off the ground. Any prisoner crossing this line was liable to be shot. Prisoners were, however, allowed to retrieve balls which had gone over it, provided they alerted the guards beforehand. Overlooking the compounds were a series of guard towers, which were manned by day and night. They were some 150yds apart and were equipped with rifles, semi-automatic weapons and machine guns. At night they used searchlights to sweep the area.

The compounds consisted of a number of barrack huts, a cook house, a bath house, latrines and a theatre, which was constructed by the prisoners. The barrack huts were raised off the ground and supported on a number of concrete piles. This was to dissuade the POWs from tunnelling under the huts. The huts had a number of living rooms each capable of holding six to fourteen men, a wash room, a night latrine and a kitchen. There were also a couple of small rooms for senior officers.

The main street of Stalag VIIIC, Stalag Luft III’s next-door neighbour. (USAFA, SMS 329)

The main gate of the South Compound. (USAFA, SMS