Stalag 383 Bavaria: A History of the Camp, the Escapes & the Liberation

By Stephen Wynn

Stalag 383 was somewhat unique as a Second World War prisoner of war camp. Located in a high valley surrounded by dense woodland and hills in Hofenfels, Bavaria, it began life in 1938 as a training ground for the German Army. At the outbreak of war it was commandeered by the German authorities for use as a prisoner of war camp for Allied non-commissioned officers, and given the name Oflag lllC. It was renamed Stalag 383 in November 1942. For most of its existence it comprised of some 400 huts, 30 feet long and 14 feet wide, with each typically being home to 14 men. Many of the British service men who found themselves incarcerated at the camp had been captured during the evacuations at Dunkirk, or when the Greek island of Crete fell to the Germans on 1 June 1941. Stalag 383 had somewhat of a holiday camp feel to it for many who found themselves prisoners there. There were numerous clubs formed by different regiments, or men from the same town or county. These clubs catered for interests such as education, sports, theatrical productions and debates, to name but a few. This book examines life in the camp, the escapes that were undertaken from there, and includes a selection of never before published photographs of the camp and the men who lived there, many for more than five years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781526757258

Stephen Wynn

Stephen is a retired police officer having served with Essex Police as a constable for thirty years between 1983 and 2013. He is married to Tanya and has two sons, Luke and Ross, and a daughter, Aimee. His sons served five tours of Afghanistan between 2008 and 2013 and both were injured. This led to the publication of his first book, Two Sons in a Warzone – Afghanistan: The True Story of a Father’s Conflict, published in October 2010. Both Stephen’s grandfathers served in and survived the First World War, one with the Royal Irish Rifles, the other in the Mercantile Marine, whilst his father was a member of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps during the Second World War.When not writing Stephen can be found walking his three German Shepherd dogs with his wife Tanya, at some unearthly time of the morning, when most normal people are still fast asleep.

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Introduction

Hohenfels began life as a training area for the German Army, the Wehrmacht, in 1938 but at the outbreak of the Second World War it became a prisoner of war camp, initially known as Stalag III-C and renamed Stalag 383 in September 1942. It was set aside for British and Commonwealth servicemen who refused to carry out any work details. Rather than have such men spread out amongst a number of prisoner of war camps, which could have resulted in others copying their behaviour, the German authorities decided to house them altogether in one camp.

The camp was surrounded on all sides by two fences, each a layer of thick barbed wire. The gap between the two fences had concertina entanglements embedded in the ground in an effort to deter any would-be escapers from even considering such a route out of the camp. If that wasn’t enough there were five large watchtowers that could see every area of the camp and which were manned twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, by two guards at a time with each of them being changed at regular intervals in an effort to keep them fresh and alert. Each of the towers was equipped with a large searchlight and a machine gun, such as the MG 34 or MG 42 Maschinengewehr, to ensure the Germans had complete control of the camp and command of the prisoner population.

Above, and immediately outside the perimeter fence was a chain of lights that surrounded the entire camp, directly illuminating the fence throughout the night. In addition, guards with German shepherd dogs patrolled inside the perimeter fence. As a matter of course, once it was dark all prisoners were restricted to their own huts and were only allowed out to use the latrines. But when they did, they were quickly picked up by the searchlights, the bright beams of light then following them from their huts to the toilet block and back again. Generally, this wasn’t something that the prisoners were perturbed about, as the last thing they wanted was to be mistaken for an escaper and shot. But it was in this environment that some volunteered to cut the wire of the camp’s perimeter fence, so that others might escape. It must have required nerves of steel from those who undertook such work, as it certainly wasn’t a five-minute job to cut a sufficiently big enough hole in both the inner and outer fences. It could take hours, all the while trying to avoid the beams of the searchlights and the guards who were patrolling both inside and outside the perimeter fence. Whilst the fences were being cut in preparation for an escape attempt, there were others out and about also helping the escape

Stalag 383 was liberated at 4pm on 24 April 1945 by elements of the 65th Infantry Division, under the command of Major General Stanley Eric Reinhart of the American Army, who had also seen service during the First World War. When they arrived, besides the British prisoners, they also discovered that the camp commandant Major General Gustav Geiger and his guards, hadn’t made a run for it, but were still there waiting to surrender.

Major General Gustav Geiger was born in Nuremberg on 31 March 1887 and began his military service on 7 July 1907 when he was 20 years of age. Between 22 April 1908 and 23 May 1914, he was employed in a number of positions which included time spent at the German War School in Munich, the Military Firing School at Lechfeld and a gun factory and artillery workshop at Spandau. After this period of military service, he was transferred to the 5th Bavarian Infantry Regiment with which he spent the rest of the war.

He remained in the German Army after the war, finally retiring on 21 August 1920, having loyally served his country for thirteen years. At the time of his retirement he was serving as the leader of the 2nd Machine-Gun Company of the 46th Reichswehr Infantry Company.

Just four days after retiring from the German Army he enlisted in the Police Force, where he served until 1 July 1935 when he re-enlisted in the army. During the Second World War he did not see active service, but at different times was the commander of the 73rd Infantry Replacement Regiment, the 546th Infantry Regiment and the 51st Territorial Rifle Regiment. He was appointed as the Commandant at Stalag 383 on 1 March 1944 and surrendered on 8 May 1945 to Major General Reinhart of the 65th Infantry Division, when they arrived at Hohenfels. Major General Geiger remained in captivity until 1947 and died just three months before his eightieth birthday on 2 January 1967.

Born in Ohio on 15 September 1893, Major General Reinhart was a teacher before deciding on a change of career. He entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1912 and in 1916 graduated and was commissioned as a second lieutenant and posted to the United States Army’s Field Artillery Branch at Fort Bliss in Texas. Reinhart was a full-time professional soldier who arrived in France in July 1917, just three months after America had declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917. He was the man in charge of ‘A’ Battery, 17th Field Artillery Regiment, part of the American Expeditionary Force. He saw action during the Battle of Bois de Belleau, the Battle of Soissons, the Ypres-Lys campaign and the Meuse-Argonne offensive, and was awarded the American Army’s Distinguished Service Medal for his actions in combat during the First World War.

After the war Stalag 383 remained a camp, but this time for displaced persons, until 1949. In 1951 Hofenfels became a training area for the United States military, which they continued to use exclusively until 1956. From then until 1988 it was still used as a military training area, but this time by NATO forces, which included American, British, Canadian, French and German soldiers.

Chapter One

German Prisoner of War Camps

How British and Allied prisoners of war were treated during their captivity in German camps during the Second World War, differed depending on the camp that they were held in. There were approximately 1,000 prisoner of war camps throughout Germany during the Second World War, and as Germany was a signatory of the Third Geneva Convention of 1929, which established the provisions relative to the treatment of prisoners of war, she was expected to adhere rigidly to its conditions.

Article 10 of the convention required that prisoners of war should be lodged in adequately heated and lit buildings, where the conditions were the same as for the German troops guarding them.

Articles 27 – 32 of the convention detail the conditions of labour. Men from the enlisted ranks, which was all men below the rank of Sergeant, were required to perform whatever labour they were asked and were able to do, just as long as it was not dangerous and did not support the German war effort. Senior non-commissioned officers, which was Sergeants, were required to work only in a supervisory position. Commissioned officers were not required to work but could volunteer if they wished to do so. The work performed was largely agricultural or industrial, ranging from coal or potash mining, stone quarrying, or work in sawmills, breweries, factories, railroad yards and forests. Prisoners of war hired out to military and civilian contractors were supposed to receive pay and have at least one day off each week.

Article 76 ensured that all prisoners of war who died whilst in captivity, would receive an honourable funeral and would be buried in a marked grave.

The different types of German prisoner of war camps were numerous and run by different sections of their military forces.

Dulag. (Durchgangslager) or Transit Camp. This is where captured Allied Army and Navy prisoners of war were initially sent before being assigned to a particular camp. Where they were sent depended on which branch of the military they served with and their rank. The Germans also used these camps for intelligence gathering purposes.

Dulag Luft. (Durchgangslager der Luftwaffe) or Transit Camp of the Luftwaffe. These were transit camps for captured Allied airmen. The Dulag Luft camp in Frankfurt was the main collection point for intelligence which had been obtained from the interrogation of Allied airmen.

Heilag. (Heimkehrerlager) or repatriation camps, were where Allied prisoners of war who had been identified as being suitable for repatriation were initially sent. Many of these men had been severely wounded, with disabling and life-changing injuries, who would never again be able to serve in the armed force, and therefore no longer posed a threat to Nazi Germany.

Ilag/Jlag. (Internierungslager) was an internment camp for civilians.

Marlag. (Marine-Lager) or Marine Camp. These camps were where Allied Naval personnel were held as prisoners of war.

Milag. (Marine-Internierten-Lager) or Marine internment camp. These were where Allied merchant seamen were detained.

Oflag. (Offizier-Lager) or Officer Camp for captured Allied officers.

Stalag. (Stammlager) or Base Camp. These camps were for enlisted personnel regardless of their rank.

Stalag Luft. (Luftwaffe-Stammlager) or Luftwaffe base camp. These were for Allied air crew and were manned by members of the German air force or Luftwaffe.

The above breakdown of the different types of camps is the easy version. The German Army had seventeen military districts, each of which was designated and identified with Roman numerals. As a military district might have more than one prisoner of war camp in its area, the Germans came up with an easy way of distinguishing one from the other. So, by way of example, Stalag III-A, indicates the third military district, which was Berlin, and the letter A, which denotes the town of Luckenwalde, about 30 miles south of Berlin.

The issue of prisoners of war was a deeply involved one for both sides, as it was an aspect of modern warfare that needed to be adhered to, not just because a particular country from either side had signed up to the conditions of the Geneva Convention, but because the fate of their own captured men depended on it.

Nearly all of Germany’s prisoner of war camps were either in Germany or Poland. It was only very late on in the war that German authorities decided to move the Allied prisoners of war under their control towards the west. There were other prisoner of war camps in German occupied Poland, some of which were sub camps to the main camp. One of the main German prisoner of war camps in Poland, was the one at Torun, also spelt as Thorn, with its official name being Stalag XX-A. There were also German prisoner of war camps in Italy, Hungary and Lithuania.

Prisoners captured in battle were an issue that both sides had to deal with, even if it was a headache that they could have well done without. Logistically, just moving prisoners of war from where they were captured to a camp in the heart of Germany could take days, if not weeks. Such a move could involve a long journey either by sea or train, if not both, followed by a long foot march. Prisoners had to be accompanied by large numbers of guards, who usually came from different sections of the German military, personnel who could have been better used fighting the war in some capacity. Having arrived at their allocated camp, which would have cost money to build, they would have to be guarded twenty-four hours a day. They would need running water, electricity, beds, other furniture, bedding, and a daily supply of food, fruit and vegetables. All of this was time consuming, manpower intensive and costly.

Germany’s treatment of Russian prisoners of war was absolutely appalling, a situation which arose because they did not recognise Soviet soldiers as prisoners of war. They saw them as a race of sub-human beings which resulted in the deaths of several millions of them because of a combination of malnutrition, maltreatment, over working, untreated illnesses and lack of food. The normal food ration for a Soviet soldier unfortunate enough to be captured by the Germans, which was only provided once a day, was bread, margarine and a watery soup, the main ingredient of which was water. On the outskirts of the village of Grady, some 50 miles north-east of Warsaw, could be found such a German camp for Soviet prisoners. Out of the 100,000 who entered the camp, a staggering 80,000 of them died.

As mentioned elsewhere in this book, there were numerous escapes and attempted escapes from Stalag 383. An interesting fact about many of them was that they occurred in the latter years of the war – late 1943, 1944 and the early months of 1945.

According to Michael McCallen in the book Barbed Wire, there were a number of men who tried to escape from Stalag 383. These included George Beeson and Ginger Suggit who did so by walking out of the camp’s main gates dressed as German soldiers. It was an extremely dangerous way in which to try and escape and could have led to them being treated as British spies if captured and shot by firing squad on suspicion of espionage. What made this attempt as much madcap as it was brave, was the fact that the uniform worn by Beeson wasn’t even real. Here is how McCallen describes it:

One of the uniforms, I believe, was made out of an Australian jacket dyed to the appropriate shade of green-blue, with silver paper sewn around the collar and epaulettes to indicate rank, dummy pips, war ribbons made to colour on strips of carboard pinned on the breasts, and belts made from the carboard of Red Cross boxes, darkened with black boot polish. Their equipment extended even to dummy pistols, and ‘Ginger’ made up the passes which gave them their German identity and permission to enter and leave the camp.

What also helped the pair in their escape was the fact that both men could speak and understand German. They were also lucky that the evening when they chose to escape didn’t let them down with a downpour of rain and cause the dye to run out of their ‘brand new’ uniforms.

In the listings of British prisoners for the Second World War there is no mention of a man whose surname is spelt exactly the same way, and who was a prisoner at Stalag 383. There was however a Lance Sergeant 7890252 H.V. Suggitt of the Reconnaissance Corps, who was a prisoner at Stalag 383. On the same listing there was no trace of anyone with the surname Beeson. There were eight men with that surname, who had been prisoners of war, but none of them had the initial ‘G’ or had been a prisoner at Stalag 383.

McCallen also mentions a man by the name of Lennard, who also made good his escape whilst wearing a German uniform. It would appear that some of the prisoners at Stalag 383 had no comprehension of the meaning of the words ‘very’ and ‘dangerous’, especially when they were used in that order! There was a Private VX16735 H.P. Lennard who was a member of the Australian Army Service Corps and a prisoner at Stalag 383. He was the only man of that name shown to have been incarcerated there. It is believed that Lennard managed to get as far as Munich before he was discovered by the German authorities.

A man called Wilkinson also escaped with Lennard, but it is not clear what happened to him. There were three men with the surname of Wilkinson who were prisoners of war at Stalag 383. One served with the Royal Artillery, another with the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment and the third with the Royal Signals. There is no way of knowing with any degree of certainty which of these three men is the Wilkinson referred to above.

A Philip Meikle was also mentioned by McCallen as being an escapee. He was obviously somebody who understood the meaning of the word ‘simple’. His mode of escape was to have others cause a commotion elsewhere in the camp, make sure the electricity to the fence was switched off, then when he was happy that none of the guards were watching him, he simply put a ladder up against the camp fence, climbed to the top, then jumped to freedom. Meikle was Corporal 689805 Philip R. Meikle, of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps.

In describing his world of helping others escape and attempt to escape, McCallen refers to a man known