A substantial quantity of material concerning British and Commonwealth POWs - mostly Air Force personnel - can be found in the Headquarters Papers of Bomber Command (AIR 14), and in the Air Ministry's Directorate of Intelligence Papers. In December 1939 it was taken over by the Army and used to house Polish prisoners sent to work in the area, especially the salt mines. Allied prisoners of war plan for several hundred of their number to escape from a German camp during World War II. 142 Italian military internees had died in the nearby Bergen-Belsen hospital by the end of the war and were buried in a separate area at the edge of the POW cemetery. On the way to the border they were stopped by an SS policeman, but their forged papers were sufficient to pass inspection. OFLAG XXIc/z Grune bei Lissa/Skoki, Poland. The main Dulag Luft camp at Frankfurt was the principal collecting point for intelligence derived from Allied POW interrogation. Margnano lignite mine, listed elsewhere as 'Morgnano' -clearly a spelling error. | Despite the designation of "escape proof," Colditz turned out to be the ideal camp for escape-inclined Allied prisoners. The Germans could not be collaborated with. Four managed to reach Switzerland, the rest were recaptured. Carl Mhner, Frequently prisoners speaking the same language, for example, British Commonwealth soldiers, were permitted to intermingle. Nominal rolls of prisoners in German camps are in AIR 40/263-281, and AIR 40/1488-1491. Every report includes a narrative, of variable length, which describes an individual's experiences as an escaper, evader or prisoner of war. The remaining prisoners responded to the threat of a pitched battle on their doorstep by digging slit trenches. Most posed as French civilian workers, of whom there were many in Germany at the time. This report from Wikipedia and various eye witness accounts: The count was held up the morning of the march as the MOC (Man of Confidence) was in negotiation with the Kommandant for the safety of the men who were too sick for the march. camp, and is mistakenly awarded with the Iron Cross by the Germans. Vas du das Krieg est uber" - "For You the War is over." Using cigarettes, watches, rings or whatever they had to trade with the farmers along the way, for food. A crematorium and gas chamber were added in 1943, in time to start mass executions when Stutthof was included in the "Final Solution" in June 1944. US AAF POWs arrived in October, 1943, bringing the total of US prisoners to 4,000 until liberation in April, 1945. Stalag VIII-A Gorlitz (Moved to Moosburg Murenberg) Silesia Location N/E 51-15. Suffixes on camps relate to their parent camp: i.e. Lager Helgoland was filled with Soviet Organisation Todt workers. Army medical units were detached to deliver medical attention. Nordeney Forced Labour camp, mostly Soviet, 1500 prisoners. Opened originally in May 1942, 562other ranks were reported here on December30th 1942.. A limited number of non-commissioned soldiers working as orderlies were allowed in Oflags to carry out the work needed to care for the officers so dont be too surprised to find a Corporal in Colditz! 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 first was about 12 m (40 ft) long, built from March to August 1943. Through an air shaft into Kommandantur, then as workers through gate. Located just north of the town of Sudauen, East Prussia (now Suwalki, Poland). When the Soviet front approached, orders were given to move the prisoners to other camps further west. I was fortunate enough to visit Colditz Castle, 25 miles south-east of Leipzig, in July last year when on holiday in Germany. When a wagon was not available and a POW fell out along the road, a German guard would drop back and a shot would be heard. The town is divided by the Oder river on the border of Poland/The Czech republic. | This camps commandant Calcaterra was killed by Italian Partisans in 1943, had this not happened he would have faced a war crimes tribunal for his brutality against the POWs in his charge. On the night of 17 September 1943 a large group of prisoners escaped. There was a hospital located near here at Saandhof & Stolzenberg and 350 British & US and 200 other ranks were there on March 17th 1945. Stalag X-B was a World War II German Prisoner-of-war camp located near Sandbostel in north-western Germany. About 14,000 men are buried there. 54 Passo Corese/ Fara in Sabina, Rieti (Rome). From the 15th of August 1940 there were 356 officers and 140 other ranks. On reflection, these sources do show some relevant information and surprisingly confirm that Red Cross inspection visits were made to selected far east camps, although the integrity of these visits is debatable. 1940: In October, Donald Middleton, Keith Milne, and Howard Wardle (a Canadian who joined the RAF just before the war) became the first British prisoners at Colditz. Campo PG 66, on a flat stretch of ground on the outskirts of Capua, had been in use as a prisoner-of-war camp since early 1941, when a medical officer reported favourably on its food, water supply and sanitation, and the men stated that they were being well taken care of.. This route into Switzerland was discovered by Larive in 1940 on his first escape attempt from an Oflag in Soest. An improvised camp for Soviet prisoners of war (August 1942) It is estimated that at least 3.3 million Soviet POWs died in Nazi custody, out of 5.7 million. Soviet soldiers arrived shortly after the Nazis invaded The USSR in 1941. They were marched twenty-five or thirty kilometers that day. Under normal conditions the camps had a capacity of 5,300. 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 has had a chequered history over the past 500 years and has been used for a variety of purposes including a hunting lodge, workhouse, mental hospital, sanatorium, political prison and hospital. 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. Both questionnaires also enquire whether the prisoner witnessed or had any information about war crimes. There were no restrictions on the number of letters a POW could receive. Another sub camp was built at Wetzlar later in the war to help cope with the large numbers of aircrew captured as the bombing campaign intensified against Germany with between 1000 and 2000 kept during any one month, although most were there for only a few days before being transferred to their permanent Stalag Luft/Oflag camps. Transfixing. Reports from SHAEF in 1945 show although the camps had a designated holding capacity of 5000 it actually (had) held: 1090 British, 23 US, 11135 Soviets, 7 Poles, 2211 Yugoslavs, 19 Dutch, 257 Italians, 13987 French. On our databases you will often see a record office number referred to, these record offices were the collection points in 1945/6 for returning POWs documents and are noted on our records for information only as most would haveclosed shortly after the war. The Germans used Stutthof prisoners as forced labourers. Adventure, Drama, War. The first British and Commonwealth prisoners arrived in July 1941 from a transit camp in Thessaloniki, Greece, having been captured during the battles of Greece and Crete. Jack Watson, PG The prisoners quickly found German bugs in their rooms, and discovered that an "English general" imprisoned with them was a German agent. Forged papers used by a British escapee from Colditz to make one of the first "home runs" back to the UK from the notorious German prisoner-of-war camp are being sold . Non-Commercial educational use for the purpose of teaching and instruction, including internal training. There was a military hospital also at this location, it held 2 British, 3703 US, 9053 Soviet, 840 Yugoslav, 2200 Italian and 15514 French Pows as of February 1945 (Shaef reports). Within the camp, British POWs were controlled by the Senior British Officer (SBO) or Senior British Non-Commissioned Officer (SBNCO). There are some surviving BAOR (British Army Of the Rhine) reports reference WC/C/243 (war crimes) regarding the forced marches from Nebrandenburg camps to the Schwerin area in 1945 these can now be found at the national archives under reference WO209/1047. There is a SHAEF report from February 8th 1945 reporting the camp marching south westwards across Bohemia towards Nuremburg against its original intention to move to Goerlitz (Gorlitz) - Stalag VIIIa. By early 1945 the number of POWs held in the camp reached over 5,000. A large number of the inmates made their way to the Swiss frontier and were interned when the Italian guards abandoned their posts after the armistice in 1943. In 1943, after the withdrawal of Italy from the war, the German army transferred Allied officers from camps in Italy, such as Sulmona, to Hadamar. Also noted as 'Sforza costa Liguria' elsewhere, although this may be a mistake as PG 56 was in this location. Allied prisoners - British, Dutch, French and Polish - pool their resources to plan numerous escapes from the "escape-proof" German P.O.W. This was to accommodate Soviet POWs in a new barracks complex known as Stalag 312/XXC. For details of POWs who died in captivity in Japan and Germany, try BT 373/3720-3721. SHAEF report of February 1945 shows 5390 Polish POWs here. | Initially it was Stalag XXI-B for Polish soldiers until December 1940. The local German forces refused free access to the camp, so an assault into the area was made by the Guards Armoured Division and the camp was liberated on April 29, 1945. Very engrossing. the areas where Stalags began with the number II), this was a forced marchaway from the soviet armys advance in awful weather, taking up to 3 months in total, up to 8,000 men some suffering with dysentry were marched away, stragglers being shot or dying of hypothermia during this ordeal. The other pair was recaptured in Ulm. Also noted in USSME files as PG 60, possibly some confusion within the records? The nearest large city is Kaliningrad (formerly Konigsberg). Approximately 4,700 U.S. infantrymen were held there, far exceeding the capacity of the camp and resulting in very severe overcrowding, even after their officers and NCOs were later transferred to other camps. Drama, War. Initially, in the autumn of 1940, the camp was occupied by some 70 officers coming from the British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. Men of all nationalities were brought to Colditz from 1941 on. Conflicting reports from various sources place this also as PG 93 and relocated at Fontanellato in Parma. | Gross: 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. 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