Stalag Luft III - the Great Escape (yes, it's in Poland!)

Damn, it's taken me years to find that one out.

(Though I did know that Steve McQueen didn't have a motorbike ...)

We had a thread about it...

read the thread about great war films.... i mentioned the camp that was in the great escape...

now in Zagan... south Poland...

Missed it, probably because I do have a life.

Aha.... so you are the one...?

do we say:

1. Polish Prisoner of war camp

2. german prisoner of war camp

3. british, american and others prisoner of war camp.

one likes to be PC about these things.

I think it was a German prisoner of war camp...and was in Germany..untill the borders moved...

Hold on - remember Carl Sagan - American bloke, presented a TV show "Cosmos" many moons ago?
His family (Jewish) must have taken their name from this place.

Anyway - it was a Luftwaffe POW camp.

There was a fourth tunnel called George that they are going to excavate.

Yes... it was a camp for those who had made a habbit of escaping from camps....turned out to be not so wise an idea to put all the escape experts together....

I thought that was Colditz.

Edit:
The Wooden Horse was also about Stalag Luft III.
This guy jumped over the horse in real life as a POW

• 
  Carry On
  

Colditz was used for the same reason....

I believe Colditz was for army officers.... Zagan was for RAF and USAF prisoners , although they had other nationalities , including a bunch of Russians...

Ah...That makes sense.

so which camp were michael caine, pele and ossie ardiles held in.

i know they were in one of them coz i've seen the film :)

Is that the football film...?

I have not seen that one , and i don,t know if its based on a true story or not...?

Aha...the film was called escape to victory....

It was based loosely on a book about such events , but the real story was about Ukrainian teams who played against the Germans during the occupation of Ukraine... They won most of their matches against the Germans....

They all wound up in concentration camps...where most of them died...

So..... almost a true story....

Colditz was a camp,or rather prison specificaly for " Prominente" (sp?) Basicaly prisoners the Germans either saw as valuable hostages or as said prolific escapers,either civilian or from all branches of many nations forces. One British guy ended up in Colditz just because his last name was Churchill.....absoloutly no relation but the germans were a zealous bunch :)

The first Prisoners were Polish Officers and their servants/batmen, a couple of Generals and I think the officers from Westerplatte,but dont quote me on that last bit:)

Zagan was technically a Lufftwaffe camp for allied airmen,at first The US and Commenwealth airmen shared the camp,but then as depicted in the film Soviet POWs were brought in to build a mirror camp as the population grew,unlike in the film the Americans had their own camp long before the tunnels were complete and none took part in the escape.

Off the top of my head the figures were 76 escaped, 73 recaptured,53 executed and 3 "home runs".
The extra tragedy of Stalag Lufft III is the story of the Death march the POWs were forced on by the Germans as the Russians drew nearer in the winter of 44/45, hundreds died or were shot where they fell by the guards and for little more of a reason than spite on the nazis part,most allied POWs at this stage 2liberated" by the Soviets at this time ended up well behind soviet lines untill after VE Day,a few barmy types ended up attaching themselves to forwrd russian fighting units and there are some crazy stories out there.

There's now a recreation of the Hut 104 and the tunnels have been marked out. It's all been done by the RAF. raf.mod.uk/project104/

Great videos,Thanks Harry.
But correct me if Im wrong,theres been a small museum and memorial there for quite a few years now hasnt there?

No idea about the museum (I've never been there myself) but there has been a memorial there since WWII (first one was put up by the camp prisoners).

Muzeum Obozów Jenieckich w Żaganiu
muzeum.eline2.serwery.pl/index.php?id=21&lng=eng

Thanks for the link thug.