His job was to keep them imprisoned and their job was to escape. 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. Over 5,000 Allied merchant seamen were captured by German forces during the Second World War, most of whom were at some time held at the camp Marlag und Milag Nord, Westertimke, near Bremen, Germany, (Marlag held Royal Navy personnel and Milag Merchant seamen). However there seldom were horses available, so teams of POWs pulled the wagons through the snow. H 203 Castel S.Pietro (Bologna) Military Hospital. They awoke one morning to discover that their guards had deserted them. Newly released documents at The National Archives show the three remarkable and successful escape attempts made by three British-born Officers - Flight Lieutenant Hedley S Fowler, Lieutenant. Returned to Spangenberg, the three were each sentenced to fifty-three days in solitary. 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. At one time there were over 30,000 jammed into facilities designed for 15,000. These records do not cover the entire war, the dates being: The lists of 169,000+ POWs were probably originally sent to the Casualty (PW) Branch of the Directorate of Prisoners of War in London, and also form the basis of the public record office documents. To make room for them many of the Poles were forced to give up their status as POWs and become civilian slave labourers. | Corran Purdon, Approved The sick and the dead were left at Stettin while the majority of the rest were moved on to Stalag IIA (Neubrandenberg) where they arrived on 7th February, 1945. Other than the aforementioned, a fee of 100 Swiss francs (currently 67) is charged per hour per research, this only applies to records over 60 years old. In 1944 the Norwegian officers were located as follows: 630 in the Seminary; 290 in the high-school; 100 in the primary school; 80 in the Richter house; 30 in hospital. 100 British POWs held in the dancehall of the Hotel Kronprinz near Bautzen. Adventure, Drama, War. The French and British did set up language lessons between themselves and some sport was played within the confines of the castle. Fort 17 (XVII) named after Michala Zymierskiego. 12 Candeli / Vincigliata near Florence. The site chosen was on a river plain of the Natisone, south-west of the town of Cividale and the nearest railway line. These officers were the incorrigible ones - the ones who had escaped before and intended to do so again. The camp was liberated by the Soviet Red Army in mid-April 1945 although this was long after most had been force marched out westwards. The treatment was a little worse. 172 officers held here as of February 26th 1943, opened originally in June 1941. Additional reports are dispersed among various record series. The Germans complied, selecting what was originally a small Luftwaffe training camp consisting of six barracks and a small airfield at Westertimke. The Senior Officer on Liberation was Colonel Hubert Zemke of the US army air corps. | After entering the clothing store, the tunnel was sealed to allow later use (it was discovered the following day during the search for the missing officers). Peter Parker, Knowing that See full summary, Director: Alec Guinness, Comedy, Drama, War. The Germans sometimes provided a wagon for the sick. | Lieutenant Airey Neave was the first British officer to make a successful escape from Colditz, one of the most famous POW camps. Don Chaffey It then it became Oflag XXI-B for French and British Commonwealth officers, subsequently for Soviet officers until June 1943. In their place British, French and other Allied officers were transferred to Hadamar from the citadel of Mainz. Located at Hadamar, near Limburg an der Lahn in western Germany. These were prisoners who defied the Nazis, attempted to escape , or were just generally hard to handle. Located in Colditz Castle situated on a cliff overlooking the town of Colditz in Saxony. It comprised eight barracks for the inmates and a "kommandantur" for the SS guards, totalling 120,000 square metres. By September 1940 the prisoners at the camp were mainly French, with 100 officers up the rank of colonel, and 28 generals. Many escapes, evasion and liberation reports (see below) include one or more Appendices. A list of Royal Marines known to have been imprisoned in German camps between 1939 and 1945 is to be found in ADM 201/111. Interesting new book looking at the history of Colditz when it was home to various different POW's during WW2 and the characters involved some well known others not so. 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, 1944. The Senior British Officer was Major-General V. M. Fortune. Peter Finch, Forces war records gratefully acknowledge individual contributions towards our databases and information sources: we would like to work with anyone who feels they have camp or individuals POW data which would be of interest. It was used by the Nazi Organisation Todt, a forced labour programme, to build bunkers, gun emplacements, air-raid shelters, and concrete fortifications. 111 min Only Dutch officers and a few Soviet officers remained. French and Italian soldiers were also kept here (from the end of September 1943 to March 1944). 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.. In June 1942 the Polish officers were transferred to other camps, such as Oflag VII-A Murnau and Oflag VI-B, Dssel. Pel, In September 1939 it was used to house British civilian internees and Polish prisoners from the German September 1939 offensive. Each nationality tended to stick to themselves and there was little national intermingling. On 19 January 1945, 1,500 prisoners marched out of camp in bitter cold. The buildings were arranged in a horseshoe shape. The castle was then used as an Internment Camp Ilag VII for men from the British Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey until the camp was liberated in May 1945. Post-war the site was taken over by the United States Army and renamed Camp King. As with Neave, Fowler successfully escaped from his first camp, Stalag Luft 1, near Barth, a German coastal town off the Baltic Sea. By the spring of 1942 an estimated 18,000 had died of hunger and disease, mainly typhus fever. Later renamed Quebec barracks and a base of the British Army after the war. Unfortunately, only a short distance from the camp the column was attacked by American aircraft, who mistook it for a formation of German troops. John Huston On liberation report of 20/12/44 this hospital housed 6 Soviets, 15 Poles, 30 British Indians, 73 Yugoslavs and 184 Italians and 72 French most were evacuated to Marseleilles via Bayon on11/12/44, except for the French who were moved to Luneville. This was a work camp, making roads and operating a stone quarry. Most were immediately sent to Arbeitskommandos (work details). While these two series of reports are duplicates, researchers are advised to order both copies as the second series, in particular, can include Appendices. 34795 (4168 British) POWs with 340 officers held here. After the Italian Armistice September 1943, 11 officers and 14 other ranks escaped with Italian partisan and SOE help. The camp had work camps close to the nearby aluminium factory. In April 1944, most of the prisoners were transferred to Oflag 79 near Braunschweig and the camp was closed. James Garner, Tran Van Khe, Approved It was located 2 km (1.2 mi) north of the Bavarian town of Murnau am Staffelsee. They lived in 30 barracks, which were mostly built of wood. 203 Bologna hospital in Castel S Pietro. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Subscribe now for regular news, updates and priority booking for events.Sign up, All content is available under the Open The Borkum and Helgoland camps were "volunteer" (Hilfswillige) labour camps and the labourers in those camps were treated harshly but marginally better than the inmates at the Sylt and Norderney camps. | Richard Attenborough, Approved An alphabetical listing of all camps for POWs and Hospitals, work camps and internment camps known in German-controlled areas. The French stay was relatively short. Ultimately, the confused situation meant that by the end of 1943 some 50,000 POWs had been rounded-up and transported to camps in Germany. 'Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle' by Ben Macintyre NJ McGarrigle October 08 2022 02:30 AM The inmates of Colditz Castle in Germany might have thought their war was over upon capture, but a. It is very important to note that the Soviet Union had not signed the Geneva Convention and hence the main Nazis reasoned that the POWs captured were to be treated similarly cruelly to the Jews, Slavs and the myriad of other prisoners who were systematically ill-treated, brutalised & murdered during the war. Besides, the so-called 'Black List' foreigners were also included. Work began in December 1942, but the rocky ground made digging difficult. It took them over eight hours to escape from the grounds. It is possible that the large number or escape attempts and the close proximity to the Swiss border (only 110 km/68 miles away) prompted the authorities to move the prisoners. | Inmates were cleaned and transferred to an improvised hospital outside the camp and thence to convalescence camps. Situated near Lauchammer between a foundry and a gun finishing factory, no information on POWs held. He was killed in action on 1 September 1944, commanding the second Battalion of the Kings Royal Rifle Corps, and is buried at Airaines Cemetery in France. In February 1942 the prisoners were transferred to Oflag VII-B in Eichsttt, and the castle was then became an internment camp (Internierungslager) for men from the British Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey. I greatly enjoy WWII history but sometimes books on that topic are too brutal, and depressing. Despite harsh conditions in the living chambers, the officers were granted relative freedom and had a part of the fortress gardens at their disposal. There were certainly US (and British?) 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