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The Great Escape : Stalag Luft
III, Sagan : March 1944
Allied aircrew shot down during World War II were
incarcerated after interrogation in Air Force Prisoner of War camps run by the Luftwaffe,
called Stalag Luft, short for Stammlager Luft or Permanent
Camps for Airmen. Stalag Luft III was situated in Sagan, 100 miles
south-east of Berlin, now called Zagan, in Upper Silesia, Poland. It was opened in 1942
with the first prisoners arriving in April of that year, and was just one of a network of
Air Force only PoW camps. The Germans treated captured Fleet Air Arm aircrew as Air Force
and put them all together. There is no obvious reason for the occasional presence of a
non-airman in the camps, although one possibility is that the captors would be able to
spot "important" non-Air Force uniformed prisoners more readily.
Conditions and Kommandants
It must be made clear that the German Luftwaffe, who were
responsible for Air Force prisoners of war, maintained a degree of professional respect
for fellow flyers, and the general attitude of the camp security officers and guards
should not be confused with the SS or Gestapo. The Luftwaffe treated the PoWs well,
despite an erratic and inconsistent supply of food. Prisoners were handled quite fairly
within the guidelines of the Geneva Convention, and the Kommandant, Oberst (Colonel)
Freidrich-Wilhelm von Lindeiner-Wildau, was a professional and honourable soldier who
won the respect of the senior prisoners.
He was 61 when the camp opened in May 1942, a capable,
educated man who spoke fluent English. Having joined the army in 1908, and after being
wounded three times in WW1, winning two Iron Cross awards, he left in 1919 and worked in
several civilian posts, meanwhile marrying a Dutch baroness, whilst trying to steer clear
of Nazi politics. Eventually he joined the Luftwaffe (the least Nazified of the three
German forces) in 1937 as one of Goering’s personal staff. Refused retirement, he
found himself posted as Sagan Kommandant, with Major Gustav Simoleit as deputy. The
first Kommandant, Colonel Stephani, had been quickly replaced when found to be
unsuited to the task.
Security was strict, but life was not intolerable, except
for those for whom escape was a restless itch... this was reckoned to be just 25
percent of the camp population, and only 5% of those were considered to be dedicated
escapers. The others would, however, work in support of any escape attempts.
After several major expansions, Luft III eventually grew to
hold 10,000 PoWs; it had a size of 59 acres, with 5 miles of perimeter fencing.
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