Stalag Luft III
Stalag Luft III (German: Stammlager Luft III; literally "Main Camp, Air, III"; SL III) was a Luftwaffe-run prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during the Second World War, which held captured Western Allied air force personnel.
| Stalag Luft III | |
|---|---|
German: Stammlager Luft | |
| Part of Luftwaffe | |
| Sagan, Lower Silesia, Nazi Germany (now Żagań, Poland) | |
Model of the set used to film the movie The Great Escape. It depicts a smaller version of a single compound in Stalag Luft III. The model is now at the museum near where the prison camp was located. | |
Stalag Luft III Stalag Luft III | |
| Coordinates | 51.5986°N 15.3075°E |
| Type | Prisoner-of-war camp |
| Site information | |
| Controlled by | Nazi Germany |
| Site history | |
| In use | March 1942 – January 1945 |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
| Events | The "Great Escape" |
| Garrison information | |
| Past commanders | Oberst Friedrich Wilhelm von Lindeiner-Wildau |
| Occupants | Allied air crews, including Britons, Canadians, Poles, Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, Norwegians, Czechs, South Africans, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Belgians, Greeks |
The camp was established in March 1942 near the town of Sagan, Lower Silesia, in what was then Nazi Germany (now Żagań, Poland), 160 kilometres (100 miles) south-east of Berlin. The site was selected because its sandy soil made it difficult for POWs to escape by tunnelling.
It is best known for two escape plots by Allied POWs. One was in 1943 and became the basis of a fictionalised film, The Wooden Horse (1950), based on a book by escapee Eric Williams. The second breakout — the so-called Great Escape — of March 1944, was conceived by Royal Air Force Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, and was authorised by the senior British officer at Stalag Luft III, Herbert Massey. A heavily fictionalised version of the escape was depicted in the film The Great Escape (1963), which was based on a book by former prisoner Paul Brickhill. The camp was liberated by Soviet forces in January 1945. The site of the former POW camp is now the 'Stalag Luft III Prisoner Camp Museum'.