Seventy six

The morning of March 25, 1944. Stalag Luft III, a German camp in Zagan (today Żagań, Poland). Sand, chilly air, the ground still icy.

A monotonous voice came over the loudspeaker: "Escape. Twenty officers." Pure bureaucracy. The real figure is quite different, but for now it's being hidden.

Sections, fences, floodlights. Formally a camp, in reality a perfectly designed open-air prison. The barracks are manned by officers from Great Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Norway, Poland, France, Czechoslovakia, and the Netherlands. They know how to read maps, repair machinery, and plan escapes in their heads.

The Germans also understand who they're dealing with. That's why the barracks are built on stilts, so the space beneath them is visible. The perimeter is thirty meters of bare, illuminated ground. An area where you're in full view.

Seismic sensors are buried in the ground. Dogs are chained. Searchlights cut through the night. Machine gun towers.

It all seems calculated. Escape is impossible. But the people behind the barbed wire aren't going to wait for mercy.

The Man Nicknamed "Big X"

Roger Jeremy Bushell. South African by birth, British by shape, sky by choice. 1910, Pretoria. Then Cambridge, law degree. Could have worked in the courts, but preferred the Spitfire.

Roger Bushell in sunglasses

1940, France. Bushell shoots down several German planes. He himself is shot down. He almost makes it to Spain, but is captured.

In Stalag Luft III, he sees not a dead end, but a challenge. He takes charge of the underground network. His nickname is "Big X." He leads, sets goals, and holds the thread.

"Every prisoner of war is obliged to escape. Our duty is to harass the enemy by all means necessary."

This is not a nice slogan, it is a position.

Bushell's plan: not one tunnel, but three. If one fails, the others will be in operation. "Tom," "Dick," and "Harry."

Three tunnels

March 1943. Work begins, just like in a real design bureau. People are divided into departments.

"Volume" They're digging under the barracks. A couple of months and a forty-five-meter tunnel is ready. In September 1943, the Germans find it and plant dynamite. Painful, but not fatal. That's what "Dick" and "Harry" are for.

"Dick" They start, but suddenly they decide to extend the exit zone to the camp. The tunnel is converted into a storage area for tools, documents, and all sorts of small items. They even dump sand from "Harry" there.

"Harry" becomes the main line. It is along this line that they will follow on the night of the escape.

An engineering marvel at a depth of nine meters

One hundred and ten meters of underground passage. Nine meters down, the depth of a three-story building. All this in loose sand.

The entrance is hidden beneath the cast-iron stove of barracks #104. The stove is on tricky hinges: when you pull it back, a shaft appears.

Why so deep? Because the sensors can hear everything closer to the surface. The deeper you go, the quieter the vibration.

The walls and ceiling are covered with planks. Planks are pulled out of the beds. A lath was pulled out and a support made from scrap material was installed. Over four thousand planks were used during the work. Without the planks, the tunnel would have collapsed on the very first day.

Ventilation is assembled from Klim cans. Thousands of tin cylinders are turned into pipes. Air is circulated with homemade bellows. Otherwise, people will suffocate.

Wooden rails are pulled through the tunnel, lined with tin. A mine cart runs along them, carrying sand and then people. Tons of soil are carried out. Where to put it? That's where the "penguins" come in.

Penguins, Printing House and Tailors

"Penguins" - one hundred and fifty men, each with a bag in his pant leg. You pour sand, go out into the yard, walk, slowly pour it out, and smear it with your foot. A new batch comes back. Day after day, month after month.

Mountains of sand. The Germans don't notice anything: the soil is similar to that on the surface.

There's also a printing press operating in the camp. They make passports, passes, and driver's licenses. The ink is homemade, and the stamps are cut out of heels. Any mistake means a death sentence.

Tailors remake uniforms for civilian wear. Greatcoats are dismantled and remade. Color is obtained by boiling blankets. Buttons are made from crushed biscuits and resin. Every escapee must look like a random passerby.

Some of the guards are bribed with chocolate, coffee, and canned goods from Red Cross parcels. For a map, a bar. For a compass, two. The lines between risk and fatal error are blurred.

The Night That Changed Everything

March 24, 1944, almost midnight. The plan is to get two hundred men out. Twenty minutes each. Every second is scheduled.

From the first minute everything goes wrong.

The hatch is frozen. The frost has gripped the lid. I have to thaw it out, break the ice clamp. The minutes are flying by.

Then there's a short circuit. Coffee is spilled on the wiring. The lights go out, and people crawl in the dark.

And the main blow: the tunnel didn't reach the forest. It was ten meters short. The exit was right in the open. So everyone had to crawl out, wait for the searchlight to move to the right, and then dash for the trees. Right under the guards' noses.

At dawn, the line to enter the tunnel is still long. Bushell gives the order to halt. Of the two hundred, seventy-six have made it out.

Score

Seventy-six are free. Seventy-three are back in German hands.

Three of them arrived.

Per Bergsland heads north and reaches Sweden. Jens Müller follows the same route. Bram van der Stok heads south, making his way through France and Spain to his own people.

The remaining Gestapo prisoners.

Hitler is furious. He demands everyone be shot. Himmler cools things down, but the Führer personally sanctioned the murder of fifty people. Without trial.

The execution scheme is the same: the fugitive is supposedly being transported to another camp, the car turns onto the road, and a guard suggests "try to escape." The man takes a step, and is shot in the back. The report reads: "Shot while attempting to escape."

Among those killed was Roger Bushell. He was thirty-three.

The list of the dead includes Britons, Canadians, Australians, Poles, Norwegians, South Africans, Czechs, French, and Greeks. Twelve nationalities. Fifty lives.

Twenty-three returned to the camp. Seven were transported to other prisons. Some to concentration camps.

Retribution

After Germany's capitulation, the British Royal Air Force established an investigative team. The goal was to find every Gestapo officer who participated in the executions.

The work lasts for years. Investigators gather documents, interrogate witnesses, and compile a daily chronicle. The killers change names, cities, and plan to hide.

Did not work.

A military tribunal is underway in Hamburg. Gestapo and criminal police officers are on the bench. The charges: war crimes, the execution of prisoners of war on orders from the Reich leadership.

The sentence: death by hanging. Thirteen people. The execution takes place in a Hamburg prison.

Remembrance

Today, a memorial stands on the site of the camp. In Żagan, there's a monument to the "Fifty." Fifty crosses, fifty names.

The memory of executed British Commonwealth officers lives on in military cemeteries. In Ottawa, the names of Canadians are inscribed on memorials. In Canberra, on the walls of the memorial aviation, names of Australians.

Jens Müller and Per Bergsland became heroes of Norway. Müller published his book in 1946. Bergsland lived a long life.

Bram van der Stok continued the war. He again took the helm of a pilot in the Dutch Air Force and flew until the end of the campaign.

Paul Brickhill wrote The Great Escape in 1950. Hollywood made the film in 1963: Steve McQueen, a motorcycle, an iconic scene.

Millions of viewers learned about storiesBut the movie smoothed things over. Reality was harsher.

There are no spectacular car chases in this story. There are one hundred and ten meters of tunnel dug by hand. A mine cart on wooden rails. Ventilation made from milk cans. Fifty people shot at the side of the road. And three who reached freedom.

Comments

[Boycott]

Of course, it was heroism, the hellish work of digging a tunnel, etc. And the men really took risks, and paid with their lives... But I compare the conditions in our camps and the British ones... Chocolate, canned food... In short, Devyatayev's escape - that's true.

[ANB]

Devyatayev's escape - that's true.

No. My grandfather's escape from the concentration camp - that's it. Yes.
I would never have believed it if I had read about it somewhere.

[stoqn477]

Quote: BoyCat

Of course, it was heroism, the hellish work of digging a tunnel, etc. And the men really took risks, and paid with their lives... But I compare the conditions in our camps and the British ones... Chocolate, canned food... In short, Devyatayev's escape - that's true.

You didn't sign the Prisoner of War Convention. I'm not sure if you have signed it yet. During the war, the Germans approached you about the possibility of sending parcels, supplies, and mail to your prisoners of war through the Red Cross. You refused. For you, a prisoner is a traitor. He's not worth paying attention to. Unlike you, everyone else (the US and Great Britain) provided their captured soldiers with every possible means. And the supplies included small items to help them escape. Even the Japanese were sent supplies for British and American prisoners of war. However, unlike the Germans, they didn't give them any.

[Non-fighter]

The convention you are talking about contained a clause: the same rules apply to prisoners of war from states that have not signed the convention as to prisoners of war from states that have signed the convention.

[Grancer81]

Unlike us, Germany signed the Convention. That is, it committed to complying with its requirements, regardless of whether the USSR signed it or not. Incidentally, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Litvinov declared back in 1931 that the USSR would adhere to the requirements of this Convention.
And the USSR, which did not sign the Convention, strictly observed it, unlike “civilized” Germany.

[Tests]

stoqn477 (Stoyan Ivanov), my dear, I understand that Russian is not your native language, BUT!
Who - "YOU" and in what period did not sign which "Prisoner of War Convention"?
Have you studied "Theory of State and Law of the USSR" and "History of State and Law of the USSR"?
Are you familiar with the "Appeal of the Council of People's Commissars to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the governments of states that have recognized the Geneva Convention" of May 30, 1918, signed by: Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Vl. Ulyanov (Lenin); Commissar for Foreign Affairs Chicherin; Manager of the Council of People's Commissars Vl. Bonch-Bruyevich; Secretary of the Council N. Gorbunov?...
"During the war, the Germans approached you about the possibility of sending parcels, supplies, and mail to your prisoners of war through the Red Cross. You refused. For you, a prisoner is a traitor. He's not worth paying attention to." - Could you provide a link to the documents: when and to whom did the Germans approach you?
And who put such dirty thoughts into your bright little head? Thousands of prisoners of war, after liberation and screening, were conscripted into the Red Army and sent back to the front. Even those Soviet prisoners of war who, in order to survive, agreed to training in Abwehr intelligence schools, were sent on reconnaissance and sabotage missions behind Red Army lines, and then turned themselves in, actively repented, and participated in Soviet intelligence radio games were amnestied. Some of these former Abwehr agents received state awards from the USSR.
My dear, learn your math!
On July 17, 1941, the USSR addressed a note to the Swedish Government in which the Soviet Union expressed its readiness to comply with the Hague Convention on the condition of reciprocity on the part of Germany. The German government rejected this note on August 25, 1941.
Have you seen this document? “Telegram from Moscow, August 8, 1941, to Mr. Huber, President of the Committee of the International Red Cross, Geneva. In response to your (note) No. 7162, the USSR People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, on the instructions of the Soviet Government, has the honor to inform you that the Soviet Government, by its note of July 17, has already declared to the Government of Sweden, which represents the interests of Germany in the USSR: The Soviet Union considers it obligatory to observe the rules of warfare listed in the IV. Hague Convention of October 18, 1907, concerning the laws and customs of war on land, with the obligatory condition that Germany and her allies observe the said rules. The Soviet Government agrees to the exchange of information on wounded and sick prisoners of war, as provided for in Art. 14 in the appendix to the said Convention and Art. 4 of the Geneva Convention of July 26, 1929, “For the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field.” "Vyshinsky, Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs..." In August 1941, the Soviet Union transmitted information about the number of captured Nazi soldiers, but there was no response. The Soviet Union sent notes twice more (on November 25, 1941 and April 27, 1942) citing specific examples of abuses against Soviet citizens, but never received a response.
For dessert:
Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, July 27, 1929.
Declaration.
The undersigned, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, hereby declares that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics accedes to the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, concluded at Geneva on July 27, 1929.
In witness whereof, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, duly authorized for this purpose, has signed this declaration of accession.
According to the resolution of the Central Executive Committee of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of May 12, 1930, this accession is final and does not require further ratification.
Committed in Moscow on August 25, 1931.
M. Litvinov."
On September 08, 1941, regulations were issued regarding the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war in all camps, signed by General Reinecke, head of the Prisoner of War Department at the High Command. Here's an excerpt: "The Bolshevik soldier has therefore lost the right to be treated as an honest enemy, in accordance with the rules of the Geneva Convention... At the slightest hint of insubordination, especially in the case of Bolshevik fanatics, the order must be given for ruthless and energetic action. Insubordination, active or passive resistance must be broken immediately by force of arms (bayonets, rifle butts and firearms)... Anyone who, when carrying out this order, does not resort to his weapon or does not do so energetically enough, is subject to punishment... Prisoners of war attempting to escape must be shot without prior warning. A warning shot must never be fired. The use of weapons against prisoners of war is, as a rule, legal"... And compare with the memoirs of captured German officers who were held in Soviet captivity in the officers' camp in the city of Gryazovets in the Vologda region. They are not very difficult to find online.

[odisey3000]

Comrade or not, Stoyan Ivanov, the Nazis killed 27 million Soviet citizens in the USSR. Of that number, only 8 million were military personnel; the rest were women, the elderly, and children. They were killed, burned, tortured, raped, and starved. What convention are you talking about when, as early as 1941, the Wehrmacht was executing commissars and communists without trial or investigation? Come to Russia, I'll take you there and show you what the convention experts did in our country.

[Old electrician]

stoqn477

During the war, the Germans approached you about the possibility of sending parcels, supplies, and mail to your prisoners of war through the Red Cross. You refused…

– Forgive the indiscreet question. Where, when, and which specific Germans contacted us through the Red Cross?
Why lie so shamelessly and brazenly?
On July 27, 1929, the Geneva Conference drafted the "Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War." Based on this Convention, on March 27, 1931, the USSR drafted the "REGULATION ON PRISONERS OF WAR," which differed from the Convention in that it was more humane and democratic. The "Regulation" provided for:

- extension of the civil rather than military regime to prisoners of war;
- granting political rights to prisoners of war who belong to the working class or to peasants who do not exploit the labor of others;
- the appointment of salaries not only for officers, but for all prisoners of war;
- the involvement of prisoners of war in work only with their consent and with the application to them of general legislation on labor protection and conditions, etc.

The most terrifying thing about the "Regulations" was that prisoners of war were forbidden to wear shoulder straps, and officers who were prisoners of war were forbidden to have orderlies. - What refined sadism!
Now, based on the fact that the USSR adopted a “Regulation” instead of the “Convention,” Russophobes of all stripes claim that Stalin allegedly did not sign anything at all, and treated both German and his own prisoners of war brutally.
The vileness of this lie is off the charts. Beginning on June 22, 1941, the Soviet government began receiving information about Wehrmacht war crimes against both Soviet prisoners of war and civilians in occupied territory. In a naive attempt to urge Germany to comply with international law, on July 01, 1941, the complacent "PRISONERS OF WAR REGULATION" was repealed, and the USSR accepted the 1929 Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War without any reservations. This automatically led to a tightening of the treatment of German prisoners of war, up to the limits defined by the 1929 Geneva Convention.
Another lie of Russophobes is that the USSR was not a member of the International Red Cross (ICC), and therefore Soviet prisoners of war were not subject to any protection.
In 1919, the League of Red Cross Societies (LOCK) was founded, representing a federation of national Red Cross societies. According to the organization's charter, the International Red Cross Committee (IRCC) was to operate during the war. This charter remained in effect during WWII.
In 1923, after the unification of allied societies in the USSR, the Union of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies of the USSR was established, which in 1934 officially joined the LRC.
Germany signed the Geneva Convention, Article 82 of which states:

If, in the event of war, one of the belligerents is not a party to the convention, the provisions thereof shall nevertheless remain binding on all belligerents who have signed the convention.

– this article of the “Convention” was mandatory for Germany to implement, regardless of whether the USSR signed the “Convention” and whether it was a member of the ICC.
Germany observed the Convention only with respect to the Nordic races. Therefore, for Americans, British, and French, camp conditions were like resorts. This did not apply to the USSR. From an order of the OKW Prisoner of War Department dated September 8, 1941, signed by Lieutenant General Reinecke:

The Bolshevik soldier lost his right to decent treatment under the Geneva Convention…

From the testimony at the Nuremberg Trials of Wengler, a civilian adviser to the OKW's "foreign" legal group:

I know that at the beginning of the campaign, the Soviet government turned to the German government with a proposal to mutually apply the Geneva and Hague, in particular the Geneva, conventions to prisoners of war. I know that the chief of the OKW, Keitel, refused to consider these proposals ...
... The content of this document boiled down to the fact that Germany cannot and does not want to agree to this proposal of the Soviet government ...

The Nazis didn't allow the Soviet Red Cross into their territory. What's more! It was common practice for them to shoot the wounded, doctors, and nurses in captured hospitals, and bomb ambulance trains and ships bearing the Red Cross emblem. That's why the Nazis were hanged at Nuremberg. As for the International Red Cross, nothing and no one prevented it from fulfilling its duties in accordance with the Red Cross charter. However, during the war, the IRC leadership supported Hitler, so they couldn't care less about Soviet prisoners of war.

[Amateur]

The British behaved differently in captivity. There were heroes, and there were scoundrels. Those interested can read "The Bridge on the River Kwai" by Peter Bull.

[paul3390]

Coffee was spilled on the wiring

They had an interesting prisoner of war camp.

[South Ukrainian]

Quote: paul3390

Coffee was spilled on the wiring

They had an interesting prisoner of war camp.

And I also liked this: Hitler is furious. He demands everyone be shot. Himmler cools it down...

[merkava-2bet]

That's okay, watch the movie "Hart's War" with Bruce Willis, it's not a concentration camp but a Boy Scout club, everyone has a whole and clean military uniform, as if on holiday.

[cpls22]

Quote: paul3390

They had an interesting prisoner of war camp.

Judging by the pictures, it's a ten-man barracks with six stovepipes. It looks like each officer had his own "compartment," and they could move around the camp freely, even after lights out. And no frisking, otherwise they would have been "burned" after the first search. Condensed milk, coffee, chocolate. The guards were worse off, since they bought these goodies from them. Racially similar contingent.

[Roman_Vasilyevich]

...Condensed milk, coffee, chocolate...

Geneva Convention,
Red Cross,
Parcels from the homeland...
I read about the conditions in this camp - I was surprised, to say the least...
However, the act is worthy of respect!

[cpls22]

Quote: Roman_Vasilevich

However, the act is worthy of respect!

I agree. The organizational skills were excellent, the internal cohesion was excellent (no one gave up), and there was a sense of urgency. But it all could have been different if the Germans had applied the monstrous pressure of absolute control, pushing the prisoner to the brink of survival, as they did with Soviet prisoners of war.

[Boycott]

And they weren't forced to work, if my sclerosis doesn't fail me. So there was time to dig underground. And another thing: they discovered a tunnel in the concentration camp: The guards' reaction was that no one was shot, and apparently they weren't even punished in any way. Little was written about this here, I don't know why.

[Grancer81]

Only rank and file personnel could be recruited for work inside the camp. Non-commissioned officers were welcome, but there were no officers.

[Krasnoyarsk]

Quote: paul3390

Coffee was spilled on the wiring

They had an interesting prisoner of war camp.

I was particularly surprised by the mine cart in the tunnel. How it appeared in the camp was all well and good, but how it ended up in the tunnel, and especially how the camp authorities didn't notice its disappearance. And how the guards carried soil out of the tunnel in pockets and scattered it in the camp courtyard, and didn't notice? A fresh tale...

[nerd.su]

Quote: Krasnoyarsk

but here's how she ended up in the tunnel, and, especially, how the camp authorities didn't notice her disappearance.

Judging by the photo, the mine cart is homemade, assembled from what was available right in the tunnel.

Quote: Krasnoyarsk

And the removal of soil from the tunnel in pockets and its scattering in the camp courtyard, and the guards didn’t notice anything?

This is also somehow doubtful.

[Aggle]

And the removal of soil from the tunnel in pockets and its scattering in the camp courtyard, and the guards didn’t notice anything?

"The Naked Gun 3".

[silverwolf88]

They hanged for their own... double standards... but all sorts of murderers of Russians under the protection of the British and the USA settled in different places... America, Canada, etc.... these scumbags in Germany did not receive a death sentence and were either acquitted or released on parole.

[the same doctor]

And our Ukrainians who tormented the prisoners will be forgiven and forgotten.

[Krasnoyarsk]

Quote: also a doctor

And our Ukrainians who tormented the prisoners will be forgiven and forgotten.

No, if they find and prove it, there will be a trial, and for a long time...

[Fitter65]

After Germany's capitulation, the British Royal Air Force established an investigative team. The goal was to find every Gestapo officer who participated in the executions.

If there had been Soviet pilots, the British would not have moved.

[AlexSam]

Well, well... An investigative team, a trial of the executioners, an execution, a film... The British, of course! And those other "white people"... Did these white people ever make a single film about the exploits of our soldiers, did they ever hang a single Nazi for us, with or without a trial? Shouldn't the Zionists have made "Sobibor"?

P.S. I deliberately wrote "Zionists" instead of "Jews." In the USSR, and later in Russia, 80% of actors, actors, directors, and screenwriters were Jews. The same applies to writers, poets, composers, artists, singers, and other cultural figures. I've taken a typical percentage; there may be more, who knows. But I'm taking those who have at least achieved something, become recognizable, and made a name for themselves. The Jewish lobby, yes, makes it unrealistic for a Russian actor to break into the major leagues. Those who have made it and become household names are few and far between. But! Jews film, act, write—create. Including "Sobibor." Because they are our Jews. Zionists—not. Who would they film about? A Soviet hero? A communist? Funny...
And the article is good. For the British. And yes, it might be useful reading for Germans too.

[Dimax]

Yes, the Geneva Conventions are surprisingly humane in their treatment of soldiers attempting to escape captivity. They only impose disciplinary sanctions, even in cases of recidivism...

[belost79]

Sorry, but this is an escape from a pioneer camp.

[the same doctor]

And here they are making a moratorium for Banderovites.