OFFIZIERLAGER (OFLAG) XVIII A
The Wehrmacht established Oflag XVIII A on October 16, 1939, in Lienz, in Defense District (Wehrkreis) XVIII. Sometime between June and August 1943, the camp was transferred to Wagna, 212 kilometers (131 miles) to the east.1 Oflag XVIII A was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War in Defense District XVIII (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Wehrkreis XVIII).
[End Page 275] Oflag XVIII A was first located in the Franz Josef Kaserne (barracks) in Grafenangen, a district in the northern part of the town of Lienz, in eastern Tyrol. There were about 30 barracks for the prisoners as well as several other barracks that served other functions, including a kitchen, an infirmary, and offices and quarters for the camp staff. The camp staff comprised 66 men, a relatively small number compared to the staff of most camps for enlisted men (Stalags).2 The commandant of the camp was Oberst (later General) Plammer and his adjutant was Hauptmann Zuber. The paymaster (Zahlmeister) was Viktor Walter Glückstein.3
Oflag XVIII A originally held Polish officers who had been captured during the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. As of December 13, 1939, there were 600 Polish officers and 120 orderlies (batmen) in the camp.4 By the spring of 1941, all of the Polish officers had been transferred to other camps in the Reich. The first French prisoners arrived on August 17–18, 1940.5 While small numbers of British, Dutch, and Italian officers were intermittently present in the camp after August 1940, the camp population consisted almost entirely of French officers for the rest of its existence. The camp population was relatively stable throughout its operation, with a population generally between 800 and 1,000 French officers and 100 and 150 orderlies; the maximum population of the camp was 1,037 officers and 167 orderlies in October 1942.6
Conditions in Oflag XVIII A during its deployment in Lienz were generally regarded as good. The Germans generally observed the requirements of the Geneva Convention of 1929 in their treatment of French prisoners, and it seems that they did so in Oflag XVIII A. The International Committee of the Red Cross representatives who visited the camp in September 1940, shortly after the arrival of the first transports of French prisoners, gave a positive report about the prisoners’ accommodations and indicated that the prisoners had told them that the Oflag was a significant improvement over the conditions in the Frontstalags in France from which they had arrived at Oflag XVIII A. The food rations in the camp were considered adequate, and while there was a shortage of clothing, this problem was ameliorated by the arrival of shipments of clothing from France.7 The prisoners worked hard to maintain morale within the camp, and there was a substantial Gaullist movement among the officers that encouraged an attitude of defiance toward their German captors. Morale was further improved when news of the Allied landings in North Africa and later in Normandy reached the prisoners.8
In the summer of 1943, the camp was relocated to Wagna, in Styria. The campsite in Wagna had been used as a prisoner of war camp during World War I, and, between September and mid-November 1942, the main camp of Stalag XVIII B had been located there. The Wagna camp consisted of a barracks with three rooms each, each room holding 20 men. There was also a canteen, an infirmary, and a theater. The camp population seems to have remained relatively constant after the transfer; however, records about this period of the camp’s existence are limited. The Wehrmacht ordered the dissolution of the camp on September 21, 1944; the prisoners were transferred to Oflag XI B in Braunschweig.9
SOURCES
Primary source information about Oflag XVIII A is located in BA-MA and BArch B 162/27873 Überprüfung des Oflag XVIII A in Lienz (copies at USHMMA, RG-14. 101M.2622.0000648–00000707).
Additional information about Oflag XVIII A can be found in the following publications: Yves Durand, La vie quotidienne des prisonniers de guerre dans les stalags, les oflags et les kommandos 1939–1945 (Paris: Hachette, 1987); G. Mattiello and W. Vogt, Deutsche Kriegsgefangenen- und Internierten-Einrichtungen. Handbuch und Katalog: Lagergeschichte und Lagerzensurstempel, vol. 2 (Koblenz: self-published, 1987), p. 18; Gianfranco Mattiello, Prisoners of War in Germany 1939–1945 (Camps, Nationalities, Monthly Population) (Lodi: self-published, 2003), pp. 217–218; Edith Petschnigg, Von der Front aufs Feld: Britische Kriegsgefangene in der Steiermark 1941–1945 (Graz: Selbstverlag der Vereins zur Förderung der Forschung von Folgen nach Konflikten und Kriegen, 2003); and Hubert Speckner, In der Gewalt des Feindes: Kriegsgefangenenlager in der “Ostmark” 1939 bis 1945 (Vienna: R. Oldenbourg, 2003), pp. 322–326.
NOTES
1. Speckner, In der Gewalt des Feindes, pp. 322–324.
2. Ibid., pp. 322–323.
3. “Vernehmungsniederschrift—Zeuge—Viktor Walter Glückstein,” BArch B 162/27873, Bl. 17-17R (copies at USHMM, RG-14.101M.2622.00000667–00000668).
4. Mattiello, Prisoners of War, p. 217.
5. Speckner, In der Gewalt des Feindes, p. 322.
6. Mattiello, Prisoners of War, pp. 217–218.
7. Speckner, In der Gewalt des Feindes, p. 323.
8. Durand, La vie quotidienne, pp. 219, 248.
9. Speckner, In der Gewalt des Feindes, pp. 325–326.
