The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945

The Luftwaffe established Stalag Luft 1 in mid-June 1941. The camp was located near Barth, in Air Defense District (Luftgau) I (about 51 kilometers/32 miles northeast of Rostock) (map 4b). The camp held primarily American and British officers captured during air raids. A German flak school was located several hundred meters to the south of the camp, and a small patch of forest separated the camp from the Baltic Sea.

When it initially opened in 1941, the camp known as Stalag Luft held captured airmen of all ranks. There were three sections within the camp: the first held officers, the second held noncommissioned officers (NCOs), and the third functioned as a kitchen and recreation facility. As the Allied bombing campaign intensified and the number of captured airmen increased, German authorities began to repurpose the camp. In April 1942, Germans redistributed the existing prisoner population to other camps, and, when it resumed operation in October 1942, Stalag Luft 1 became primarily an officers’ camp.¹ Until the early spring of 1943, Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) occupied the former NCO camp, with British airmen in the former officers’ camp. By May, the Soviet POWs had been transferred out of the camp and Stalag Luft 1 held only captured British and American airmen for the remainder of the war.²

The conditions during the early part of the second phase of the camp’s existence were generally good. By early 1943, there was some overcrowding in the British prisoners’ section of the camp, but, overall, the situation was not bad. The prisoners had access to a library, prepared courses and lectures in 15 subjects, began work on a theater, and enjoyed a large sports field, promptly put to use as a soccer pitch. Once the Germans removed the Soviets from the camp, prisoners had free access to three compounds, only separated at night. Throughout 1943, the canteen remained stocked and men slept comfortably, with six prisoners to a room. Prisoners regarded the accommodations as “ample” and requested of the German Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, OKW) that the population of the camp remain under 900.³

By February 1945, the camp’s population had increased to 8,939. The dramatic, more than tenfold increase in the camp’s size during this two-year span came about in large part because of the correspondingly dramatic increase in the scope of the Allied air campaign over Germany. As Germans shot down and captured more Allied airmen, the Stalag Luft camps expanded both in number and in scale. Few camps demonstrate this expansion as clearly as Stalag Luft 1. The arrival of such large numbers of prisoners required a significant expansion of the camp’s facilities. This was accomplished through several waves of construction. By early 1944, a new compound, designated the North Compound, opened across the principal street from the initial camp, now designated as the Vorlager and Southwest Compound. These facilities continued to expand, as the North Compound grew by 1945 into three separate compounds (North I, II, and III) and the Vorlager developed into a camp hospital with a capacity of more than 100.⁴

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Stalag Luft 1 at Barth. View of camp buildings, July 1941.

COURTESY OF ICRC.

Although the camp was almost constantly being expanded during its last two years of operation, the facilities failed to keep up with the rising camp population, which grew steadily until early 1945. This created a situation of constant need and instability within the camp. At times conditions became so overcrowded that prisoners slept in hallways, on tables, or strewn about the floor.⁵ The theater and study rooms were closed so they could be used as barracks. At other points, tents were raised on the sports fields to temporarily alleviate the overcrowding.⁶ The focus on expansion of permanent facilities came at the expense of existing facilities. The electric system within the camp never improved, and each room only had a single 40-watt light bulb.⁷ Prisoners had few if any supplies on hand to perform basic repairs. A number of the barracks sat on the plain exposed to the harsh winds off the Baltic and [End Page 503] others lacked basic weatherproofing. Poor heating and leaky roofs meant that the weather had a large effect on the conditions.⁸

The camp’s proximity to the Baltic Sea also limited the facilities. There were no underground air-raid shelters, as were present in most other POW camps, as the high-water table prevented their construction. The high-water table also led to poor drainage on the campgrounds. In April 1945, international observers reported “large lakes of open sewage … under and between the barracks.” These could not be drained and only two horse-drawn wagons were on hand for the entire camp to remove waste.⁹ Nevertheless, the conditions never deteriorated enough to cause a total breakdown in morale within the camp. There was, it seemed, a consistent level to the mediocrity of camp conditions that proved somewhat bearable in the end.

The flourishing prisoner culture within the camp was vital for maintaining morale. Toward the end of the war, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Greening, who had participated in the Doolittle Raid, began petitioning the American government to “make an exhibition in the United States of the many articles such as model boats and aircraft, paintings, wood carving models of the POW camp, etc., after the war.”¹⁰ In addition to their artistic endeavors, the prisoners kept themselves occupied through frequent escape attempts. As one international observer noted, “[The prisoners] keep the German staff very busy as they have developed a great activity in escaping. As the camp is very near the sea shore, successful escapes are particularly tempting.”¹¹ However, successful escapes were exceedingly difficult and the recurrent attempts led to frequent disciplinary actions and a number of restrictions on movement at night and near the perimeter of the camp. On several occasions, prisoners were shot—and on at least one occasion killed—in their efforts to escape.¹²

Although Americans significantly outnumbered British prisoners during the latter years of the war, the Germans did not separate the prisoners by nationality. Instead, prisoners coexisted and shared resources freely. The exception was the decision late in the war to segregate all Jewish officers within the camp. Although these men were still accorded the same rations and access to the rest of the camp, they were housed in separate barracks in the North I compound. The irony of the Germans’ efforts to isolate the Jewish prisoners was that, according to international observers, the Germans placed them in “two barracks which incidentally are much less crowded than all other barracks in the entire camp.”¹³

The atmosphere in the camp changed considerably in the early months of 1945 as the end of war approached and liberation seemed a real possibility. Though conditions reached their worst in the camp during those months, international observers noted that the prisoners’ morale remained high because “they expect to be liberated soon.”¹⁴ Conversely, American lieutenant Raymond Feilbach recalled that by April, the German guards “kept pretty much to themselves … [which] seemed to indicate that the jig was up.”¹⁵ On April 30, 1945, the German personnel fled the camp. Feilbach recalled the circumstances and aftermath: “The Germans called in Colonel [Hubert] Zemke and told him they were leaving the Americans behind. That night we took over the camp. It was a great night. We had a victory bond fire [sic], burning up the fences and the watch tower. Then someone set out in a jeep to meet the advancing patrol of the Russians.”¹⁶ Soviet forces liberated the camp on May 2, 1945.