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

The Luftwaffe created Stalag Luft 3 in May 1942, south of the town of Sagan (today Żagań, Poland) (map 4e) and west of Stalag VIII C, also located in Sagan, which had been in existence since the autumn of 1939. The camp was intended for officers, as well as noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and other ranks, serving mostly in the Royal Air Force and US Army Air Forces. Among those, apart from the British and Americans, there were also Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, Afrikaners, Poles, Norwegians, Greeks, Dutch, Lithuanians, and Belgians.

When the Germans decided to create Stalag Luft 3 in October 1941, they intended it to be a model camp. The increasing number of escapes from prisoner of war (POW) camps influenced its design and location. The authorities placed it on the outskirts of a town deep within the Reich, in a remote and densely forested area with sandy soil, in order to hinder tunneling. They surrounded the camp with a 2.5 meter (8.2 feet) high double fence; the space between the fences was 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) wide and filled with barbed wire. Guard towers with search lights and machine guns stood every 100 meters (328 feet) alongside the fence. In addition, the forest had been cleared from around the camp to allow the guards better visibility. On the inside, a wire ran parallel to the fence, about 10 meters (32.8 feet) from it and about 45 centimeters (17.7 inches) above the ground. This was the “dead line,” which the prisoners were forbidden to approach. The barracks stood on pillars, so that the guards could observe the space between the barrack floor and the ground. The Germans also installed special microphones, which were supposed to capture any potential attempts to dig escape tunnels.

Initially, the camp operated under the command of Air Defense District (Luftgau) III, and later Air Defense District VIII. The commandants of the camp were Oberst Stephani (March–May 1942), Oberst Friedrich Wilhelm von Lindeiner-Wildau (May 1942–March 1944), Oberst Cordes (briefly), and finally Oberst Franz Braune (March 1944–January 1945). Most of the guards came from antiaircraft units, and later from among soldiers being sent to the rear from the eastern front. The number of guards initially fluctuated between 500 and 600, later rising to about 800.

The first prisoners, British airmen, arrived in the camp in April 1942; the camp itself (i.e., the first compound) had been completed and opened by the end of March. Initially, the camp comprised only two compounds: Eastern (for officers) and Central (for NCOs and other ranks), plus a sector designated for the camp’s administration and the German guards. From there, the camp kept expanding. In March 1943, the Northern compound was opened (for officers), and, in the spring of 1944, Southern and Western compounds (for Americans). The compounds constructed between 1943 and 1944 were larger, each with enough capacity for 2,000–3,000 prisoners. At the beginning of 1944, the administration of the camp also included managing the camp of Sagan-Belaria, which for a short time (January–February 1944) operated independently, as Stalag Luft 4 Sagan-Belaria.

The first recorded statistics on the camp population, compiled in May 1942, indicate a total population of 1,084 prisoners, of whom 1,068 were British, 14 were French, and 2 belonged to other nationalities; 69 of the prisoners were officers. The camp population gradually increased throughout the war. The first American prisoners arrived in June 1942 and the first Soviet prisoners arrived in November 1944. The last French prisoners left the camp in October 1943. The final camp population figures, which also represented its maximum population, recorded 10,944 prisoners, of whom 3,948 were British, 6,831 were American, and 165 were Soviet; 5,438 of the prisoners were officers. The maximum number of officers in the camp was 9,384 in December 1944; the maximum proportion of officers among the camp population was recorded in October 1944, when 8,377 of the 9,136 prisoners in the camp were officers (91.7%).¹

Initially, Stalag Luft 3’s prisoners were transferred there from Stalag Luft 1 in Barth, Dulag Luft, and several other camps under army control (Stalag IX C in Bad Sulza, Stalag VIII B in Lamsdorf, and Stalag III E in Kirchhain). The rapidly growing numbers of captured Allied airmen (mostly from bombers) required transfers of prisoners to other camps and the construction of new camps. Despite that, the numbers of prisoners kept increasing, particularly from the end of 1943 onward. The American prisoners gradually surpassed the British ones in number. The camp was the largest Luftwaffe POW camp during World War II.

Inside the camp, a wide range of activities took place, including cultural, educational, sports, religious, and publishing enterprises. The prisoners did not have to perform labor.

The prisoners undertook a number of escape attempts, the largest and most famous of them being the so-called “great escape” of the night of March 24–25, 1944, which was later depicted in the 1963 film The Great Escape. Seventy-six prisoners managed to escape, of whom 73 were quickly recaptured by the Germans. Fifty of these men were shot under the [End Page 506] so-called Sagan Order (Sagan-Befehl). The British military authorities initiated an inquiry into this incident after the war, which resulted in 18 of the accused being put before a tribunal and found guilty in 1948; 14 of them were executed.

With the Red Army approaching, the Germans evacuated the camp, gradually, between January 27 and January 29, 1945. The prisoners were routed to the west, first on foot toward Spremberg, where, after several days, they then boarded trains. Some were taken north, to Stalag III A in Luckenwalde, and further to Marlag Milag Nord (liberated on May 2), while others were sent south, to Stalag XIII D in Nürnberg-Langwasser and Stalag VII A in Moosburg (liberated on April 29).