Abstract
Stalag Luft III was a German prisoner of war camp for Allied aviators during World War II. Situated at Zagan, Poland, in what was once eastern Germany, the site is famous for repeated escape attempts, particularly the mass escape of 79 PoWs in March 1944. Though made famous by the 1964 John Sturges film, “The Great Escape,” little attention has focused on the site itself, which has experienced a complex wartime and postwar history. This study represents the first formal attempt at an archaeological assessment of the site, focusing on the events relating to the mass breakout attempt in March 1944.
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Acknowledgments
The work conducted in September 2003 was supported by Windfall Films, a production company that made a documentary screened in the United States and UK about the site and our archaeological work. The authors would like to thank the producer/director Mark Radice, for his support and understanding of the work, as well David Dugan, (executive producer), Jamie Lockhead (assistant producer), and Konrad Jankowski (interpreter). We also recognize the fieldwork of Daniel Phillips and Gabriel Moshenska, who recorded the profiles and artifacts on site. Many of the artifacts recovered, the property of the Museum of Allied Prisoners of War and Martyrology at Zagan, were on loan display at the Great Escapes exhibit at the Imperial War Museum, London, during 2004–2006.
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Doyle, P., Pringle, J., Babits, L.E. (2013). Stalag Luft III: The Archaeology of an Escaper’s Camp. In: Mytum, H., Carr, G. (eds) Prisoners of War. Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology, vol 1. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4166-3_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4166-3_8
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