This was one of the most famous heroic failures of World War II, when dozens of German prisoners of war made a “great escape” from a German prison camp by tunneling under electrical wires.
As loosely depicted in the 1963 film The Great Escape, 76 British and international air force personnel successfully escaped from Stalag Luft III camp in March 1944, but most were captured. 50 people were brutally executed.
Nearly 80 years later, historians reviewing wartime documents reveal bombshell statements by one of the fugitives: the murdered man was betrayed by two British Nazi collaborators. I made it.
The accusation was made by Royal Air Force officer Lieutenant Desmond Plunkett, who forged maps for deserters and inspired the character played by Donald Pleasence in the film, which also starred Steve McQueen and Richard Attenborough. He is the person who gave the ration.
Unlike The Blind Forger of Plaisancehe was captured and killed after escaping, but Plunkett was one of the few escapees to have his life saved after being recaptured.
Plunkett wrote in a questionnaire in May 1945 after his release from another POW camp: “Their activities are directly related to the fate of the 50 prisoners who were executed.
“These two men are undoubtedly indigenous British nationals who must be tracked down and brought to justice for acting in collaboration with the enemy.”
The claims were made public this month when prisoners’ questionnaires were being digitized at the National Archives in London. Military archivist Will Butler, who organized the current exhibition on the wartime mass escape, said no such allegations of betrayal related to the event had ever come to light before.
“I have read a lot of material produced after the war regarding the execution of the 50 officers, and I have never come across any suggestion that there was any cooperation,” he said.
Did it happen? “It’s absolutely possible,” Butler said. “There were certainly many examples of Nazi authorities transporting people into prisoner-of-war camps under the guise of prisoners of war, while in reality acting as agents of the German state to thwart escape attempts and gather intelligence. ”
However, given that Mr Plunkett did not repeat the claim at a large post-war press conference and given the brutal treatment he received after the retake, the credibility of the claim is “certainly questionable”. Butler said.
Historian Guy Walters, author of The Real Escape, agreed. “I think [Plunkett] Because if he’s suggesting that perhaps two traitors are responsible for the murder, I don’t see how that’s possible. ” he said.
“Because the fugitives…were captured because they made a mistake. They were not betrayed.
“It is also impossible to understand how two alleged traitors could be responsible for the murders, since these murders were on the direct orders of Adolf Hitler.”
Unlike the events depicted in the film, when the escapees were rounded up and shot dead, “the murders were carried out by Gestapo agents in numerous locations throughout the Third Reich, wherever the escapees managed to reach.” It was done,” Walters said.
He argued that it was this brutality, rather than the failure to escape, that ultimately made the mass escape from Stalag Luft III remarkable. “It’s not an act of war. It’s just murder. It’s grotesque and terrifying.”
The reason he believes Plunkett was wrong, “and I hate to get into trouble with great fugitives,” is that perhaps “he spent 10 months at the hands of the Gestapo… This may be due to the paranoia and mental breakdown caused. I think he put two and two together to make five. ”
