Stalag Luft III: The Secret Story [Hardcover]

Arthur A. Durand (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1988

Based largely on a coded history secretly kept by the prisoners of Stalag Luft III, this in-depth examination shows the main priority of the POWs was the planning and execution of escapes which would aid the war effort by undermining German military resources. 22 black-and-white photographs.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Stalag Luft III, a POW center in Germany, will be familiar to readers who remember the film The Great Escape. Historian Durand here writes a comprehensive history of the camp (some 10,000 prisoners at one point) from its beginning in April 1942 until its chaotic evacuation in February 1945, much of the material based on an ingeniously coded log kept by three officers in one of the compounds. The author covers every conceivable aspect of daily life including prisoner-generated educational and cultural programs, relations with the German administrators, and the obsessive planning, preparation and execution of various escapes and escape attempts. The book is crowded with interesting characters, primarily American and British, but the most memorable is Col. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Lindiener, the commandant, whose professional code and personal kindness ensured that conditions at the camp were as good as possible under the circumstances. Illustrated. History Book Club alternate.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

$29.95. hist Stalag Luft III was the site of the mass escape attempt described by Paul Brickhill in The Great Escape (1950). Unlike David Foy's more comprehensive study of German POW camps, For You The War Is Over ( LJ 4/15/84), this work is devoted to a single military prison for allied officers and pilots. Durand describes POW life, carefully researched and written to academic standards. There were few Hogan's Heroes- type hijinks and even fewer escapes, but the Stalag's inmates accomplished wonders in providing for their own welfare and survival. The book belongs in public as well as military collections. Raymond L. Puffer, U.S. Air Force History Prog., Los Angeles
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 412 pages
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr; First Edition edition (June 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807113522
• ISBN-13: 978-0807113523
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.8 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,110,699 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The rest of the story..., May 10, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Stalag Luft III: The Secret Story (Paperback)

This interesting, exciting and thoroughly documented book fills in the blanks of my father's day-to-day experiences as a POW during WWII. Like many men of his generation, he spoke little of the 14 months he spent in these German prison camps after being blown out of a B-17 on a failed bombing run. We knew he was at "The Great Escape" Stalag, but also knew it was a semi-fictionalized version we saw on the screen.

The description of the evacuation, forced march and eventual liberation by Patton's army brought to life the tid-bits we were able to gather from my, now deceased, dad.

Our mother cherishes this oppurtunity to know what really happened to her dashing young aviator during the time he was presumed KIA. This book will be passed on to our children as part of our family's history.

Thank you.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything You Wanted to Know About Stalag Luft III, April 18, 2006

By 

Jan Peczkis "Scholar and Thinker" (Chicago IL, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Stalag Luft III: The Secret Story (Paperback)

This book presents a tremendous amount of detail about Stalag Luft III. So many arcane details are presented! This includes such topics as the mental health of prisoners, religious and cultural activities of the prisoners, and even the heartbreak of POWs whose fianc?s had left them as a result of their captivity, and told them so in "Dear John" letters.

The well-publicized escapes from the camp (and also some not so well publicized ones) are relegated to only a relatively small part of the book. It is easy to see that the murder of 50 of the 73 recaptured POWs following the Great Escape did exert a chilling effect on future escapes, precisely as the Germans wanted. However, some tunnels (Margaret and George) were subsequently prepared in case the Germans attempted to kill all the prisoners in the end. A desperate revolt was also planned by the Stalag Luft III inmates in the event of such a German order. Much detail is also presented about the evacuation of the POWs from Stalag Luft III on the heels of the advancing Red Army.

When it comes to German treatment of its POWs, Stalag Luft III stands out as an exception in a very positive direction. However, there is no way of verifying the claim that the POWs in Stalag Luft III, despite their meager food rations, were nevertheless fed no worse than the frontline German soldiers.

The author Durand focuses on the common mistreatment of POWs by Germans in camps other than Stalag Luft III. For example, some erstwhile American POWs claim that their treatment was little different form that of concentration camp victims, except that the latter were likely to die of shootings or gassings. Even so, Durand gives a detailed but incomplete picture of the German treatment of POWs. He mentions some killings of American POWs and dwells on the numerous Soviet POWs murdered by the Germans. However, he fails to mention the fact that the widespread killing of POWs by Germans dates back to the very first days of the war, when Germans murdered thousands of Polish troops that had surrendered to them (not to mention civilians).

Duran quotes extensively from Kommandant von Lindeiner's memoirs. In it is mentioned the characteristics of different nationalities of POWs at Stalag Luft III. For example, von Lindeiner mentions the Poles as ones who worried about the future of Poland regardless of the outcome of the war. In view of the sellout of Poland at Yalta, and the ensuing Soviet Communist puppet state, these fears proved well founded.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stalag Luft III: The Rest of the Story, May 15, 2006

By 

D. S. Thurlow (Alaska) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stalag Luft III: The Secret Story (Paperback)

Stalag Luft III is well known to fans of the movie "The Great Escape" as the German prison camp from which 76 Allied prisoners of war escaped in March 1944. That movie was based primarily on Paul Brickhill's short but extemely well-written memoir. This much longer book by Arthur Durand is, in a sense, the rest of the story of life in Stalag Luft III.

Durand takes the long view of the experience of the Allied POWs incarcerated in Stalag Luft III. His narrative describes how some of the more memorable personalities were captured and how they came to be held at Stalage Luft III, how the camp was administered by the respective German and Allied chains of command, and how the prisoners survived the austere conditions in the camp. The digging of a series of escape tunnels, the "Great Escape", and its aftermath are a central portion of the story, but so are the mundane day-to-day details of survival for years in captivity.

Durand explores the difficult relationship between the Allied POWs and their German captors. The POWs saw it as their duty to escape, a duty the Germans essentially understood but were obviously eager to prevent. It appears that for the most part, the German Air Force staff of Stalag Luft III and the captured Allied fliers were operating from a largely shared set of assumptions about how each should behave. The Commandant of Stalag Luft III appears to have been as sympathetic as he was portrayed in the movie. At the same time, there were limits to what the German Government would tolerate; the execution of fifty escapees from the "Great Escape" was a chilling example of how dangerous it was to exceed those limits.

Durand has included a small but illustrative selection of photographs of the camp. In an appendix, he provides a short history of prisoners of war. An excellent bibliography points to the way to additional documentation for interested readers.

This book is highly recommended to fans of "The Great Escape" and to students of the POW experience. They will find Durand's account to be close to exhaustive on Stalage Luft III.