Photos of Stalag Luft I

Prisoners-of-war arriving at train station in Barth
Courtesy of Heinrich Haslob - German guard

POWs are marched to Stalag Luft I from the railroad station through the town of Barth. En route they pass through the Dammtor Gate, as seen in the background of this photo. The gate was built in the middle of the 14th century and is 35m in height and has an entrance of 4m in width.
 Photo courtesy of Roy Kilminster - RAF POW
 

Randy Anderson (the navigator and our Dad's plane) sent me these photos.
He has added the attached comments.
 

Stalag Luft I Guard Tower - One of many guard towers encircling the 3 compounds at Stalag Luft #1, Barth, Germany. Photo taken approximately May 10, 1945 after liberation by the Russian advance troops of armored division. Photo taken by a German camera confiscated from civilians.

Stove used for heating one of the many large barracks rooms - 16' by 24' which was "home" for 24 prisoners of war (when we had pressed coal - one lump per person - seldom!).  Also had to suffice for cooking (when we had food and coal - even more seldom).

Stalag Luft I Roll Call - Even after liberation, the Sr. American Officer, Colonel Hubert "Hub" Zemke insisted on daily roll calls as a means of maintaining some degree of military decorum. It helped in keeping track of those who chose to get back to the Allied front lines rather than wait to be repatriated as a group. Illegal but no penalty imposed.

 Photos with comments -  From "Behind Barbed Wire"   by Morris J. Roy

South Compound Barrack 6, room 18 

  The Theatre / Church - South Compound

Photos below compliments of Fred Kennie and Edwin Davidson
 

Photos below compliments of Roy Kilminster - RAF POW - to read his report on the secret activities at Stalag Luft I click here
 

Russian Dance Troupe entertaining the POW's at Stalag Luft I in Barth after liberation

Russian Dance Troupe girls with Stalag Luft I POW's in Barth

Secret camera at Stalag Luft I

Acquiring this camera by means of being smuggled in with the personal parcels route, was of considerable help in the forgery business. Not only did it enable a record of an original document to be made in a relatively short time, it was an essential for producing acceptable identity photographs for inclusion in forgeries of identity cards. The camera came complete with a supply of film and photographic processing chemicals.

Across the middle of the barrack hut there was a brick fire-wall, a brick was removed from the fire wall in the loft area where it was quite dark and a wooden box was constructed to the same size as the brick; that box was just large enough to take the folded camera. The box was fitted back into the fire wall and a slice of brick was fixed to each end of the box to match the rest of the wall. One of the slices of brick was removable, being fixed with-counter-sunk screws. The top of the screw holes were then filled with a paste, made of chewed, German 'black' bread, that made a reasonably­ good match to the texture of the brickwork, and it could easily be removed and replaced whenever the camera was to be used.  This camera was never found by the Germans.
 

Camera set up

This photograph shows the camera when adapted to copy documents. The arrangement included an extension bellows made from brown paper; we could then photograph an original document at any size we wished up to full size. To vary the reproduction size, the camera was moved along wooden rails. There was also a sliding copyboard to facilitate positioning of the original document; and for illumination, a lamp in a reflector made from a dried-milk tin.

Forged pass containing a photo of an American POW taken with the secret camera

The radio was hid in Roy Kilminster's bunk at Stalag Luft I - illustrated here.

The radio was constructed by one of Roy's room-mates, W/O Leslie Hurrell. Although the major components would have been acquired in the usual way by bribing or blackmailing guards, building a working radio under the conditions in a POW camp  required considerable improvisation and ingenuity. Finding our radio ultimately became one of the prime objectives of abwehr searches. As the radio was relatively bulky, hiding it securely whilst still being able to use it easily, had presented some major problems.  The radio was never found by the Germans.

The wallboard with the radio on the back has been put in place, pictures and maps from German newspapers have been pasted over the joins of the wallboards, Roy's bunk-bed has been pushed back into position against the wall and a book-shelf fixed over the critical position. To make contact with the radio, wires were pushed through holes in the wall boards. Those holes were positioned as inconspicuously as possible and normally filled with plugs made to match the rest of the wall. This photograph shows the radio ready to be used. The batteries to operate the radio are on top of the books on the bookshelf, the earphones are resting on the blanket of Roy's bunk-bed.

To tune-in the radio stations it was necessary to adjust the two variable capacitors in the radio by means of screwdrivers also pushed through holes in the wallboard. Unavoidably, those holes were in a more-exposed position and, to camouflage them, the holes were bored through one of the newspaper maps that had been suitably positioned on the wall.

Plugs for those holes were then disguised to look like the towns that were genuinely part of the map. Those plugs could be removed with a pin when the radio was to be used. For security, we chose a map of a remote geographical area.  On the left of this map of Burma, screwdrivers can be seen inserted through our two fictitious town. Even the most observant guards were unlikely to have noticed anything strange about our alteration to the topography of such a remote and little-known area

This is the actual radio that was used to record the news published in the secret newspaper - POW WOW.  This illustration shows a board pried from the inner wall of the hut with the radio fixed to the back of the board. As can be seen from the photo­graph the radio was a two valve job.

A Junkers 88 and Roy Kilminster at the Barth airport after liberation. The bombs left lying near to this plane might be an indication of the haste with which the Germans finally departed.

Another Junkers 88, a fighter bomber, and a very nice looking aircraft.




 

From the book Stalag Luft III
An example of a typical room in a German POW camp

Example of flak damage to a plane that was able to return to base.

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