The Great Escape 70 yrs ago.

Sorry, my mistake.

Creaking Door- My post was directed toward an earlier post asking why the Germans murdered the 50 when they had done no real harm, not your comment.

I stand by the point I made…..’why bother’?

But I really must stop trying to assign logic to the decisions of a certain Austrian corporal!!! 😉

At the time of the escape, with both RAF and USAAF Strategic Bombing focused on Berlin especially that month, I think Hitler’s gang had very little patience left for captured Allied aircrew.

Really? That is one part of the mythology of the ‘Great Escape’ that I do not agree with; I doubt that ‘thousands of troops’ were deployed searching for the escapees. Certainly there were those, mainly in Britain (MI8), that may have planned this as some great strategic operation but I doubt any of the prisoners saw it that way; they just wanted to get home.

Personally I’ve never understood why the Germans expended any additional effort trying to catch the escapees; most of them would have blundered into some form of authority and been recaptured without any additional effort. And what would have been the problem if a few of them got away? The overall effect on the war would have been minuscule.

I think the escaped prisoners caused their own kind of damage if you think about it,, it must have cost the Reich a fortune to try and track down all these men scattered throughout occupied Europe.

Some were taken prisoner and survived the war…

But Hitler ordered most captured Commandos to be shot!

I think it’s obvious that the terms ‘Germans’, ‘Americans’, ‘Russians’, ‘British’, ‘French’, ‘Japanese’ etc. cover all of the people of those nations and, naturally, today mostly include people who were not yet born in WW2, and therefore blaiming them for any attrocity, or praising them for any heroism of their compatriots from those times is not justified. However, it is an interesting thing that when we discuss WW2 we seem to have no problem calling the Japanese, Russians, Yanks, Brits, Italians, Frenchmen or Poles by their nationality (whether it’s their brave deeds or nasty things they did), but when it comes to the Third Reich it’s usually ‘Nazis’ rather than any particular nation.

You make a good point except that the Nazis / Germans were responsible for a different level of atrocity than any other nation involved and I am at a loss to know what ‘atrocity’ the British, Americans, French, Italians or Poles were guilty of?

Linking the Japanese people with the behaviour of the Japanese military during World War Two has led to some heated discussion on this forum in the past.

Its fantastic when shear determination kicks in what can be achieved and those very brave guys proved it. The Germans should have congratulated them all and kept them as prisoners. I wonder what Hitler was thinking when he ordered the fifty shot. He never thought that in reprisal we could do the same to fifty Germans. Seems like he couldn’t of cared less anyway. Its unthinkable.

When they rammed the doc gates at St Nazaire with the Cambletown through one of the most heavily defended ports in Europe. According to a most excellent documentary by Jeremy Clarkson the Germans congratulated the Commando’s for a successful attempt at the doc gates. They where amazed at being fooled by the disguise of the ship as it went down the very exposed and heavily defended channel. Some were taken prisoner and survived the war. The dry doc was out of use until 1947. With the winding and pumping houses blown to bits.

All those great escape prisoners did was escape without doing any damage. Doesn’t make sense does it.

I think it’s obvious that the terms ‘Germans’, ‘Americans’, ‘Russians’, ‘British’, ‘French’, ‘Japanese’ etc. cover all of the people of those nations and, naturally, today mostly include people who were not yet born in WW2, and therefore blaiming them for any attrocity, or praising them for any heroism of their compatriots from those times is not justified. However, it is an interesting thing that when we discuss WW2 we seem to have no problem calling the Japanese, Russians, Yanks, Brits, Italians, Frenchmen or Poles by their nationality (whether it’s their brave deeds or nasty things they did), but when it comes to the Third Reich it’s usually ‘Nazis’ rather than any particular nation.

Do not think for one moment that I am some sort of apologist for Germany’s actions during the Second World War but the term ‘Germans’ today mostly includes people who were not alive in 1944 and so laying an atrocity at the feet of the ‘Germans’ does not seem right to me (even if it is technically correct); there may be ‘Nazis’ around today but they are not all German (and I don’t give a stuff about offending them anyway).

I believe many of those in Stalag Luft III who were from the occupied territories made efforts to hide their true identities so that if captured, re-captured or killed, no reprisals would be taken against any relatives that were under Nazi oppression. It was a wise precaution; one of those that made one of the three ‘home runs’ from Sagan had some of his family arrested and his brother executed by the Gestapo.

An interesting observation…..but then not all ‘Nazis’ were German; wasn’t Adolf Hitler technically Austrian?

Well, IIRC ‘Nazi’ is short for the lengthy name of the party that ruled Germany at the time, also known by the acronym NSDAP, and the D in that name was for ‘Deutsche’. I believe you had to declare yourself (and be accepted) as a German to become a ‘Nazi’, whatever your ‘technical nationality’.

Speaking of ‘technical nationalities’, John Stower, one of those murdered after the Great Escape, was born and raised in Argentina, and for people there (those who care about history, that is) he is one of their own, rather than British. It was interesting to see a wreath in the colours of the Argentinian flag at the Zagan memorial last Monday.

http://www.rafbf.org/1-4567/remembering-the-men-of-the-great-escape.html

An interesting observation…..but then not all ‘Nazis’ were German; wasn’t Adolf Hitler technically Austrian?

And nationals of other countries were complicit in some of the worst ‘Nazi’ atrocities of the Second World War.

Having been to Zagan for the anniversary celebrations last Sunday and Monday I also noticed that the nationality of the ‘Nazis’ is virtually never mentioned these days.

Particularly since the Nazis selected for execution those escapers from the occupied countries in preference to the British and Commonwealth escapers that they recaptured.

Noticed on the early BBC News reports from Zagan that they only mentioned British and Commonwealth escapers – but by later reports they mentioned other nationalities. You would like to have hoped that they would have researched matters better beforehand!!

Allan

Funnily enough, I picked up Bram van der Stok’s book War Pilot of Orange earlier – was going to give it a read again soon.

Glad to see other fine folks here remember these men ….REMEMBER THE FIFTY !!!

BlueNoser352 !