US Airmen at Buchenwald and Stalag Luft III on “Masters of the Air” with Glenn Flickinger @ 7pm ET
World War II POW and Eighth Air Force expert Marilyn Walton leads a group of guests who will talk about the experiences of prisoners in Germany with Glenn Flickinger. Sparked by interest in the Apple TV+ “Masters of the Air“, this program will feature two extraordinary stories from Germany during World War II: one of the Stalag Luft III’s camp censor and one of US Airmen held at Buchenwald concentration camps.
Joining Marilyn and Glenn will be:
Andrew Hatfield – For those who watched Hogan’s Heroes, Andrea’s mother, Lisa Knüppel, was the true “Helga,” Commandant von Lindeiner’s secretary. Lisa was the mail censor in the camp. Lisa’s story is the stuff of movies. At one point, Lisa bicycled the twelve miles to von Lindeiner’s manor house to help his wife, Barnoness Henriette van der Goes, pack up and flee from Germany. Lisa eventually met and married an American officer she met in Germany.
Ric Martini – Ric is author of Betrayed, a book about threw 168 Allied Airmen held at Buchenwald in World War II. The men, shot down over France were all betrayed by a spy who turned them in for money. They were taken to the horrid Fresnes prison outside France before enduring the box cars taking them to Buchenwald. There were 168 Allied airmen held there. The British ones were shot or hanged. Ric’s father was one of those held.
Betrayed begins in the tumult of battle in June 1944. It focuses on the wartime and postwar experiences of two men. Frederic C. Martini, an aerial gunner on a B-17. and Wernher von Braun, the Nazi rocket engineer. Fred was one of the Buchenwald airmen, and Buchenwald Concentration Camp was where Wernher von Braun obtained the slave labor needed to build V-2 rockets.
When the war ended, Wernher was employed by the US Army, his records buried, and his Nazi past concealed as part of Project Paperclip. Fred, like many other Buchenwald airmen, came home with serious medical problems and acute PTSD. These men were told by the VA that their problems were imaginary because they could not have been at Buchenwald. They were considered to be either lying or delusional. This bizarre injustice continued for almost 40 years, until some of the files related to the Buchenwald airmen and others from Project Paperclip were declassified.
Piecing together this story involved reviewing over 160,000 pages of declassified documents. The project took seven years and required the assistance of archivists, curators, translators, and fellow researchers in the US, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, and New Zealand.
During World War II, United States Army Air Forces personnel faced the harrowing experience of becoming prisoners of war (POWs) after being captured by German forces. These airmen were detained in various camps known as Stalag Lufts, where they endured challenging conditions and organized themselves for survival amidst enemy captivity.
The German system segregated officers from enlisted men upon capture and sent them to different camps, each administered by the German Luftwaffe and Abwehr. Once inside the confines of these camps, the captured airmen, affectionately referred to as “Kriegies,” found themselves among their comrades. Leadership roles varied among the camps, with senior American officers or elected representatives assuming authority in different compounds.
Life within the POW camps was marked by the segmentation of living quarters into compounds, each containing barracks that housed dozens of men in cramped conditions. As the number of captives increased, overcrowding became a significant issue, forcing many to sleep on floors. The harsh realities of captivity were exacerbated when, in early February 1944, camps faced evacuation due to the advancing Russian forces, leaving tens of thousands of prisoners “On the Road” for extended periods, enduring immense hardships until liberation.
One crucial aspect of the POW experience was the interrogation process at facilities like Dulag Luft. Located in Oberursel, this complex consisted of interrogation centers, hospitals, and transit camps, where captured airmen underwent questioning and evaluation before being transferred to permanent POW camps. Despite being designed to accommodate a limited number of prisoners, overcrowding was common during peak periods, with solitary confinement often enforced.
Stalag Luft I, situated near Barth, Germany, housed Allied prisoners, including American and British officers and enlisted men. The camp, located on the Baltic Sea, saw its first prisoners in July 1940 and was evacuated by 8th Air Force B-17s in May 1945. Similarly, Stalag Luft III, located southeast of Berlin, housed American airmen and became the largest American officers’ camp in Germany by January 1945.
Stalag Luft IV, located in Gross Tychow, Pomerania, witnessed a significant influx of prisoners, swelling its ranks from 1,500 to nearly 10,000 airmen by January 1945. Stalag Luft VI, situated outside Hedekrug, Lithuania, initially held prisoners from Belgium and France before receiving British, Canadian, and American airmen, reflecting the diverse nationalities of POWs held by the Germans.
As Germany’s collapse neared, camps like Stalag VIIA in Moosburg became final gathering points for thousands of Air Corps officers and enlisted men from other camps. The overcrowded conditions and constant influx of prisoners posed challenges for camp administrators, with protests against overcrowding falling on deaf ears.
Despite the adversity, the resilience and resourcefulness of Allied airmen in German POW camps underscored one of the most overlooked chapters in American history.
Thank you to Tobacco Free Adagio Health and UPMC for Life for sponsoring this event!
US Intelligence Spies at Stalag Luft III on “Masters of the Air” with Glenn Flickinger @ 7pm ET
After arriving at Stalag Luft III, he continued the war effort by utilizing his previous training as an OSS [Office of Strategic Services] agent to become a covert code writer for MIS-X in Ft. Hunt. Carol’s father was head of the intelligence operation communicating with MIS-X from SL3. MIS-X sent and received coded letters with POWs. He taught other POWs how to code. I believe he was made head of a committee at SL3 to oversee coordination of athletic activities. This allowed him to visit all the compounds and while there, he actually was teaching POWs how to code. He also participated in plays in the compound’s camp theatres, keeping him associated with many POWs while conducting intelligence. Her father thought he was corresponding with a woman in the U.S. He finally met “the woman” when he returned home.
British intelligence service MI9 did these same things from London. A German guard in the camp bragged he was going home to Peenemunde where there was a big VII rocket factory, and he said that rocket would win the war for the Germans. The RAF coders immediately reported that news to MI9 in London, and they passed the info on to the RAF who then immediately set up a bombing raid on Peenemunde destroying that facility. The guard returned to the camp and was dismayed to tell the POWs that the facility had been bombed, and he couldn’t understand how the RAF knew it was there.
The United States Department of War operated MIS-X. Secret equipment, such as small compasses, maps, and radios were smuggled into the camp to aid with escapes and intelligence operations.
Between MI9 and MIS-X, an abundance of contraband made its way into the camp. Each packer of special illegal parcels had a unique mark that the prisoners at Sagan were alerted to look for. As the tunnels advanced in the spring and summer of 1943, the steady delivery of illegal parcels flooded the camp, and shipments were quite sizable.
Monopoly games with real German money, brushes that came apart to reveal contraband, including inks for forging documents, sports equipment that hid the same, and compasses hidden in uniform buttons were gratefully received. There were blankets that when washed revealed pattern marks to cut along to turn into civilian jackets.
At one point, MI9 delivered a full German uniform. Ten days after the Japanese surrendered, ending the war, MIS-X was shut down. It was not until 1986 that any information about the covert operation was revealed. Exactly what they communicated and their methods for doing so are still somewhat classified today.
Thank you to Tobacco Free Adagio Health and UPMC for Life for sponsoring this event!
