Good afternoon everybody. As you will gather from that [title] we’ve all seen the film, but do we really know the true story behind the Great Escape? Hopefully today you’ll be better informed when you leave here about what actually happened, rather than the Hollywood version of what happened.
Exactly 65 years ago today, at about 10:15, on the night of Friday 24 March 1944, Flight Lieutenant Lester Bull removed the remaining few feet of soil to open the exit shaft of the escape tunnel nicknamed ‘Harry’. This relatively innocuous action initiated a chain
of events that led to the cold-blooded murder of 50 Allied airmen and the most comprehensive British war crimes investigation of the Second World War. What in 1963 John Sturges’ film loosely portrays the story of the so-called Great Escape, the reality was less heroic and far more tragic. This is what really happened.
Firstly, a brief overview of the German security network. It’s very complex, but the three organisations which I shall mention are the RSHA [Reichssicherheitshauptamt] at the very top, which in a sense is essential security headquarters.
Below that, and they need no introduction, is the Gestapo, the Secret State Police. Below that is Kripo [Kriminalpolizei] and they’re equivalent, really, of the British CID, they’re more like a criminal police. They are the three key organisations you should perhaps bear in mind when I’m talking about what actually happened.
Before getting onto a bit of an overview of Stalag Luft III, here’s some German security measures leading up to the
Great Escape:
