Departure days
English - daily (except Mondays)
Other languages - enquire in advance
Departure time
Departure: 9:00 - 11:00am
Duration: 7 - 8 hours
Prices
Normal: 220 PLN
Discount: 190 PLN (students, group bookings of min. 4 persons)
Price is per person and includes all costs.
Visit the site of World War II’s most daring and technically ingenious prison break by 80 Allied prisoners of war from a German POW camp in March 1944. The event was named “The Great Escape” and it has been used as a theme of films and publications.
Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe run prisoner-of-war camp during World War II that housed captured air force servicemen. It was in the German Province of Lower Silesia near the town of Sagan (now Żagań in Poland), 100 miles (160 km) southeast of Berlin. The site was selected because it would be difficult to escape by tunnelling. However, the camp is best known for two famous prisoner escapes that took place there by tunnelling, which were depicted in the films The Great Escape (1963) and The Wooden Horse (1950), and the books by former prisoners Paul Brickhill and Eric Williams from which these films were adapted.
In March, 1943 The Committee X was established within the area of North Sector of Stalag Luft III in Sagan. The task of the committee was to prepare and undertake a mass escape of 200 prisoners of war. Works concerning digging three tunnels: “Tom”, “Dick” and “Harry”, were begun at the same time. After they managed to get through the layer of concrete and bricks, the digging of three shafts was started. Despite the structure of the soil (bright yellow sand) they managed to achieve the depth of 9 meters. The walls of the shafts and ladders were covered with bed planks. Under the entrance of the shaft three little rooms were bulit, which were used for storing the air pump, dugged yellow sand, sacks for carring the sand out, and all the tools, lamps and wooden planks. Tunnel “Tom” was discovered accidently and blown up by Germans. The works over “Dick” were also stopped because Germans started to built a new part of the camp which was exactly over the tunnel. The whole power was focused on “Harry”. Five teams with four diggers in each were created and the works were carried out 24 hours a day. The tunnel was 54 cm high and 52 cm wide. When the tunnel was about 111 meters long, they started to bulit the exit shaft. It was a very difficult task as the sandy walls collapsed very often even before they were covered with planks.
In January 1944 the tunnel was ready to be used. It was decided that the escape would take place at night on 24th/25th of March. It was planned that 200 prisoners would take part in the escape but only 80 of them managed to get out because they were spotted by a guard in the morning making further escape impossible. Four of them were caught at the very exit, 76 of them managed to escape away from the camp but soon 73 were caught during the chase. Only three of them were lucky and managed to reach Great Britain. Hitler ordered to shoot dead fifty of those who were caught. They were shot on the spot, without a trial.
Find out more about these events at the Museum of Allied POW’s Camps in Żagań where you can see the outline of Harry tunnel with marked entrance and exit shafts and also remains of Stalag Luft III. In the museum you can also watch a documentary and visit exhibitions about the history of POW’s camps in Żagań.
