Stalag Luft VI

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Stalag Luft VI was a World War II German POW camp located near the town of Šilutė (Heydekrug in German), in the south of Klaipėda County in Lithuania. The town was reclaimed by Nazi Germany in 1939 when it reacquired the Memel Territory. The camp was the northernmost POW camp within the confines of the German Reich and it housed 9,000 British and American airmen.^[1] When the Russian front approached the camp in July 1944, orders were given to move the prisoners to other camps further towards Germany. Most of the men were moved by train to Stalag XX-A in Poland, but some 900 were taken to Memel, (now called Klaipėda), where they were forced to board the merchant ship Insterburg for a 60 hour journey to Swinemünde (now Świnoujście, Poland). After another train journey the men were force marched from Kiefheide with many men being bayoneted or shot before they reached Stalag Luft IV in Tychowo, (Gross Tychow in German) in Poland. This march became known to the POWs as the "Long March".^[2]

[edit] References

1. ^ BBC - WW2 People's War
2. ^ The Last Escape - John Nichol, Tony Rennell - 2002 Penguin UK

[edit] See also

• List of POW camps in Germany

[edit] External links

• B24.net
• The Last Escape - John Nichol, Tony Rennell - 2002 Penguin UK

v • d • e Main German World War II Prisoner-of-war camps 1944-1945 Stalag IX-C Ziegenhain • Stalag XI-B Fallingbostel • Oflag 79 Brunswick • Oflag VII-B Eichstätt • Stalag XIII-D Nürnberg • Stalag VII-A Moosburg • Stalag XIII-C Hammelburg • Oflag IV-C Colditz Castle • Stalag XI-A Altengrabow • Stalag III-A Luckenwalde • Stalag IV-B Mühlberg • Stalag VIII-A Görlitz • Stalag XX-B Marienburg • Stalag XX-A Thorn • Stalag 344 Lamsdorf • Stalag VIII-B Teschen • Stalag Luft I Barth • Stalag Luft IV Gross Tychow • Stalag Luft 7 Bankau • Stalag Luft VI Heydekrug • Stalag Luft III Sagan • Stalag X-B Sandbostel • Marlag und Milag Nord, Westertimke • See also - The March (1945)