Were Officers And Other Ranks Ever In The Same Prison Camps?

[bainbrig]

Just watched The Captive Heart (1946) which portrays British Officers and ‘men’ in a camp - I thought other ranks were always kept separate, in labour camps, while the officers, who didn’t have to work, got bored and planned escapes.

BillB

[Buenchico]

See 'Types of Camps' here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prisoner-of-war_camps_in_Germany#Types_of_Camps_2

Note that, while some camps were specifically designated for officers, both officers and other ranks might initially be together in transit camps.

See also this quote from the same Wikipedia page:
"Articles 27-32 detailed the conditions of labour. Enlisted ranks were required to perform whatever labour they were asked and able to do, so long as it was not dangerous and did not support the German war effort. Senior Non-commissioned officers (sergeants and above) were required to work only in a supervisory role. Commissioned officers were not required to work, although they could volunteer. The work performed was largely agricultural or industrial, ranging from coal or potash mining, stone quarrying, or work in saw mills, breweries, factories, railroad yards, and forests"

It's possible that some officers volunteered to work, either out of sheer boredom or because they thought that the chance of escape would be greater if they were working outside a camp. If so, it's likely that they would then have been placed in the same camps as the other ranks that they were working alongside, simply so that they could be near to their places of work.

[Peter Pedant]

// It's possible that some officers volunteered to work, either out of sheer boredom or because they thought that the chance of escape would be greater if they were working outside a camp.//

I have to point out that opinions are being expressed in the true AB tradition - [you state something and it must be true].... writes a son of a POW whose father was taken at Dunkirk and spent 5 y in a camp NOT sitting out the war....

clearly at the beginning ( 1940) they were lumped together. There would be some officers in the Stalags ( such as medical personnel) - My father suggested the disabled personnel should be offered suitable work - I havent sought the quotation as experience shows on AB it is never worth the effort. The reply / discussion was:

how long have you had the power to vary Kings Regulations, Pedant?

What? - - -- Assisting the enemy.

I was thinking of working in a cigarette factory ( which actually later occurred and the POWs organised a strike no less!)

Assisting the enemy - unless you have varied Kings Regs then there is a court martial waiting for you when we get out!

So as you can see - the past is a different country and they did things differently then.

as or officers getting bored and plotting escapes ..... ( which my father did 3 times - clearly unsuccessful but keen nonetheless )
what DID they do in POW camps during the war

The answer is here
Enforced Leisure - A study of the Activities of Officer Prisoners of War', in BMJ, March 1945.

read if you like - also by my late dad - who was trained by an anthropologist named Raymond Dart ( no really )

[bainbrig]

The film allegedly covered 1941-45, so no transit camp.

I will follow up the interesting links, but I must say my interest is mainly about the ‘other ranks’ and how they survived. Most films of the 40s to the 60s were made by (and for) the officer class.

BB

[Peter Pedant]

oh and court martial then no pension !
heavily influenced POWs

here is his first one ( I think )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oflag_VII-C

thereafter Eichstatt, Thorn, Spangenburg, Nuremberg
but honestly a camp is a camp is a camp

[Theland]

That generation suffered so much for our freedom.
When they came back, I am guessing that those with severe mental problems were treated, whilst the rest just had to get on with life. Unlike today's generation, who need counselling every time they are offended, triggered, or go into meltdown, (snowflakes,) if they get a couple,of dislikes on Facebook.
You are obviously and correctly very proud of your Dad.

[Peter Pedant]

well start ish here

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1491129/Brigadier-Tony-Crook.html

actually seems to have followed my father around ....
Barbed wire doctor is worth a read ( vanity printed )
the USP was that he was a witness to the massacre at Wormhoud 1940

Even in 1996 - history was being rewritten -
no duty to escape - because it wasnt written in kings regs as tho that was a complete statement of a soldiers duties.

he was mad not to abandon his patients - er no there WAS a duty in Kings Regs not to abandon the injured.

or this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulag_Luft#Dulag_Luft_(Oberursel)_Escape

a listening camp such as the British were also operating
and yes Dulag was a transit camp.

Dulag Luft (Durchgangslager der Luftwaffe, Transit Camp of the Airforce) were Prisoner of War (POW) transit camp for German-captured members of the Air Force during World War II.

You do know that Oflag was where the officers were
and Stalag was where the others were ?

google stalag escapes .....

[Theland]

Our freedoms were not free, but paid for at such high cost by this brave generation.
That is why it is so galling to witness a desire by Remainers to give this hard earned freedom away to the undemocratic EU. And hateful to see the likes of Major and Bliar for example, have the audacity to give away sovereignty, (Maastricht, Barcelona, Lisbon, ) with such contempt for the electorate.

[Theland]

Oflag / gulag - no I did not know that.
Just read Brig Tony Crooke obituary. Fascinating man. The massacre and the long march leaves one speechless.
Yes freedom is not free.

[bainbrig]

A camp is a camp - but that’s what I’m trying to analyse.

Surely most escapes were attempted by officer camps, where the inmates had the leisure to devise such things.

In the mens’ labour camps, they’d have been too knackered and treated even worse.

[ToraToraTora]

they are also mixed in the great escape. They claim that is pretty close to the truth.

[bainbrig]

Tora: I've re-read Wikipedia on the Great Escape, and unfortunately they don't go into the officers:men split.

But I'm a bit confused, as Peter says there were Stalags and Offlags, for men and for officers, and I can't see the Germans being so kind-hearted as to allow 'men' into the great escape's camp - because they were very keen on using POWs as slave labour, and letting 'men' into that camp would have got them out of such forced labour. Not very German, is it?

What there don't seem to have been is films about the POW/Slave-labour camps where from all accounts most ordinary ranks were dumped for the duration. Were there any such films?

BB