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Luft Stalag 1 POW Camp Memorial – (Gedenkstätte Stalag Luft 1)

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Details:

Just of the unpaved road near a small copse of trees.

Monument

The memorial includes a large boulder with two inscribed brass plaques attached and an informational sign for Stalag Luft 1 Prisoners of War (POW) Camp.

 

 

 

From the Stalag Luft 1 Online Website: 

 

The memorial is physically on the site where the German administration buildings were located. It is beautifully landscaped with a large granite boulder sitting amidst a flower garden. On the boulder are two bronze plaques, one written in German the other in English.

 

 

To one side of the boulder are four flag poles flying British, American, Russian and the POW/MIA flags. Forming the apex of a triangle, there are three types of trees: American pine, German lime, and Russian birch.



During World War II approximately 8,939 Allied Airmen (7,588 American and 1,351 Royal Air Force ) were imprisoned at Stalag Luft I.

 

Stalag Luft I consisted of a strip of barren land jutting into the Baltic Sea about 105 miles northwest of Berlin. Two miles south of the main gate a massive Lutheran church marked the northern outskirts of the village of Barth.  A large pine forest bordered the west side of the camp and, to the east and north, the waters of Barth Harbor slashed against the shore less than a mile from the barbed wire fence.  

 

Enclosing the camp there stretched miles of barbed wire, in two rows four feet apart, attached to 10-foot posts.  Every hundred yards, a Guard Tower mounting a machine gun and a pair of spotlights provided constant vigilance and permitted an unobstructed view of all within the confines of the enclosure.

 

The Stalag was divided into five separate areas, called compounds.  There were four for prison compounds: South or West, North 1, North 2 and North . The fifth area consisted of the German buildings, in the center, well constructed buildings, green grass, and attractive shubbery, "The Oasis" as the prisoners called this area, was in sharp contrast to the prison compounds.


South Compaound was commanded by the namesake of Malmstrom Airbase in the US, Colonel Einar Malmstrom of the 356th Fighter group who was shot down and taken prisoner on April 23, 1944. 

 

Monument Text:

The text on the plaques on the boulder are written in German and in English.  The English reads:

 

This plaque is dedicated by the citizens of Barth and the Royal Air Force Ex-Prisoners of War Association on 28 September 1996 to commemorate all those held prisoner at Stalag Luft I, sited here from July 1940 to May 1945: members of the British Commonwealth and United States of American Air Forces and their Allies from the occupied countries and the Soviet Union.

 

"NOTHING HAS BEEN FORGOTTEN"

Commemorates:

People:

Einar Axel Malmstrom

Units:

Royal Air Force (RAF)

United States Air Force

US Army Air Corps

Wars:

WWII

Other images :