LONDON -- The 1944 execution of 50 Allied prisoners of war -- immortalized by the film "The Great Escape" -- was personally ordered by Hitler despite objections from senior army officers, according to British intelligence documents released Wednesday.
The documents contain a graphic account of how Hitler and key figures in his high command, including Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering, SS boss Heinrich Himmler and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, ordered the captured escapees to be shot, dismissing suggestions that it would be in breach of the Geneva Convention.On March 24, 1944, 80 POWs crawled out of the camp through a 366-foot tunnel. After the alarm was raised, four were caught by the tunnel outlet, 73 were caught later and three made it to freedom.
Interrogated by British intelligence officers after the war, Maj. Gen. Adolf Westhoff, the German officer responsible for POW welfare, described how an "excited and nervous" Keitel summoned him after the breakout of prisoners from Stalag Luft III on the Polish-German border in March 1944.
"Gentlemen, this is a bad business," said Keitel, who had been personally blamed by Goering in Himmler's presence. He added: "These escapees must be shot. We must set an example."
When Keitel was told that execution would violate the Geneva Convention, Westhoff said Keitel replied: "I don't care a damn. We discussed it in the Fuhrer's presence, and it cannot be altered."
Westhoff spoke of the "honor" of British officers. He claimed he had told Nazi leaders that "the English in particular only escape for the fun of it. . . . They have their escape committee in the camp. No one is allowed to escape without informing the escape committee."
He described how the bodies of 50 prisoners shot by the Gestapo were burned and their ashes returned to the camp. "For the burial, the POWs arranged with the protecting power that they should be allowed to erect a nice monument, which they made themselves," he said.
Westhoff said he chose not to tell his superiors about the monument, fearing it would "give rise to more difficulties."
Westhoff told interrogators that Keitel gave detailed instructions for the publication of a list of names of the POWs who were shot "as a warning."
He said Keitel himself "refused to put anything in writing." However, there was enough evidence against him for the judges at the Nuremberg war crimes trials to sentence him to death. Twenty-one members of the Gestapo involved in the shooting were tried and executed after the war.
The story of the escape was made into a film in 1963 starring Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, James Garner, Donald Pleasance and James Coburn.