4 real historical locations · Germany, Poland
John Sturges' classic 1963 adventure based on the true mass escape from Stalag Luft III in March 1944, in which 76 Allied prisoners broke out through hand-dug tunnels. Only three made it to freedom; 50 were executed on Hitler's personal orders. Steve McQueen leads the all-star cast.
CinemaMapped has mapped 4 real historical locations where the story takes place, spanning Germany, Poland.
Allied POWs dig three tunnels — Tom, Dick, and Harry — to escape the supposedly escape-proof Stalag Luft III camp.
On the night of March 24-25, 1944, 76 men escaped through tunnel Harry before it was discovered. Of those, 73 were recaptured. On Hitler's direct order, 50 were shot by the Gestapo — a war crime for which 21 perpetrat...
View location →Escapees attempted to board trains here after breaking out through Tunnel Harry — the town's station was minutes from the camp.
Sagan (now Żagań) was the nearest town to Stalag Luft III. Of the 76 men who escaped through Tunnel Harry on March 24-25, 1944, only 3 reached safety. 50 were executed on Hitler's direct orders in the war's most infam...
View location →One of the escape routes led west toward Görlitz, where escapees hoped to blend into the civilian population and reach neutral Sweden or Switzerland.
The 76 Stalag Luft III escapees scattered across Germany via multiple routes. All but three were recaptured within days. It remains the largest mass escape from a German POW camp and the RAF's most celebrated act of d...
View location →Escapees taking the southern route passed through the Sudeten foothills, attempting to reach Czechoslovakia and then neutral Switzerland.
Hirschberg (now Jelenia Góra) was a German industrial town in the Sudeten foothills. Several escapees were recaptured near here and subsequently shot. The Gestapo later forged execution orders as so-called 'shot while...
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