Stalag XIII-C was a German Army

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, internment camps, and military priso ...

(''

Stammlager In Germany, stalag (; ) was a term used for prisoner-of-war camps. Stalag is a contraction of "Stammlager", itself short for ''Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschaftsstammlager'', a literal translation of which is "War-prisoner" (i.e. POW) "enlisted" "ma ...

'') built on what had been the training camp at

Hammelburg Hammelburg is a town in Bavaria, Germany. It sits in the district of Bad Kissingen, in Lower Franconia. It lies on the river Franconian Saale, 25 km west of Schweinfurt. Hammelburg is the oldest winegrowing town (''Weinstadt'') in Franco ...

Lower Franconia Lower Franconia (german: Unterfranken) is one of seven districts of Bavaria, Germany. The districts of Lower, Middle and Upper Franconia make up the region of Franconia. History After the founding of the Kingdom of Bavaria the state was total ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

, Germany.

Camp history

Hammelburg was a large German Army training camp, set up in 1893. Part of this camp had been used as a POW camp for Allied army personnel in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. After 1935 it was a training camp and military training area for the newly reconstituted German Army. In May 1940 the camp was established in wooden huts at the south end of the training ground. The first prisoners included Belgian, Dutch and French soldiers taken during the

Battle of France The Battle of France (french: bataille de France) (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign ('), the French Campaign (german: Frankreichfeldzug, ) and the Fall of France, was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of French Third Rep ...

. In May–June 1941

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label= Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavij ...

n, predominantly

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hung ...

n prisoners arrived from the Balkans Campaign, and soon after in June–July 1941 Australian and other

British Commonwealth The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the C ...

soldiers arrived, captured during the

Battle of Crete The Battle of Crete (german: Luftlandeschlacht um Kreta, el, Μάχη της Κρήτης), codenamed Operation Mercury (german: Unternehmen Merkur), was a major Axis airborne and amphibious operation during World War II to capture the islan ...

. In April 1943 Oflag XIII-B was opened nearby, with officers transferred from

Oflag XIII-A Oflag XIII-A, Oflag XIII-B and Oflag XIII-D were all German World War II prisoner-of-war camp for officers ('' Offizierlager''). They were all located on the old Nazi party rally grounds in Langwasser, Nuremberg, in northern Bavaria. They were adj ...

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

. As was usual for Stalags, many of the prisoners were located in ''

Arbeitslager ''Arbeitslager'' () is a German language word which means labor camp. Under Nazism, the German government (and its private-sector, Axis, and collaborator partners) used forced labor extensively, starting in the 1930s but most especially dur ...

'' ("Work camps") on farms or adjacent to factories or other industrial operations. The Stalag served as the base for distribution of

International Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signat ...

packages and mail. A Lazarett (hospital) cared for prisoners that were sick or had been injured in industrial accidents or air-raids. A number of enlisted men and NCOs were housed in the adjacent Oflag to provide necessary services. American soldiers that had been captured during the

Battle of Normandy Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Norm ...

arrived in June–July 1944, and more from the

Battle of the Bulge The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted from 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945, towards the end of the war in ...

in January 1945. In March 1945 a large group of prisoners arrived in deplorable condition after marching the 500 miles (800 km) from Stalag VIII-D in severe winter conditions. The camp was liberated by Combat Command B of the U.S. 14th Armored Division on 6 April 1945.

In television

The 1960s and 1970s American television program ''

Hogan's Heroes ''Hogan's Heroes'' is an American television sitcom set in a Nazi German prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during World War II. It ran for 168 episodes (six seasons) from September 17, 1965, to April 4, 1971, on the CBS network, the longest broadcast ...

'' was situated in a fictitious POW Camp called "Luft-Stalag 13" located near

, likely based on actual Luftwaffe POW camps administered by them for Allied POW combat pilots and aircrew shot down over German territory. However, there was no resemblance to the actual Stalags XIII-A, -B or -C other than name and location.

Footnotes

External links

*
Story of Cpl. Furman Grimm

in French

{{Main German WWII POW camps 1944-1945 World War II prisoner of war camps in Germany