Oflag VIII-F | |
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Wahlstatt, Silesia (now Legnickie Pole, Poland) | |
Coordinates | 51°08′43″N 16°14′36″E / 51.145413°N 16.243226°E |
Type | Prisoner-of-war camp |
Site information | |
Controlled by | Nazi Germany |
Site history | |
Built | 1719-1731 |
In use | 1940–1944 |
Battles/wars | World War II |
Garrison information | |
Occupants | Allied POWs |
Oflag VIII-F was a World War II German prisoner-of-war camp for officers (Offizierlager) located first in Wahlstatt, Silesia (now Legnickie Pole, Poland) and then at Mährisch-Trübau, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (now Moravská Třebová, Czech Republic). It housed mostly French POWs.
Oflag VIII-F was first established at Wahlstatt in July 1940 [1] [2] and housed French and Belgian officers taken prisoner during the Battle of France. It was located in a former Benedictine Abbey dedicated to Saint Hedwig of Silesia, that had been a military school between 1840 and 1920, and used by the Nazis as a " National Political Educational Institution" from 1934. [1] [3]
In July 1942 a new camp at Moravská Třebová in German-occupied Czechoslovakia, about 200 km (120 mi) to the south, was designated Oflag VIII-F, while the original camp was redesignated Oflag VIII F/Z, a sub-camp of Moravská Třebová. [1] [2] The prisoners were transferred to other camps, though a small number stayed behind to carry out construction work as the site was adapted for the use of GEMA (Gesellschaft für und mechanische elektroakustische apparate) in developing radar systems. [4] [5] The sub-camp was closed in June 1943. [2]
The camp at Moravská Třebová contained around 2,000 officers, mostly British captured in North Africa and the Greek Islands, but there were also numbers of Greek, French and American POW. [6] In April 1944, most of the prisoners were transferred to Oflag 79 near Braunschweig and the camp was closed.