Oflag VII-B Eichstätt

Oflag VII-B was a Wehrmacht-administered officers’ camp (Offizierlager) established in September 1939 on the site of a former army barracks at Eichstätt in Bavaria, roughly 100 kilometres north of Munich. It first held Polish officers captured during the September Campaign, then from May 1940 received British, French, and Belgian officers taken prisoner in France; subsequent years brought Australians and New Zealanders captured in Greece and Crete, South Africans from the fall of Tobruk, Canadians from the Dieppe Raid, and American and British officers from the Tunisia Campaign, making it one of the most nationally diverse officer camps in Germany. The camp held commissioned officers across all services, meaning RAF and Commonwealth aircrew who held officer rank could be — and were — confined here alongside army officers. Its most celebrated episode was a mass escape on the night of 3–4 June 1943: 65 officers broke out through a tunnel driven from a latrine block, the largest such escape from a German camp to that point, though all were recaptured within a week and subsequently transferred to Colditz Castle. The camp’s final days were marked by tragedy: when the prisoners were marched out on 14 April 1945 ahead of the American advance, Allied aircraft strafed the column in the mistaken belief it was a German formation, killing 14 British officers and wounding a further 46. The camp was liberated by the U.S. Army two days later, on 16 April 1945, and the site was subsequently occupied by the Bavarian State Police training establishment.