Stephen Wynn - Stalag XXA Torun Enforced March from Poland

STALAG

XXA

AND THE ENFORCED MARCH FROM POLAND

STEPHENWYNN

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by

PEN AND SWORD MILITARY

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Limited

Yorkshire Philadelphia

Copyright Stephen Wynn, 2020

ISBN 978 1 52675 446 2

eISBN 978 1 52675 447 9

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52675 448 6

The right of Stephen Wynn to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Torun is a city in the northern central region of Poland, and sits on the banks of the famous Vistula River. It has a long history which can be traced as far back as the eighth century. Over the centuries Torun has seen many changes, including being part of both Prussia and Germany.

It is universally accepted as being one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, with its medieval district having been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. By the beginning of 2019, the city had a population of more than 200,000.

During the Second World War, however, Torun was known for a totally different reason due to the fifteen existing defensive artillery forts which surround the city. Collectively they were used as a German prisoner of war camp known as Stalag XXA, and held prisoners from a variety of Allied nations. At its peak, the camp catered for some 20,000 men.

The camps first wartime inhabitants were Polish soldiers captured after their surrender at the Battle of Westerplatte, the first battle of the war in Europe after the German invasion of Poland. The battle lasted for seven days between 1 and 7 September 1939, and resulted in some 200 Polish soldiers being captured and taken prisoner.

Although this book is based on the diary of Leonard J. Parker, and covers the period of 19 January to 21 April 1945, it also looks at those who were prisoners there, how they came to be there, and the reasons behind why they were forced to leave in January 1945. While many ultimately survived their ordeal, there were many others who did not, having succumbed to the extreme conditions they had to endure on that enforced march in the harsh Polish winter of 1945.

The first British prisoners of war who found themselves incarcerated at Stalag XXA were 400 men who had been captured as a result of the Allied campaign in Norway, between 9 April and 10 June 1940. The next group of Allied soldiers to be held as prisoners at Torun were some 4,500 who were captured at Dunkirk at the end of May 1940, before they could make good their escape on the flotilla of ships sent across the English Channel to rescue them.

On 12 June 1940, the Scottish 51st (Highland) Infantry Division, which not surprisingly was made up of a number of Scottish regiments, including the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the Gordon Highlanders, and the Seaforth Highlanders, surrendered to the Germans at Saint-Valery-en-Caux, just thirty minutes after the French had done the same thing.

The 51st and their French counterparts had been trying to make their way down the coast to Le Harve to be evacuated, but the Germans reached the coast at Saint-Valery-en-Caux, cutting off their proposed route and forcing them back in to the town. When the main body of the Highland Division was forced to surrender, the British commander, Major-General Victor Morven Fortune, became one of the highest ranking officers in the British Army to be captured by the Germans throughout the entire war. Along with Fortune, some 10,000 officers and men of the 51st Highland Infantry Division were captured at St Valeryen-Caux and marched off to spend the rest of the war in captivity.

Although they didnt know it at the time, their destination was to be the German prisoner of war camp of Stalag XXA at Torun, situated about 120 miles north west of Warsaw. From St Valery they were marched across France to Germany via Belgium. Some of the prisoners had the comparative luxury of being transported in canal barges, but to get to their final destination, the last leg of the journey was made by train in the back of cattle trucks.

During that long and arduous journey, some 134 members of the 51st Highland Infantry Division not only managed to escape, but they also made it all the way back home to England. Before the war was over, the 51st Highland Infantry Division had been involved in the action in North Africa, during the 2nd Battle of El Alamein in August 1942, the Tunisia campaign of April 1943, and D-Day.

As more and more Allied prisoners of war were sent to Torun, so more of the artillery forts were needed as accommodation for them. The nationalities of those who arrived at the camp varied, which was a reflection of the military strength of the Germans, and their ability to rapidly overrun and defeat the Allied nations they had invaded. In no time at all the camp at Torun included Polish, French, Belgium, Norwegian, Australian and Yugoslavian soldiers. As a result of German successes during Operation Barbarossa, Soviet prisoners of war began arriving at Torun from June 1940. Captured members of the RAF who had been shot down over German-occupied Europe, were housed separately from other Allied prisoners of war.

The Germans put other ranks prisoners at Torun to work as per the Geneva Convention. For most, this meant working as part of labour units, or Arbeitskommando , most of whom were then hired out to either military or civilian contractors.

The location in northern Poland was a safe place to locate such a camp as far as the Germans were concerned; it was too far away from the Allies front lines for them to be able to mount any rescue attempts. That was on the assumption, however, that Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, was going to be successful; it wasnt.

With matters not going according to plan in the Soviet Union, German military authorities decided they needed to move all Allied prisoners of war held in captivity in northern Poland, to prevent them from being rescued by the now quickly advancing Soviet troops, thereby providing the Allies with a ready-made army that could almost immediately be put back in to a war-like unit, once again ready and able to fight against them.

Soldiers of the Soviet Red Army finally liberated the camp on 1 February 1945. Among the number of British prisoners of war held at Torun throughout the course of the war were men from all walks of life, from different backgrounds, social classes, religious beliefs and political persuasions. Men who, if hadnt been for the war, would probably have never met or associated with each other.