Stalag Luft III War Crimes Trial: a remarkable and historic original court document from the 1947

Stalag Luft III War Crimes Trial: a remarkable and historic original court document from the 1947 trial of the murderers of the participants in the 'Great Escape' of March 1944, type written on foolscap paper, the title "THE STALAG LUFT III WAR CRIMES TRIAL / COURT NO I", followed by a list of the presiding officials and members of the court, below which are listed the eighteen accused persons and their lawyers in adjacent columns, the names of the interpreters given at the foot; next to each of the accused an ms. note in pencil giving an abbreviated indication of their original* sentence ("H" for hanging, "L"for life imprisonment or a numeral for a lesser period of incarceration).

The mass breakout of Allied prisoners from the Stalag Luft III Prisoner of War camp in March 1944 is known to many from the fictionalised big screen adaptation The Great Escape (1963), and the true story is, if anything, even more stirring and dramatic. Of the seventy-six men who escaped from the camp through painstakingly constructed tunnels only three found their way to freedom, and of those who were recaptured, fifty were executed by the Germans. The trial of the eighteen defendants listed here began on the 1st July 1947 in No 1 War Crimes Court in Hamburg, and the sentences handed down on the 3rd September. *This document records the original sentence of death ("H") against Heinrich Boschert, which was later commuted to life imprisonment.