Stalag Luft IV, a prisoner of war camp for noncommissioned officers in the Air Force, was located in Pomerania, twenty-eight miles south of the Baltic Sea, near the hamlet of Grosstychow. It contained four separate compounds, A,B,C, and D. The camp was surrounded by high,double barbed wire fences. Coils of barbed wire were laid in between the two fences. Inside the second fence was a warning wire. Anyone crossing the warning wire was shot.
The prison barracks were approximately 40x130 feet and constructed of wood on pilings about thirty inches above the ground. To take care of the overflow, some POWs were housed in tents pitched between the barracks. In addition, there were seventy small shacks with dirt floors scattered around the compound. The POWs referred to them as "dog houses."
The photograph shows barracks 4 and 5 of Compound A followed by the latrine and washroom. Barracks 3,2, and 1 are next in line. The warning rail can be seen in the foreground. Oberst Hoermann Von Hoerbach, one of the better camp commanders, was court-martialed and replaced after a British POW escaped. His replacement, Major Heinrich, an ardent Nazi, did not intend to suffer the same fate and was much more strict.
Airmen assigned to Stalag Luft IV were met at the Kiefheide railroad station by Hauptmann Leopold Pickhardt a brutal, sadistic captain of the guards. He wanted to avenge the bombing of the German cities by mistreatent of prisoners. He was accompanied by Big Stoop, a ruthless enlisted guard that welcomed the chance to beat POWs at every opportunity. Sergeant Harold L. Dillon, a POW from the 351st Bomb Group and shot down on this second mission said that they made the POWs run from the railway station to the camp with ferocious police dogs snipping at their heals and guards prodding them along with fixed bayonets. The POWs were warned that if they fell behind they would be shot. Any prisoner that lagged or fell was urged on with the tips of bayonets or rifle butts. Often the POWs arrived at the camp bloody and bruised. This was their introduction to Stalag Luft IV.
Unteroffizier Schmidt, better known as Big Stoop, was the most infamous and hated guard in Stalag Luft IV. He was six foot seven inches tall, weighed some three hundred pounds, and walked stooped and pegion-toed. He had brown hair with streaks of gray, ugly irregular teeth and coarse complexion that made his look like the visious anical that he became known to be. There wasn't a single POW that met Big Stoop that didn't threaten to kill him if given the least opportunity.
The photograph shows barracks 4 and 5 of Compound A followed by the latrine and washroom. Barracks 3,2, and 1 are next in line. The warning rail can be seen in the foreground. Oberst Hoermann Von Hoerbach, one of the better camp commanders, was court-martialed and replaced after a British POW escaped. His replacement, Major Heinrich, an ardent Nazi, did not intend to suffer the same fate and was much more strict.
