Page 19 - Cecil Thomas Weir

Col. Zemke sent a scouting party out to meet the approaching Russians to inform
them that there was a POW camp of allies located in the area, so the Russians
would not be shelling them. Later in the day the Russian commander entered Stalag
Luft I and meet with Col. Zemke and the British senior officer. The Russian
commander did not like the idea of the Allied POW’s still being behind barbed wire,
so he ordered that Col. Zemke have the fences torn down. Zemke refused at first,
but was later convinced (some say by force, with a gun) to tear down the fences.
The POW’s enthusiastically tore them down. Many POW’s then left camp and went
into Barth and the surrounding areas. Some of them (approximately 700) took off on
their own to make their way to the approaching British lines. In the ensuing confusion
of a war still in progress all around them some of the POW’s were accidentally killed.
One former prisoner commenting later ʹWhat he accomplished in getting us out of
Germany and out of the hands of troublesome allies was also the result of his
negotiation abilityʹ.

We found out later that Zemke had sent Group Captain C. T. Weir to contact British
Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery to see what he could do to convince the
Russians that it would be impossible for the inmates of our camp to make the long
journey to Odessa. Reportedly, Montgomery met with Marshal Rokossovsky, the
Commander of the White Russian Army Group (which had overrun Berlin and all of
the area around the Baltic). As a result, Group Captain Weir and his party returned
and reported that plans had been worked out to have the 8th Air Force evacuate
Stalag Luft I. This was accomplished a week later when some 300 B-17's came into
a nearby airfield and flew the POW’s to freedom.

st
The 2nd White Russian Front of the Red Army that entered Barth on May 1 , 1945
and liberated the prisoners of war at Stalag Luft I. After the fences were down the
Russians then learning of the meagre food supply the POW’s had been existing on
soon rounded up several hundred cows and herded them into the camp for the
hungry POW’s to slaughter and eat. This they did immediately. At night they
entertained the POW’s with their ‘USO’ type variety show that travelled with them.
There was much joy and celebration among the newly freed POW’s and
the Russian soldiers.

The Russian Army stayed in Barth for only a couple of weeks. After the POW’s were
evacuated from Barth, the Soviet Military Administration (SMAD) took over the empty
barracks at Stalag Luft I and used them for a repatriation camp for their countrymen
that had been used as slave labour by the Germans. Those slave workers that were
in the territory occupied by the Western Allies were transferred to the territory
occupied by the Soviets. They came into repatriation camps where they were
interrogated by the Soviet Secret Service (GPU) and this organization decided
whether the former slave workers were sent home to their families or into Stalinistic
camps (Gulags) to do slave work in coal mines in Siberia or somewhere else.