The article “Perils of Liberation: Crossfire Outside Stalag III-C,” published by The National WWII Museum, vividly recounts the frequently overlooked experiences of Allied prisoners as they were liberated from Stalag III-C. As World War II came to a close, these prisoners found themselves caught in the crossfire of advancing Soviet and American forces, leading to a complex and perilous struggle for survival amidst the chaos of shifting frontlines.

It is a terrible truth about the end of World War II in Europe that thousands of men, women, and children perished shortly before or even immediately after their liberation from German captivity. Such was the case of the American prisoners of war from Stalag III-C who fell, tragically, during a firefight between German guards and Soviet troops.  

Constructed by Polish prisoners of war, Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschaftstammlager III-C, or Stalag III-C, a German prisoner-of-war camp near the village of Alt Drewitz bei Küstrin, near the junction of the Oder and Warthe Rivers about 50 miles east of Berlin, had been in operation since June 1940. Thanks to the late Geoff Megargee and his team of researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, we know a great deal about the composition of its prisoner population.[1]  Behind the camp’s barbed wire and guard towers was a multinational group of men. At various points, the German army confined there prisoners of war from Poland, France, Yugoslavia (primarily from Serbia), the Soviet Union, Italy (after September 1943), as well as British and American inmates. By December 1944, the number of prisoners at Stalag III-C reached over 38,000; over 2,000 were from the United States. Work in labor detachments had been the norm for most of the men.

STALAG III-C: CONDITIONS AND EVACUATION

Before early 1945, the Germans had generally followed the Geneva Convention in terms of the treatment of American, British, and French prisoners. As was common, they treated the Soviets in the camp quite viciously; as many as 12,000 of them died in Stalag III-C. In 1941–42, Gestapo agents had often pulled out of the ranks of the Soviet POWs professed Communists or those identified as Jews and sent them to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where most were executed by the SS.

Conditions greatly worsened for the inmates during the winter of 1944–45. Like in so many of the German armed forces’ prison camps, overcrowding and food shortages came to plague Stalag III-C. At the same time, distance to the front lines to the east steadily dwindled.

On the morning of January 31, 1945, a Wednesday, the personnel manning Stalag III-C decided it was time to evacuate. Delays by the prisoners would no longer be tolerated. Sounds of Soviet artillery fire had become distressingly close for the Germans; for their Allied captives, the shelling signified that the Red Army had finally arrived to liberate them.

Indeed, men of Marshal Georgy Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front had drawn near, moving rapidly toward Alt Drewitz bei Küstrin since the launching of the massive Vistula–Oder Offensive on January 12. Soviet forces had swept across Poland, taking Warsaw and Kraków, as well as liberating Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27. Now they were pouring into German territory, bringing the fighting home, in brutal fashion, to the country that had unleashed World War II in Europe. And Zhukov’s troops had closed in, unwittingly, on one of the many POW camps erected by the Wehrmacht in eastern Germany.

Despite efforts by American prisoners to slow down the evacuation, German guards forced the prisoners to move out of Stalag III-C on the morning of January 31. Later, one survivor recounted how the Germans put them in columns of 500. It was a bitterly cold day to march, five weeks into a winter that was one for the proverbial history books. The POWs and captors would make it only a few miles before catastrophe ensued.

These Americans came from many different units—including the 82nd Airborne Division, the 30th Infantry Division, and the all-Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team. From all their diverse backgrounds and wartime experiences, they had hoped to be freed by the Soviets prior to a long and frigid march westward. What actually happened to them reminds us of the perils of liberation.

AMERICAN POWS CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE

Having covered only a short distance, the columns of prisoners soon found their way blocked by tanks: a Soviet spearhead, stunning Germans and prisoners alike by the rapidity of its advance, stood in their path. Thanks to the Red Cross, the POWs wore new uniforms and coats. But these acquisitions unwittingly made them targets. The Soviets, believing they had stumbled across a mass of German soldiers, opened fire on the head of the column. Panic resulted.

Under fire, the Germans could not maintain control over all the men in their charge. Some of the American prisoners headed straight for the Soviets’ position, desperately trying to identify themselves as Americans. Others sought refuge in nearby fields. A third group stayed in German hands.

The incident was a bloodbath. Several of the men who had made it to the fields were cut down, helplessly, in the crossfire. On the next day, the Germans counterattacked with air support, dropping antipersonnel “butterfly bombs” and successfully driving the Soviets back. Some US prisoners taken in by the Soviet unit succumbed to wounds from the German air strikes. Stalag III-C and most of its prisoners stayed for the moment in German control. 

Over the next few several weeks, the entire surrounding area was totally devastated. The Red Army finally liberated Stalag III-C on March 12, 1945, just over a month before Joseph Stalin launched the offensive to seize Berlin. Some reports indicated the freed inmates completely destroyed the camp structures.

Joseph Beyrle, an American paratrooper from the 101st Airborne Division who had escaped from Stalag III-C, actually fought with a Soviet armored unit. His story, as incredible it is, is really the only connection the US public has to the existence of this POW camp.

Those Americans who managed to join the Red Army force on January 31 and survive underwent their own odyssey. Many of them first went to Poland, then journeyed on to the USSR itself. Via Odessa, the Ukrainian port city, they returned to US control.  

After the war, the American Graves Registration Command, or AGRC, investigated what had transpired on January 31 and the days that followed. By then, the area around Stalag III-C was now part of Poland; Küstrin had become Kostrzyn nad Odrą, and Alt Drewitz became Drzewice. Neither the Polish residents nor the officials AGRC personnel interviewed knew much, if anything at all, about Stalag III-C or the incident. The Polish local government denied them access to some grave sites, and reliable information was hard to come by. 

AGRC teams did determine that 22 American POWs were killed and almost 50 were wounded in the incident; the actual number might be higher. For decades after the war, several of the deceased remained classed as “unrecoverable” as their remains could not be located despite prodigious work undertaken by AGRC in the immediate postwar years.      

What befell the American prisoners from Stalag III-C in late January and early February of 1945 is illustrative of just how dangerous conditions still were even as Adolf Hitler’s so-called Thousand-Year Reich fell to pieces. 

The article “Perils of Liberation: Crossfire Outside Stalag III-C,” published by The National WWII Museum, vividly recounts the frequently overlooked experiences of Allied prisoners as they were liberated from Stalag III-C. As World War II came to a close, these prisoners found themselves caught in the crossfire of advancing Soviet and American forces, leading to a complex and perilous struggle for survival amidst the chaos of shifting frontlines.

It is a terrible truth about the end of World War II in Europe that thousands of men, women, and children perished shortly before or even immediately after their liberation from German captivity. Such was the case of the American prisoners of war from Stalag III-C who fell, tragically, during a firefight between German guards and Soviet troops.  

Constructed by Polish prisoners of war, Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschaftstammlager III-C, or Stalag III-C, a German prisoner-of-war camp near the village of Alt Drewitz bei Küstrin, near the junction of the Oder and Warthe Rivers about 50 miles east of Berlin, had been in operation since June 1940. Thanks to the late Geoff Megargee and his team of researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, we know a great deal about the composition of its prisoner population.[1]  Behind the camp’s barbed wire and guard towers was a multinational group of men. At various points, the German army confined there prisoners of war from Poland, France, Yugoslavia (primarily from Serbia), the Soviet Union, Italy (after September 1943), as well as British and American inmates. By December 1944, the number of prisoners at Stalag III-C reached over 38,000; over 2,000 were from the United States. Work in labor detachments had been the norm for most of the men.

STALAG III-C: CONDITIONS AND EVACUATION

Before early 1945, the Germans had generally followed the Geneva Convention in terms of the treatment of American, British, and French prisoners. As was common, they treated the Soviets in the camp quite viciously; as many as 12,000 of them died in Stalag III-C. In 1941–42, Gestapo agents had often pulled out of the ranks of the Soviet POWs professed Communists or those identified as Jews and sent them to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where most were executed by the SS.

Conditions greatly worsened for the inmates during the winter of 1944–45. Like in so many of the German armed forces’ prison camps, overcrowding and food shortages came to plague Stalag III-C. At the same time, distance to the front lines to the east steadily dwindled.

On the morning of January 31, 1945, a Wednesday, the personnel manning Stalag III-C decided it was time to evacuate. Delays by the prisoners would no longer be tolerated. Sounds of Soviet artillery fire had become distressingly close for the Germans; for their Allied captives, the shelling signified that the Red Army had finally arrived to liberate them.

Indeed, men of Marshal Georgy Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front had drawn near, moving rapidly toward Alt Drewitz bei Küstrin since the launching of the massive Vistula–Oder Offensive on January 12. Soviet forces had swept across Poland, taking Warsaw and Kraków, as well as liberating Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27. Now they were pouring into German territory, bringing the fighting home, in brutal fashion, to the country that had unleashed World War II in Europe. And Zhukov’s troops had closed in, unwittingly, on one of the many POW camps erected by the Wehrmacht in eastern Germany.

Despite efforts by American prisoners to slow down the evacuation, German guards forced the prisoners to move out of Stalag III-C on the morning of January 31. Later, one survivor recounted how the Germans put them in columns of 500. It was a bitterly cold day to march, five weeks into a winter that was one for the proverbial history books. The POWs and captors would make it only a few miles before catastrophe ensued.

These Americans came from many different units—including the 82nd Airborne Division, the 30th Infantry Division, and the all-Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team. From all their diverse backgrounds and wartime experiences, they had hoped to be freed by the Soviets prior to a long and frigid march westward. What actually happened to them reminds us of the perils of liberation.

AMERICAN POWS CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE

Having covered only a short distance, the columns of prisoners soon found their way blocked by tanks: a Soviet spearhead, stunning Germans and prisoners alike by the rapidity of its advance, stood in their path. Thanks to the Red Cross, the POWs wore new uniforms and coats. But these acquisitions unwittingly made them targets. The Soviets, believing they had stumbled across a mass of German soldiers, opened fire on the head of the column. Panic resulted.

Under fire, the Germans could not maintain control over all the men in their charge. Some of the American prisoners headed straight for the Soviets’ position, desperately trying to identify themselves as Americans. Others sought refuge in nearby fields. A third group stayed in German hands.

The incident was a bloodbath. Several of the men who had made it to the fields were cut down, helplessly, in the crossfire. On the next day, the Germans counterattacked with air support, dropping antipersonnel “butterfly bombs” and successfully driving the Soviets back. Some US prisoners taken in by the Soviet unit succumbed to wounds from the German air strikes. Stalag III-C and most of its prisoners stayed for the moment in German control. 

Over the next few several weeks, the entire surrounding area was totally devastated. The Red Army finally liberated Stalag III-C on March 12, 1945, just over a month before Joseph Stalin launched the offensive to seize Berlin. Some reports indicated the freed inmates completely destroyed the camp structures.

Joseph Beyrle, an American paratrooper from the 101st Airborne Division who had escaped from Stalag III-C, actually fought with a Soviet armored unit. His story, as incredible it is, is really the only connection the US public has to the existence of this POW camp.

Those Americans who managed to join the Red Army force on January 31 and survive underwent their own odyssey. Many of them first went to Poland, then journeyed on to the USSR itself. Via Odessa, the Ukrainian port city, they returned to US control.  

After the war, the American Graves Registration Command, or AGRC, investigated what had transpired on January 31 and the days that followed. By then, the area around Stalag III-C was now part of Poland; Küstrin had become Kostrzyn nad Odrą, and Alt Drewitz became Drzewice. Neither the Polish residents nor the officials AGRC personnel interviewed knew much, if anything at all, about Stalag III-C or the incident. The Polish local government denied them access to some grave sites, and reliable information was hard to come by. 

AGRC teams did determine that 22 American POWs were killed and almost 50 were wounded in the incident; the actual number might be higher. For decades after the war, several of the deceased remained classed as “unrecoverable” as their remains could not be located despite prodigious work undertaken by AGRC in the immediate postwar years.      

What befell the American prisoners from Stalag III-C in late January and early February of 1945 is illustrative of just how dangerous conditions still were even as Adolf Hitler’s so-called Thousand-Year Reich fell to pieces. 

This article takes us on a journey through the ways language and nature collide, adding color to our conversations and a touch of poetry to everyday expressions. Explore the origins and meanings behind these idioms and navigate the lush landscapes of linguistic creativity together.

Today, we’re lowering our gaze to the ground and looking at idioms that feature mud and grass. We’ll start, appropriately enough, with phrases that include the word ‘seed’, (= the tiny thing from which a plant grows).

If you sow / plant the seeds of something, (often something bad), you cause it to start and develop: The politician was accused of sowing the seeds of hatred and division. When older people stop looking attractive and youthful, people sometimes say (rather unkindly) that they have gone to seed, especially when they look as if they are not taking care of themselves: He plays the part of an ageing, unemployed actor who’s gone to seed.

Following on from the seed, the shoot is the first part of the plant to appear above the ground. You often hear the phrase the green shoots (of recovery), meaning ‘the first signs of improvement in the economy, after a recession’: These figures would suggest that we’re starting to see the green shoots of economic recovery.

While we’re thinking about growth, we say that a situation or place is fertile ground for something when it tends to produce a lot of it: Dysfunctional families, of course, have long been fertile ground for comedy.

Mud (= wet earth) features in a few nice idioms. If something is difficult to understand, you might say, humorously, that it’s as clear as mud: The law on this is as clear as mud. Someone whose name is mud is not liked by a group of people who are angry about something that he or she has done: To many in the community, his name is mud. To drag someone’s name through the mud, meanwhile, is to damage their reputation by saying insulting things about them, often unfairly: My name has been dragged through the mud in these courts.

Still looking at the ground, ‘grass’ features in the common saying, The grass is always greener on the other side. This saying refers to the human tendency to believe that other people’s situations are better than our own (even when they’re not): I sometimes look enviously at other people’s careers. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.

In British English, if a matter is kicked into the long grass, especially by politicians, it is delayed, often in the hope that people will forget about it: She complained that the issue had been kicked into the long grass.

Finally for grass, someone who is put out to grass is forced to leave their job because they are considered too old: He couldn’t help feeling that he’d been put out to grass.

Pasture (= grass-covered land for cows) features in the idiom greener / new pastures, meaning ‘a new place or activity, offering fresh opportunities’. In British English, the slightly literary phrase pastures new is also used: I’d been in the same job for years and it was time to seek greener pastures. / I hear James is leaving the company for pastures new.

This article takes us on a journey through the ways language and nature collide, adding color to our conversations and a touch of poetry to everyday expressions. Explore the origins and meanings behind these idioms and navigate the lush landscapes of linguistic creativity together.

Today, we’re lowering our gaze to the ground and looking at idioms that feature mud and grass. We’ll start, appropriately enough, with phrases that include the word ‘seed’, (= the tiny thing from which a plant grows).

If you sow / plant the seeds of something, (often something bad), you cause it to start and develop: The politician was accused of sowing the seeds of hatred and division. When older people stop looking attractive and youthful, people sometimes say (rather unkindly) that they have gone to seed, especially when they look as if they are not taking care of themselves: He plays the part of an ageing, unemployed actor who’s gone to seed.

Following on from the seed, the shoot is the first part of the plant to appear above the ground. You often hear the phrase the green shoots (of recovery), meaning ‘the first signs of improvement in the economy, after a recession’: These figures would suggest that we’re starting to see the green shoots of economic recovery.

While we’re thinking about growth, we say that a situation or place is fertile ground for something when it tends to produce a lot of it: Dysfunctional families, of course, have long been fertile ground for comedy.

Mud (= wet earth) features in a few nice idioms. If something is difficult to understand, you might say, humorously, that it’s as clear as mud: The law on this is as clear as mud. Someone whose name is mud is not liked by a group of people who are angry about something that he or she has done: To many in the community, his name is mud. To drag someone’s name through the mud, meanwhile, is to damage their reputation by saying insulting things about them, often unfairly: My name has been dragged through the mud in these courts.

Still looking at the ground, ‘grass’ features in the common saying, The grass is always greener on the other side. This saying refers to the human tendency to believe that other people’s situations are better than our own (even when they’re not): I sometimes look enviously at other people’s careers. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.

In British English, if a matter is kicked into the long grass, especially by politicians, it is delayed, often in the hope that people will forget about it: She complained that the issue had been kicked into the long grass.

Finally for grass, someone who is put out to grass is forced to leave their job because they are considered too old: He couldn’t help feeling that he’d been put out to grass.

Pasture (= grass-covered land for cows) features in the idiom greener / new pastures, meaning ‘a new place or activity, offering fresh opportunities’. In British English, the slightly literary phrase pastures new is also used: I’d been in the same job for years and it was time to seek greener pastures. / I hear James is leaving the company for pastures new.

While both techniques, appositives and descriptions, provide additional information about a subject, appositives serve as essential identifiers, often enclosed in commas, that clarify or highlight a noun. In contrast, descriptions offer more general details about a noun without the same level of specificity. This article by by Mark Nichol provides helpful explanations and examples that will help you identify and punctuate them correctly.

It is important for writers to distinguish between appositives and mere descriptions. A noun is said to be in apposition when it is set off from another noun that refers to the same idea. The phrase “set off” is significant, because a pair of commas separate the parenthetical apposition from its referent noun by a pair of commas. A description, however, needs no such bracketing.

For example, take a look at this sentence: “Here’s what the CEO of Chrysler Sergio Marchionne said to his employees in a blog post.” “The CEO of Chrysler” and “Sergio Marchionne” are one and the same — appositive — so one or the other needs to be framed by commas. This can be accomplished in one of several ways:

“Here’s what the CEO of Chrysler, Sergio Marchionne, said to his employees in a blog post.”

“Here’s what Sergio Marchionne, (the) CEO of Chrysler, said to his employees in a blog post.” (The optional the is often omitted in journalistic contexts and retained in more formal writing.)

“Here’s what Sergio Marchionne, Chrysler’s CEO, said to his employees in a blog post.” (This is a less formal variant of the previous two options.)

A description, meanwhile, such as the job title in this case, is followed directly by the name without intervening punctuation, and no comma should follow the name, either: “Here’s what Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said to his employees in a blog post.”

The first sentence in each of the following pairs appeared in a printed or online publication with commas framing the name as if it was an appositive — an error, and a distressingly common one. But notice below the differences between the statements labeled “Description” and the ones marked as “Apposition.” In a description, both the descriptive phrase and the name it applies to are essential; without either one, the sentence is incomplete. However, an apposition, being parenthetical, can be omitted without altering the integrity of the sentence.

Description: “Ex-reservist and current war gamer Mike Brown admits his battle tactics may be a bit too aggressive for a real-life situation.”

Apposition: “Mike Brown, an ex-reservist and current war gamer, admits his battle tactics may be a bit too aggressive for a real-life situation.”

Description: “Kitchen queen Nigella Lawson comes to town, shops, chops, cooks, and raves about our produce.”

Apposition: “Nigella Lawson, the kitchen queen, comes to town, shops, chops, cooks, and raves about our produce.”

Description: “Conservative radio jock Michael Savage gets his own TV show.”

Apposition: “A conservative radio jock, Michael Savage, gets his own TV show.” (The person’s name can come first, as in the previous examples, without a change in meaning, though the focus changes.)

Description: “The San Francisco–based schooner C.A. Thayer begins a $9.6 million overhaul.”

Apposition: “The C.A. Thayer, a San Francisco–based schooner, begins a $9.6 million overhaul.” (If the schooner has already been referenced generically, the sentence should read something like this: “The San Francisco–based schooner, the C.A. Thayer, begins a $9.6 million overhaul.”)

Description: “The Emeryville studio Pixar hopes to cash in on its fish flick.”

Apposition: “The Emeryville studio, Pixar, hopes to cash in on its fish flick.” (If two or more studios, each located in a different city, were previously mentioned, this sentence is correct. Otherwise, something like “Pixar, the Emeryville studio, hopes to cash in on its fish flick” would be appropriate.)

Description: “Bryan Young is editor of the blog Big Shiny Robot.”

Apposition: “Bryan Young is editor of the blog, Big Shiny Robot.” (The comma is necessary to indicate that the blog was already mentioned, but not by name. If not, the comma signals, fallaciously, that Big Shiny Robot is the only blog in existence.)