‘Great Escape’ Deaths Blamed on Hitler

The executions of 50 Allied airmen who fled a German prison camp--immortalized in the film “The Great Escape”--were ordered by Adolf Hitler over the objections of his officers, according to British records released in London. The statement on Hitler’s direct role was made by Gen. Maj. Adolf Westhoff, the German officer responsible for the prisoners’ welfare, to British interrogators after World War II, according to the files. Eighty airmen tunneled out of Stalag Luft 3, a prison camp in Sagan, 100 miles southeast of Berlin, on March 24, 1944. Three managed to reach Britain, but the rest were recaptured. Fifty were chosen randomly for execution as a warning to others.