Oflag VII-A Murnau

Oflag VII-A Murnau was a German Army prisoner-of-war camp for Polish Army officers during World War II. It was located 2 km (1.2 mi) north of the Bavarian town of Murnau am Staffelsee.

Oflag VII-A
Murnau am Staffelsee, Bavaria
A group of Polish officers in Oflag VII-A
Site information
Type	Prisoner-of-war camp
Controlled by	Nazi Germany
Location
Oflag VII-A Murnau, Germany (pre-war borders, 1937)
Coordinates	47.690442°N 11.205106°E / 47.690442; 11.205106
Site history
In use	1939-1945
Battles/wars	World War II
Garrison information
Occupants	Polish Army officers

Camp history

Various items of daily use from Oflag VII-A (from the Museum of the Polish Army, Warsaw)

The camp was created in September 1939. It consisted of an enclosure 200 m (660 ft) square, surrounded with barbed wire and guard towers. Immediately after the German invasion of Poland, at the beginning of World War II, some 1,000 Polish officers were imprisoned there. On April 27, 1942, additional Polish POWs were transferred there from the so-called "Generals' Camp" Oflag VIII-E in Janské Koupele in German-occupied Czechoslovakia (now in the Czech Republic). In October 1944, 592 Polish insurgents of the suppressed Warsaw Uprising were brought from Stalag 344, and further Polish officers were brought later from Stalag VII-A.^[1] By early 1945 the number of POWs held in the camp reached over 5,000.

The camps was liberated by troops of the U.S. 12th Armored Division on 29 April 1945.^[2]

List of notable prisoners

Among those imprisoned in Murnau were:

Rear Admiral (Kontradmirał)

• Józef Unrug

Divisional Generals (Generał dywizji)

• Władysław Bortnowski
• Tadeusz Kutrzeba
• Tadeusz Piskor
• Juliusz Rómmel

Brigade Generals (Generał brygady)

• Roman Abraham
• Franciszek Alter
• Władysław Bończa-Uzdowski
• Leopold Cehak [pl]
• Jan Chmurowicz [pl]
• Walerian Czuma
• Franciszek Dindorf-Ankowicz [pl]
• Juliusz Drapella
• Janusz Gąsiorowski
• Edmund Knoll-Kownacki
• Wincenty Kowalski
• Jan Kazimierz Kruszewski [pl]
• Józef Kwaciszewski
• Stanisław Małachowski
• Czesław Młot-Fijałkowski
• Bernard Mond
• Zygmunt Piasecki [pl]
• Wacław Piekarski
• Zygmunt Podhorski
• Emil Przedrzymirski-Krukowicz [pl]
• Zdzisław Przyjałkowski [pl]
• Jan Jagmin-Sadowski
• Antoni Szylling
• Stanisław Taczak
• Wiktor Thommée
• Juliusz Zulauf

Officers

• Witold Pilecki, former prisoner no 4859 of Auschwitz under assumed name of Tomasz Serafiński; Murnau prisoner no 101892^[3][4]

Majors

• Seweryn Kulesza
• Edward Pach [pl]

Captains

• Bronisław Przyłuski [pl]
• Władysław Dawidek [pl]
• Stanisław Guliński [pl]

See also

• List of prisoner-of-war camps in Germany