Researchers have uncovered a prisoner-of-war camp in the forests of Britain that once held Adolf Hitler’s successor as leader of the Third Reich.
Lodge Moor, near Sheffield in northern England, was the largest POW camp in Britain during World War II. It held roughly 11,000 prisoners from Germany, Italy, and Ukraine at the camp’s peak in 1944.
Decades earlier, Lodge Moor held likely its most famous prisoner, Adm. Karl Dönitz. Allied forces captured Dönitz, a U-boat captain, during the First World War after his vessel was forced to surface.
The German Navy officer was taken to the Sheffield camp and stayed for six weeks before the Brits sent him back to Germany. Dönitz had faked having a mental illness to avoid trial as a war criminal.
Dönitz rose through the ranks of the German Navy, becoming its commander in the final years of World War II. After Hitler committed suicide in April 1945, Dönitz took over as Nazi leader until he was captured and convicted of war crimes in the Nuremberg Trials.
Conditions at Lodge Moor were “very unpleasant,” according to Rob Johnson, one of the researchers who uncovered the camp and is compiling its history.
“The prisoners were fed food out of galvanized dustbins, had to stand outside in the mud, rain, and cold for several hours a day during roll call, and since it was so overpopulated as a transit camp, they were squashed into tents or the barracks with little personal space,” Johnson said.
“It’s exciting to think what could be uncovered at the camp as it hasn’t received any archaeological surveys prior to our projects,” Johnson said. “We found some reinforced glass and iron knots from the old barracks just walking around the area, which is incredible to think it has all just been lying around untouched and forgotten for so many years.”
