Book description
During the final days of the Second World War, for 900 Allied
officers, held by the Germans in Oflag IX A/H and Oflag IX A/Z,
freedom was still a world away. Marched east by their captors, away
from the liberating American forces, March and April 1945 was a time
of great trials, at the mercy of vengeful Nazis and Allied air raids.
Amongst their number were many men whose names would become well known
- Desmond Llewellyn, 'Q' in the Bond films, Frederick Corfield, a
cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher and Major Bruce Shand, father
of Camilla Parker Bowles. The March East 1945 draws on official and
eyewitness accounts from British, Commonwealth, American and German
records, as well as over 30 diaries and memoirs. It reveals the human
story that unfolded over two weeks in Hese, Thuringia and Saxony, and
explains how the prisoners lived and died until their final
liberation. Complemented by 100 photographs and illustrations taken
and drawn by PoWs, as well as the German instructions for camp
evacuation published for the first time in English, this book provides
a fascinating insight into the last days of the Second World War.
Peter Green has worked in UK European science public relations
since the early 1970s. He established and is now the Managing Director
of the world's only independent research news service. He was inspired
to write this book by the experiences of his father, who was captured
at Arnhem and spent the last few months of the war at Oflag IX A/Z at
Rotenburg an der Fulda.
