Good film, just one question.
When the men are escaping, they have German uniforms and papers etc.... But where the hell did they get rifles from? What prison guard in his right mind is going to exchange cigarettes for rifles?
Good one! Germans were pretty loyal, they might havew traded for food and other sundries, but not guns!
shareYeah, i wonder about this too, though i think this movie is very good. My explanation is: in 1945 Reich was dead and everybody knew this, guards didn't give a sh*t about regulations, and in destroyed, miserable country they had lack of everything. And pows were getting packs from red cross and they could offer to guards many precious things, eg coffee. It still seems weird to me that they achieved to get explosives and firearms, but in III Reich corruption was always big problem and in the face of fall it rose even more. Maybe few tens of kilograms of coffee, chocolate and cigarettes was enough to buy this stuff.
shareYou are absolutely right. Maybe some of the guards already planned for the time when war was over. By supporting the american prisoners now, they help them afterwards in return.
shareMany of the rear echelon jobs such as POW camp guards were made up of non-Germans such as Poles, Russians, other east Europeans and such. They were drafted or volunteered to get out of other prison camps for a chance at a better life so to speak. They weren't neccesarily pro-Nazi or anything like that, but pro-survival. Jobs they took provided money, food, uniforms, and reletive security in case the Germans won the war. These guys, not being as gung ho as their German brethren-in-arms didn't have as many problems trading with the POWs for items that they couldn't get.
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