Who really betrayed the Great Escape prisoners?

Anyone for whom a screening of the film The Great Escape is an annual Christmas tradition will know how strong a hold the myth of that escapade holds over the collective British imagination. But a myth is all it is. The old 1960s movie, with its star-studded cast performing stiff upper lip heroics, manages to turn a horrific tragedy and crime into an ‘Allo Allo’ style farce akin to Carry On Tunneling.

Now, the escape from the Stalag Luft III prisoner of war camp in Silesia (now Poland), and its terrifying reality, is in the news again. Almost exactly 80 years after the breakout a document has been discovered in the National Archives at Kew claiming that the escape mission was betrayed by two unnamed English traitors.

The previously unknown document was found in the National Archives during preparations for an exhibition on the escape.