Oflag XVII-A, was a German Army

German Army

The German Army is the land component of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. Following the disbanding of the Wehrmacht after World War II, it was re-established in 1955 as the Bundesheer, part of the newly formed West German Bundeswehr along with the Navy and the Air Force...

 prisoner-of-war camp

Prisoner-of-war camp

A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of combatants captured by their enemy in time of war, and is similar to an internment camp which is used for civilian populations. A prisoner of war is generally a soldier, sailor, or airman who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or...

 in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 for officer

Officer (armed forces)

An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...

s. It was located between Edelsbach and Döllersheim

Döllersheim

Döllersheim was, since the mid 19th century, an Austrian municipality in the Waldviertel, the northwestern part of Lower Austria near the border with Bohemia. It included the hamlet of Strones, where Alois Hitler, the father of Adolf Hitler, was born to Maria Schicklgruber in 1837. Strones was very...

 in north-eastern Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

. Döllersheim village had been taken over by the German army and an artillery training area established in 1939. All the inhabitants were moved away.

The camp guards were mainly Austrian army veterans and conditions in this camp were better than in many other POW camps in Germany. A university was operated by prisoners, and many obtained their degrees in captivity. The university was directed by Jean Leray

Jean Leray

Jean Leray was a French mathematician, who worked on both partial differential equations and algebraic topology....

, a French mathematician.
A clandestine film about the camp was created by the prisoners, called "Sous Le Manteau". The director was Marcel Corre.

Timeline

• June 1940 - The camp was built within the Germany artillery area to house officers, principally French
  France
  The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
  
  , captured in the Battle of France
  Battle of France
  In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...
  
  . Approximately 6,000 officers and orderlies were located in the camp.
• September 1943 - 131 French officers escaped from the camp. Only two succeeded in evading recapture. This was one of the largest camp escapes of the entire war, with more escapees than in the famous "Great Escape".
• 9 May 1945 - the camp was liberated by the Red Army
  Red Army
  The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
  
  

Sources

• About the film created in the camp in French.
• History of area in German.