Stalag XVIII - A Stalag XVIII - A was a World War II German Army prisoner - of - war camp located to the south of the town of Wolfsberg , in the southern Austrian state of Carinthia , then a part of Germany . A sub - camp Stalag XVIII - A / Z was later opened in Spittal an der Drau about to the west . Camp history . The camp , designated Oflag XVIII - B , was opened on 19 October 1939 . The first occupants were Polish officers captured during the invasion of Poland . The Poles were transferred to other camps , and in March 1941 it was redesignated Stalag XVIII - A , with French and Belgian prisoners being transferred in from Stalag XVII - A . The first British and Commonwealth prisoners arrived in July 1941 from a transit camp in Thessaloniki , Greece , having been captured during the battles of Greece and Crete . The first Soviet prisoners arrived in October 1941 , and were housed in a separate enclosure . In December a typhus epidemic broke out , and the entire camp was quarantined until March 1942 . Many prisoners died , mainly Russians , as their living conditions and rations were substantially inferior to the other prisoners . In June 1942 , to ease overcrowding , three new barracks were built , and 400 British NCOs were transferred to Stalag XVIII - B at Spittal . In January 1943 the camp at Spittal became a " Zweiglager " ( " Sub - camp " ) of Wolfsberg , and was redesignated as Stalag XVIII - A / Z . In March 1943 a " Lazarett " ( " Camp Hospital " ) was built there . In November 1943 , after the Italian armistice , Italian and Commonwealth prisoners arrived from Italy . Two hundred NCOs were transferred to Stalag XVIII - C at Markt - Pongau in June 1944 . That month there were a total of 38 , 831 prisoners registered at the camp . Of these 10 , 667 were British and Commonwealth troops , of which only 825 were in the main camp , while the rest were attached to various " Arbeitskommando " ( " Labour Units " ) . On 18 December 1944 the camp was bombed by U . S . aircraft . Forty - six prisoners and several guards were killed . Both the British and French camp hospitals were hit , with the British hut being almost completely destroyed . On the approach of Allied forces in April 1945 all fit prisoners from the camps and neighbouring labour units were marched east to Stalag XVIII - C . Officially , the camp was liberated by elements of the British 8th Army on 11 May 1945 . In fact the prisoners had been in control of the camp since the 8th , the day of the German surrender . That day the Kommandant , Hauptmann Steiner , had handed over control of the camp to the Senior British Medical Officer and the " Men of Confidence " . French and British prisoners disarmed their guards and took control of the camp armoury , and the local Post Office , Railway Station and Police Station . Over the next few weeks the prisoners were transported via Klagenfurt to transit camps in Bari and Naples , from where they were eventually repatriated . By the middle of June only Russian prisoners remained , these were eventually exchanged for British and American PoWs in Russian hands , near Graz . The camp then served as a British detention centre for ex - Nazis , before finally closing in mid - 1947 . Arbeitskommando . In August 1944 , according to a Red Cross report , there were 313 " Arbeitskommando " attached to Stalag XVIII - A , which were split fairly equally between " Landwirtschaft " ( agriculture or forestry ) and " Gewerbliche Wirtschaft " ( trade and industry ) . Escapes . There were several attempts to escape , primarily from " Arbeitskommando " .