Stalag IV - B Stalag IV - B was one of the largest prisoner - of - war camp s in Germany during World War II . Stalag is an abbreviation of the German " Stammlager " ( " Main Camp " ) . It was located north - east of the town of Mühlberg in Brandenburg , just east of the Elbe river and about north of Dresden . A sub - camp , sometimes identified as Stalag IV - B / Z , was located at Zeithain , to the south in Saxony . Stalag IV - B Mühlberg . The camp , covering about , was opened in September 1939 . The first inmates were about 17 , 000 Polish soldiers captured in the German September 1939 offensive . For the first two months they dwelt under the open sky or in tents . Most of them were transferred further to other camps . In May 1940 the first French soldiers arrived , taken prisoner in the Battle of France . In 1941 British , Australian and South African soldiers arrived after the fall of Tobruk , and later in the year Russian POWs from the invasion of the Soviet Union . In October 1944 several thousand Poles arrived , members of the " Armia Krajowa " ( " Home Army " ) captured after the Warsaw Uprising , including several hundred women soldiers . In November 1944 the Polish women were transferred to other camps , mainly Stalag IV - E ( Altenburg ) and Oflag IX - C ( Molsdorf ) . At the end of December 1944 about 7 , 500 Americans arrived from the Battle of the Bulge . At least 3 , 000 of them were transferred to other camps , mostly to Stalag VIII - A . On 23 April 1945 the Red Army liberated the camp . Altogether soldiers from 33 nations passed through the camp . Camp publications . The British prisoners published two periodicals : the wall newspaper s " The New Times " and a richly illustrated " Flywheel " . The " Flywheel " was founded by Tom Swallow , and comprised pages from school exercise - books that carried hand - written articles with colour illustrations from whatever inks the editorial team could produce from stolen materials , like quinine from the medical room ; these were stuck into place with fermented millet soup , kept from the meagre camp rations . One copy per issue was produced , to be circulated among members throughout the camp . When extracts were published in hardback format in 1987 , the book ran to two reprints . An additional periodical , " The Observer " was published between December 1943 and May 1944 . The camp ' s Welsh soldiers also created their own periodical called " Cymro " ( " Welshman " ) , edited by prisoner William John Pitt . The magazines were produced between July 1943 and December 1944 . Eight issues of the magazines were created , and out of these one was lost in the camp . Although most of the issues are in English , two pages are in Welsh . The manuscript was bought by The National Library of Wales at Sotheby ’ s in 1987 . From March 1944 to December 1944 the Scottish prisoners were served with their own papers , " The Scotsman " and " The Scotsman Special Sports Supplement " , edited , printed and illustrated in both colour and black and white by RAF pilot Warrant Officer Matthew MacSwan Robertson . The articles were written by the editor and other prisoners and concentrated primarily on Scottish matters , camp social life and the various sports events held in the camp . The " Scotsman " had seven issues and the " Sports " had twelve issues . Only one copy of each issue was produced and the papers were taken from hut to hut between publications for all to read . Copies of one of each are shown below and both are also included in Wikimedia Commons where they can be viewed at full size [ File : POW Camp Newspaper , The Scotsman . pdf ] . The original papers are still held by the Robertson family . Soviet control . When the Soviet Army arrived at the camp in April 1945 , there were about 30 , 000 crowded into the facilities , of these 7 , 250 were British . About 3 , 000 died , mainly from tuberculosis and typhus . They were buried in the cemetery in neighbouring Neuburxdorf , Bad Liebenwerda . Today a memorial and a museum commemorate them . It is not widely known , but the Soviet liberators were in no hurry to repatriate the British and American prisoners to their homelands . In fact they were held in the camp for over a month . Individual soldiers " escaped " from the camp and made their way on foot to the American lines . In August 1945 the Soviet secret service NKVD opened on the area of Stalag IV - B one of its special camps No . 1 using the shacks of Stalag IV - B . More than 22 , 800 persons were imprisoned and over 6 , 700 of them died until operation of the camp was ceased in 1948 . Stalag IV - B Zeithain . The sub - camp , originally Stalag 304 ( Stalag IV - H ) , was built in April 1941 next to the military depot , training ground , and Jacobsthal railway station , to accommodate Soviet prisoners . In 1942 it became Stalag IV - B Zeithain , a sub - camp of Stalag IV - B Mühlberg . By July 1941 about 11 , 000 Soviet soldiers , and some officers , had arrived , but by April 1942 only 3 , 279 remained . The rest had died from malnutrition and a typhus epidemic caused by the deplorable sanitary conditions . The bodies were buried in mass graves . After April 1942 more Soviet prisoners arrived and died just as rapidly . At the end of 1942 10 , 000 reasonably healthy Soviet prisoners were transferred to Belgium to work in the coal mines . In February 1943 Zeithain was transformed into a hospital camp designated Stalag IV - B / H . The main part still housed Soviet prisoners suffering from tuberculosis , who continued to die at the rate 10 - 20 per day ( according to German sources ) . The section closest to the railway station was now used to house sick prisoners of other nationalities . These included several hundred Poles and Yugoslavs brought from other camps . In September 1943 a section was set aside for sick Italian soldiers imprisoned after Marshal Badoglio surrendered to the Allies . About 900 died but , in contrast to the Soviet prisoners , they were buried in individual graves in a military cemetery in Jacobsthal . In October 1944 , around 25 huts of the Italian section were separated into a special enclosure to house about 1 , 100 wounded survivors , men and women , of the Polish " Armia Krajowa " ( " Home Army " ) that had fought in the Warsaw Uprising for 63 days ; as well as the medical personnel - 55 doctors and 168 nurses - to care for them . A train also brought hospital equipment and supplies salvaged from the ruins of Warsaw and the families of the doctors . The Camp Commandant , Colonel Doctor Stachel observed the families with children , and even pets , descending from the train , and walked away in disgust . German sources quote that " . . the nurses and other staff went to work with great dedication , and achieved a standard of hygiene that had never been seen before in Zeithain . " This was probably the only POW camp in the world housing both men and women , and in which eleven babies were born and assigned POW registration numbers . The Red Army liberated the camp on 23 April 1945 . Memorials . The local community has built a memorial to the victims of Stalag IV - B Zeithain in a Memorial Grove ( " Gedenkstätte Ehrenhain Zeithain " ) near the station , with a museum .