Newspaper account of The Forced March

As WWII was drawing to a close in Germany, the Wermacht had to decide what to do with its POWs. Many POW camps were evacuated and marched East, away from the front.

This is an account from Illustrated May 17 1945. Click on pic for larger version. The photographer was at Oflag IX A.Z. at Rotenburg, and so was John Dibblee, so this account describes John Dibblee's own Forced March. John's son, Robin, says "From what Pa told me, contrary to the camp commandant being a TYPICAL NAZI BRUTE, he was very reasonable to deal with, just begged the prisoners not to be too difficult as otherwise the SS would be drafted in and he would lose control (and probably be shot). He was Wehrmacht not Nazi, any more than the civilian population. Pa had a dim view of the journalist, just hyping up the situation for better copy. He made a bomb out of selling the photos. Pa is to be seen half of him on the left of the file shot. He did get the originals from the paper awhich showed all of him, looking dead-beat from TB." (see POW documents for the photo).