Oflag XVII-A 1.6

Oflag XVII-A was a German Army World War II prisoner-of-war camp for officers located between the villages of Edelsbach and Döllersheim in the district of Zwettl in the Waldviertel region of north-eastern Austria.Camp historyThe camp was originally built as barracks for troops taking part in military exercises in Truppenübungsplatz Döllersheim, which with an area of 200sqkm, was the largest military training area in Central Europe. It had been created by the German Army in 1938, and some 7,000 inhabitants of 45 villages were removed and resettled.The barracks were enclosed by a barbed-wire fence and watchtowers to form a camp approximately 440by, which was opened in June 1940 to house officers, mostly French, captured in the Battle of France, as well as several hundred Poles. Approximately 6,000 officers and orderlies were in the camp. The guards were mainly Austrian army veterans and conditions in the camp were better than in many other POW camps in Germany.The POWs lived in barrack huts that were divided into two dormitories each housing around 100 men, with a small kitchen and a washroom between them. There was a separate shower block, and prisoners were allowed two showers a month. Part of one barrack was set aside for use as a chapel.