orders from Hitler. He had helped these prisoners escape by moving them to Bavaria and then to Austria where he met with them twice before they were returned to American forces. Berger claimed that he had saved the Prominente from Gestapo head Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who had sent agents to kill them. Berger was released from prison in 1951 and died in 1975. Timeline of POW evacuations 13 July 1944 – -evacuation of Stalag Luft VI at Šilutė (Heydekrug) in Lithuania begins, to Stalag Luft IV at Gross Tychow involving a force march and 60hr journey by ship to Swinemünde, or by force march and cattle train to Stalag XX-A at Thorn in Poland. 17 December 1944 – The SS shot seventy-one captured American POWs in the Malmedy massacre. 24 December 1944 – POW work camps near Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) are evacuated. 27 December 1944 to April 1945 – POWs at Stalag VIII-B (formerly Stalag VIII-D) at Teschen began their forced march through Czechoslovakia, towards Dresden, then towards Stalag XIII-D at Nuremberg and finally on to Stalag VII-A at Moosburg in Bavaria. 12 January 1945 – Red Army launched offensive in Poland and East Prussia. 19 January 1945 – evacuation from Stalag Luft 7 at Bankau, near Kreuzberg, Poland, begins in blizzard conditions – 1,500 prisoners were force marched then loaded onto cattle trucks and taken to Stalag III-A at Luckenwalde, south of Berlin. Evacuation of work party 344 at (Piaski), part of Stalag VIIB, prisoners commenced march on foot. 20 January 1945 – Stalag XX-A at Thorn, Poland started evacuation. 22 January 1945 – Stalag 344 at Lamsdorf, Silesia was evacuated. 23 January 1945 – Evacuation began at Stalag XX-B at Marienburg, Danzig. 27 January 1945 to February 1945 – evacuation began at Stalag Luft III, Sagan, to either Stalag III-A at Luckenwalde, 30 km south of Berlin, or to Marlag und Milag Nord, near Bremen, or to Stalag XIII-D, near Nuremberg, then onto Stalag VII-A near Moosburg, Bavaria. 29 January 1945 - Stalag IID Stargard (now Stargard Szczeciński, Poland) was evacuated. Almost a thousand men struggled into formation. There were about five-hundred Russians, two-hundred Frenchmen, one-hundred Americans and twenty-five Canadians in the march. The POWs were put on a forced march along a northern route in blizzard conditions via Settin (Szczecin) to arrive at Stalag II-A, Neubrandenburg on February 7, 1945. 6 February 1945 to March 1945 – Evacuation