Allied prisoners of war used to get drunk on “moonshine” made with secret stills just like the one featured in classic movie The Great Escape.
The boozy exploits of real PoWs are revealed in a new book, Guests of the Third Reich, marking the 75th anniversary of the end of WW2.
Author Anthony Richards, head of documents and sound at the Imperial War Museum, said camps were rife with stills which turned potatoes, raisins, wood and even shoe polish into crude but strong alcohol.
The museum has released a picture of a surviving still from Stalag Luft III, the real camp in Germany from which a mass escape in 1944 inspired the 1963 movie.
In the film Steve McQueen, James Garner and Jud Taylor play three Americans who distill fearsome moonshine for the Fourth of July.
As they hand it to Brits, McQueen warns: “No smoking while you’re drinking. Don’t get any on your clothes.”
Author Mr Richards said: “The Great Escape was spot on. Men really did this. Little did the Germans know some of the potatoes grown on vegetable patches went straight into the still.
“PoWs would be sozzled on a single glass because they were powerful brews and the men were often malnourished.”
The author discovered numerous boozy sessions by researching PoW reports and diaries.
In one extract in the book Wilfred Sutton, a bomber flight engineer held in Stalag IV-B, said: “Some of the boys had made a most powerful brew from raisins and potatoes.
“You can imagine the effect on weakened stomachs. In no time the boys were Brahms and Liszt.”
Private Eric Laker, captured at the Battle of El Alamein in North Africa, recalled a Christmas party at a camp in Italy.
He said: “Last night I was paralytic! I discovered that the schnapps I had been drinking was pure alcohol, made from wood.”
