Product Overview
A small group of RAF Policemen plunge into the chaos of post-war Germany to hunt down the murderers of 50 Allied Airmen.
In March 1944, seventy-six Allied airmen broke out of Stalag Luft III, a prison camp in the heart of Nazi Germany in a story made famous by the iconic Hollywood film, “The Great Escape”. Only three ‘great escapers’ made it back to England. The remaining seventy-three were recaptured and of them, fifty were murdered by the Gestapo in a flagrant breach of the Geneva Convention.
As soon as the war ended, a special team of RAF Police headed by RAF Squadron Leader Frank McKenna was dispatched to Germany to find the men responsible and deliver ‘exemplary justice.’ The Great Escape: The Reckoning follows McKenna’s dogged two year investigation of a war crime of amazing complexity.
Through dramatic recreation and interviews with surviving prisoners from Stalag Luft III, The Great Escape: The Reckoning reveals the courageous audacity of the escape and the indiscriminate brutality meted out to the prisoners who were recaptured.
• Great Escape historians Charles Rollings and Adrian Gilbert reflect on the importance of the Great Escape on the Allied war effort.
• RAF Police historian Steve Davies details McKenna’s methodical detective work as he tracked down the Gestapo officers involved in the murders.
• A remarkably poignant interview, 73 year old Ingeborg Reinhardt remembers her beloved father Emil Schulz. Sixty-five years after the event, she still mourns his death; one of thirteen Gestapo found guilty of the Great Escape murders and hanged.
EXTRAS: Over 60 minutes of additional material!
Making of Featurette
Extended Interviews
