The Wooden Horse The Wooden Horse The Wooden Horse is a 1950 British Second World War war film starring Leo Genn, David Tomlinson and Anthony Steel. It was directed by Jack Lee. It is based on the book of the same name by Eric Williams, who also wrote the screenplay. The film depicts the true events of an escape attempt made by POWs in the German prison camp Stalag Luft III. The wooden horse in the title of the film is a piece of exercise equipment the prisoners use to conceal their escape attempt as well as a reference to the Trojan Horse
World War I prisoners of war in Germany recognized that it was a camp devoted to intelligence collection. This "Listening Hotel" was similar in organization and purpose to the Dulag Luft camp at Frankfurt in the Second World War. These camps were often located in regions where the climate or the terrain made life difficult, but also near the front, where the prisoners might be taken to rebuild trenches or cart away bodies. The goal of the reprisal camps was to put pressure on enemy governments to ameliorate conditions of detention for German prisoners, and to punish prisoners (for instance following an escape). Life for prisoners sent to