Factual error: Many of the prisoners are wearing watches, which is incorrect. Upon arrest a prisoner's watch was confiscated. This prevented them using them to bribe or barter with corrupt guards (and as this film acknowledges, there were plenty of those) as well as making coordination of meetings or escape plans difficult.
The Great Escape (1963)
Plot summary
Directed by: John Sturges
Starring: Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Garner, James Coburn, Steve McQueen, David McCallum
The Luftwaffe are having a hard time looking after their RAF prisoners of war, so they build a new camp with high security to put 'All their rotten eggs in one basket' as the German commander says. Unfortunately this brings together the greatest escape artists around and they work together building three tunnels, hatching escape plans and forging documents in ingenious ways, each man with a different task led by Roger Bartlett (Richard Attenbourgh) to take 250 men out of the camp, the largest ever escape attempt. Meanwhile American Captain Hilts (Steve McQueen) tries other escape attempts which repeatedly end him up in solitary confinement, and heroically he finds local information out for the others then deliberately gets caught. One of the tunnels is found and the effort is put into one tunnel. On the night of the escape they find the tunnel is 20 feet short of the safety of the woods and slowly they get out avoiding the searchlights. However one man gets impatient waiting and goes out while a German is looking and gets caught - 76 men have already escaped. The escapees disperse in various ways and most get caught, including Bartlett and Hilts, but not before the latter has had a long motorbike chase. The Germans shoot 50 men including Bartlet and return several others including Hilts. The camp commander is also relieved of duty. Only three are seen to escape, the two tunnel diggers and the manufacturer. Based on a true story.
More mistakes in The Great Escape
Group Capt. Ramsey: Colonel Von Luger, it is the sworn duty of all officers to try to escape. If they can't, it is their sworn duty to cause the enemy to use an inordinate number of troops to guard them and their sworn duty to harass the enemy to the best of their ability.
Col. Von Luger: Yes I know. The men under your authority have been most successful. This man, Ahsley-Pitt for example. Caught in the North Sea, escaped, recaptured, escaped, recaptured. Archibald "Archie" Ives: 11 escape attempts. He even tried to jump out of the truck coming here. Dickes, William: known to have paticipated in the digging of 11 escape tunnels. Flight Lieutenant Willinski: four escape attempts. MacDonald: nine, Hendley, the American: five, Haynes: four, Sedgewick: seven. The list is almost endless. One man here has made 17 attempted escapes. Group Captain, this is close to insanity.
Group Capt. Ramsey: Quite.
Col. Von Luger: And it must stop!
Trivia: While Steve McQueen performed most of his own stunts, the only stunt he didn't perform was the 60 foot jump over the Austrian-Swiss border fence. The jump was performed by stuntman Bud Ekins, who later doubled for McQueen in "Bullitt."
Question: How come Hilts could not answer the German at the end of the movie when he said he could speak German to Colonel von Luger?
Answer: .And, just to add to the previous answer: even if he could speak conversational German, he would likely do so with a very strong American accent (as he does when he speaks the few words to the Commandant earlier), so the guard would have picked up on that right away, anyway.
Answer: He could have only known a small amount of German, enough to answer a question or two, but not enough to carry on a full conversation. Also, the German seemed to be wanting to have a full conversation with him. He was on the run and didn't have time to talk. He was most likely being a smart ass saying he knew German.
Suggested correction: It is true that most prisoners had their watches confiscated when they were captured. However, British POWs could write to Rolex in Geneva through the International Red Cross requesting a watch. Rolex would supply one with an invoice to be paid at the end of the war. The watches sent were steel because gold watches would have been confiscated by the guards. At least some of the prisoners involved in the Great Escape had these watches. Corporal Nutting, one of the masterminds, requested and received an Oyster 3525 Chronograph - a more upmarket model than the ones favoured by most POWs, which he used to measure the frequency of German patrols. After the war he paid £15 for it. In 2007 this watch and the associated correspondence was sold at auction for £66,000.
Peter Harrison
They are not wearing Rolex watches and the newly arrived prisoners are all wearing watches, which would normally have been confiscated.
No, they are not all wearing watches. Having watched the first half hour to check, the only definite watch I can see is being worn by Steve McQueen. I can't see enough of it to say definitively whether or not it matches the watches Rolex were sending. Many of the others are either definitely not wearing watches (Charles Bronson, for example) or, if they are, it is hidden by their clothes.
Peter Harrison