Stalag IV-B was one of the largest prisoner-of-war camps in Germany during World War II, located 8 km (5.0 mi) north-east of the town of Mühlberg.

It held Polish, French, British, Australian, Soviet, South African, Italian and other Allied prisoners of war.

The camp was located in the Prussian Province of Saxony, just east of the Elbe river and about 30 mi (48 km) north of Dresden.

In September 1943, further numbers of British, ANZAC, and South African soldiers, previously captive in Italy, arrived after the Italian capitulation.

[1] In October 1944 several thousand Poles arrived, members of the Armia Krajowa ("Home Army") captured after the Warsaw Uprising, including several hundred women soldiers.

In November 1944 the Polish women were transferred to other camps, mainly Stalag IV-E (Altenburg) and Oflag IX-C (Molsdorf).

The Flywheel was founded by Tom Swallow, and comprised pages from school exercise-books that carried hand-written articles with colour illustrations from whatever inks the editorial team could produce from stolen materials, like quinine from the medical room; these were stuck into place with fermented millet soup, kept from the meagre camp rations.

The camp's Welsh soldiers also created their own periodical called Cymro ("Welshman"), edited by prisoner William John Pitt.

In August 1945 the Soviet secret police NKVD opened on the area of Stalag IV-B one of its special camps No.

The main part still housed Soviet prisoners suffering from tuberculosis, who continued to die at the rate 10–20 per day (according to German sources).

In October 1944, around 25 huts of the Italian section were separated into a special enclosure to house about 1,100 wounded survivors, men and women, of the Polish Armia Krajowa ("Home Army") that had fought in the Warsaw Uprising for 63 days; as well as the medical personnel – 55 doctors and 168 nurses – to care for them.

The Camp Commandant, Colonel Doctor Stachel observed the families with children, and even pets, descending from the train, and walked away in disgust.

[5] German sources quote that "..the nurses and other staff went to work with great dedication, and achieved a standard of hygiene that had never been seen before in Zeithain."