In issue 73 of Your Sinclair magazine in January 1992, the Spectrum stealth game adaptation of this movie was voted the 23rd best game of all time.
In real life, the forger was James Hill, so obviously the stuff about him going blind and being shot dead is fiction.
In the scene following Hilts' theft of a German motorcycle, he rolls into a nearby town, and stopped by a police officer. He tells Hilts something in German, to which Hilts kicks him away and rides off. The officer asked Hilts for identification papers Hilts doesn't have.
In the scene with Lt/Cmdr Ashley Pitt, the topsoil is a sandy color and the tunnel soil is dark. In reality it was the other way around with the topsoil being gray and tunnel soil being yellow.
Just like the character he plays becomes, Charles Bronson was claustrophobic in real life from working in coal mines as a youth.
MacDonald (Intelligence) is based on George Harsh, a very good friend of Wally Floody (the real Tunnel King). They were both transferred to Belaria before the escape. Harsh was a very interesting character who was from the American south and had joined the RCAF as a tail-gunner. In the 1920s Harsh had committed murder and was sent to jail for life. A medical student, Harsh performed an appendectomy on a dying prisoner and saved his life. The governor of Georgia granted him a pardon and he was set free. After the war, he had personal problems as he was plagued by guilt over the crime he committed as a youth; on top of adjusting to life after fifteen years in captivity (12 years on the Georgia chain gang, followed by three years as POW). On Christmas Eve 1974, he did shoot himself but survived. A stroke soon after left him partially paralyzed. When that happened, Wally Floody and his wife brought him up to their Toronto home and looked after him. He eventually went to live -at his own urging- at the Veteran's Wing at the Sunnybrook Medical Centre. He died in January of 1980.
Most of the planes in the airfield are actually American AT-6 Texan trainers painted with a German paint scheme, but the one actually flown is an authentic German plane, a Bucker Bu 181 'Bestmann.'
One day, the police in the German town where the film was shot set up a speed trap near the set. Several members of the cast and crew were caught, including Steve McQueen. The Chief of Police told McQueen "Herr McQueen, we have caught several of your comrades today, but you have won the prize for the highest speeding." McQueen was arrested and briefly jailed.
Ramsey's title, 'S.B.O' stands for Senior British Officer.
Roger Bartlett is modeled after Roger Bushell, a British officer who was involved in the real escape and, like Bartlett, was executed for his role therein. The scarring around Richard Attenborough's eyes is a tribute to Bushell, who received such scarring from a competitive skiing accident.
Several cast members were actual P.O.W.s during World War II. Donald Pleasence was held in a German camp, Hannes Messemer in a Russian camp and Til Kiwe and Hans Reiser were prisoners of the Americans.
The film was shot entirely on location in Europe, with a complete camp resembling Stalag Luft III built near Munich, Germany. Exteriors for the escape sequences were shot in the Rhine Country and areas near the North Sea, and Steve McQueen's motorcycle scenes were filmed in Fussen (on the Austrian border) and the Alps. All interiors were filmed at the Bavaria Studio in Munich.
The gold medallion Steve McQueen wears throughout the film was a present from his wife.
The hooch-making scene in the film, where the Americans celebrated Independence Day, is believed to be based on the British creating an alcohol distillery for Christmas Day celebrations in 1943. Captain Guy Griffiths, a Royal Marine pilot in Stalag Luft III who produced forged documents for the escape, also produced a comical illustration of the scene which survives to this day. This painting, along with many others, forms the basis for a Special Exhibition on 'Griff' at the Royal Marines Museum (Southsea, England) running from Easter 2010.
The individual incidents in the film are mostly true, but were rearranged as to both the timing and the people involved. (A note at the start of the film acknowledges this.) For instance, of the 76 who escaped, there were indeed 3 who got away and 50 who were murdered in reprisal, but the murders occurred in small groups, not all at once. (14 Germans were executed after the war for their parts in them.)
The medal that Colonel von Luger wears around his neck is the Pour le Merite, also known as the Blue Max. Originally a Prussian military honor, in the First World War it was automatically given to fighter pilots who shot down eight planes (later raised to sixteen). The Nazis replaced it with the Knight's Cross but it could still be worn by officers who'd won it before the Third Reich.
The motorcycle driven by the character of Virgil Hilts that is used for the fence jump is a 1962 Thunderbird Triumph, which was refurbished to look like a bike 20 years older.
The motorcycle scenes were not based on real life but were added at Steve McQueen's suggestion.
The motorcycle that Hilts (Steve McQueen) rides is a cosmetically modified Triumph TR6 Trophy. Bud Ekins who actually performs the famous barbed wire leap stunt, was a Triumph dealer. Triumph was McQueen's favorite motorcycle marque. The motorcycle sidecar combination that crashes into a ditch is revealed to be a Triumph motorcycle, too. As is well known, these British motorcycle models were not in existence during the Second World War and their appearance is somewhat incongruous.
The nationality of a few of the prisoners in the story was changed, emphasizing American, and de-emphasizing Commonwealth and other Allied.