The 1953 film directed by Billy Wilder and set in a German POW camp was Stalag 17.
The film follows American airmen held in a German prisoner-of-war camp during World War II. After two prisoners are killed during an escape attempt, the men in Barracks 4 suspect that one of their fellow prisoners is secretly informing the Germans. The resulting mystery combines wartime tension with dark comedy and sharply drawn barracks-room characters.
William Holden stars as J. J. Sefton, a cynical and resourceful prisoner who trades with guards and organizes schemes to make camp life more bearable. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the performance. Otto Preminger, himself a major film director, plays the camp commandant Oberst von Scherbach.
Stalag 17 was adapted from a Broadway play by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski, who had experienced captivity in the real Stalag 17B in Austria. The film's fictional camp is described as being somewhere on the Danube. It is often confused with The Great Escape or The Bridge on the River Kwai, but those films depict different wartime settings and stories.