Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle

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At Colditz, there were various nationalities, primarily British, French, Dutch and Polish, and they didn’t always work well together. There were also problems with class conflict, racial prejudice, and anti-Semitism among some of the prisoners. Sadly, there were prisoners who shared many of the same fascist and racist attitudes as the Nazis. Some prisoners were communist sympathizers, which foreshadowed the Cold War conflict. These differences caused problems in themselves, but also served to further divide the prisoners when some suspected that there were moles among them tipping off the Germans to escape plans.

Oleg Gordievsky, the ex-KGB spy who defected to the UK in the mid-1980s and has been living in hiding since. Credit: AlamyThe population was comprised of Americans, Dutch, French and Polish and the groups tried to keep each other informed of their escape plans and shared ideas. At one point they even constructed a glider but the camp was liberated before it could be used. Colditz Castle in Germany was used as a prison for troublesome Allied Officers who were prisoners of war and many were sent here as they were repeat offenders of escape attempts. I found this account so interesting; The daily lives of these officers (who were treated fairly well, and according to the Geneva Convention and it's international humanitarian law) and particularly their numerous and imaginative escape attempts....many ultimately unsuccessful but a number that were "home runs". Bader may have been a national hero but Macintyre shows him to be a heartless, arrogant bully. How much is known about Bader’s true character? “Well, not as much as is in this book. Douglas Bader interests me because he’s a bastard, but on the other hand he was one of my childhood heroes. Yet he did incredible things for handicapped people.”

Because ultimately, this is the story of captivity. I had to read it in small doses because reading about POWs’ imprisonment does not make for a happy subject. Sure, I was rooting for the guys who, few and far between, actually succeeded in escaping. But every prisoner is a bored, angry, sexually frustrated captive and additionally there was plenty of elitism and racism.Colditz is a story the British love to tell because it confirms their assumed superiority. The history of the notorious camp, Ben Macintyre writes, has traditionally consisted of “prisoners of war, with moustaches firmly set on stiff upper lips, defying the Nazis by tunnelling out of a grim Gothic castle”. Yet, as time passes, our hunger for heroes diminishes and the truth is revealed. When we dispose of the “cardboard saints”, what emerges is a useful parable about wartime Britain. The camp, Macintyre writes, was “a miniature replica of pre-war society, only stranger”. That story was recently adapted into a TV series and is among a raft of his books that have made their way onto the screen: a film of Operation Mincemeat is now on Netflix; this year SBS will screen a series based on SAS: Rogue Heroes, his book about the origins of the SAS; and Macintyre says another TV series, about Gordievsky, is in production. Macintyre’s attention to detail is a strength of the book. He delves into strategies developed and objects needed, i.e.; the “arse keeper,” a cylinder to hide money, small tools and other objects in one’s anatomy was most creative. The prisoners were geniuses in developing tactics to confuse their captors, and instruments that were used to make their escape attempts possible, including a glider that was completely built, but never used.. The author also includes how prisoners tried to keep themselves sane by developing their own entertainment. They set up theater performances, choirs, concerts, bands, jazz ensembles, plays etc. Sanity was a major issue and for those who remained at Colditz for years PTSD was definitely an issue. Macintyre’s latest nonfiction thriller transports us inside this notorious Nazi prison. He suggests that prisoner boredom partly explains why there were more attempted escapes from Colditz than any other camp. And this helped inspire the supreme levels of ingenuity and invention accompanying those efforts.