Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle

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Capt Pat Reid, Royal Army Service Corps, one of the Laufen Six then British escape officer at Colditz, before writing about his experiences Detail Aerial Photograph Detail from an aerial photograph of Colditz Castle in Saxony, Germany, on 10 April 1945 just three days before U.S. forces overran the area. Individual prisoners can be seen in the photograph The officers had a British “boarding school mentality.” They tried to recreate the traditions of Eton and other private schools coopting behaviors such as bullying, enslaving individuals on the lower rung of society, “goon-baiting” Germans, and diverse types of entertainment. Those who did not attend a boarding school were rarely included. With its striking white gables, Colditz Castle is one of the most beautiful Central German architectural monuments of the 16th century. It served as an important POW-camp for high-ranking officers of the Western Allies during World War II; Winston Churchill's nephew and the nephew of the then British King George VI were also among its prisoners. Secret radio rooms, tunnels broken through the masonry and a secretly built glider are examples of the many tales told of the numerous creative escape attempts in the »Escape Museum«. The book entitled »The Colditz Story« and its film adaptation have made Colditz world famous. The book focuses partially on the history of the castle during WWII (including some information about the village outside it), the systems the Germans used to spy on the prisoners and the prisoners used to spy on the Germans, the methods by which items & information were smuggled into Colditz and information was smuggled out, and of course the numerous escape attempts. With plenty of humor but also grave sadness, Prisoners of the Castle is not only factual but emotional.

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". This book covers, not only the successful escapes but also the many unsuccessful attempts (and there were many). The prisoners were determined and some of their efforts were quite daring, inventive, and amazing. The author delves into the lives and personalities of these brave men and those of the Nazis who were in charge of the camp. The treatment of the prisoners was fairly humane except for solitary confinement and boredom was basically the worst part of the experience. There is just SO much here to talk about; so many interesting tidbits and stories and individuals, some slimy, others much more heroic. Eggers started a Colditz Museum with foiled escape souvenirs, complete with photos of reenacted escape attempts. They legitimately caught several prisoners attempting escape (one dressed as the Colditz electrician, another dressed as a woman) and requested they pose for a photo for the museum scrapbook. And these are supplied mid-book, which was fantastic. There is too much I could go on about, so just read the book honestly.Obviously, this is a war story so most of this is pretty bleak. However, there are plenty of moments of humor, touching humanism, and joy. I got legitimately choked up when the men starting building the glider, despite the extreme unlikeliness that it would work. "...It had more to do with mythical escapism and imagination than with a real escape. It was a dream for the prisoner collective: to fly away to freedom." After years of mostly failed escape attempts, increasing loss of hope as rations and other supplies dwindled, and deep fears that the prisoners might all be murdered if Germany was losing and the Allied powers reached the castle....imagine these defeated men pooling their ingenuity to build something so magnificent, such a beautiful dream of freedom. Ugh, it got to me. This was utterly fascinating, not only the escape attempts of the prisoners, but also the politics within the prison, the relationships with the guards, the people on the outside who collaborated to smuggle escape equipment into the prison...... If you're a history buff Colditz castle is well worth the trip. Easy parking right near the main gate. Another important contrast is the treatment of Jews vs POWs. The Jews and other "undesirables" sent to concentration camps like Auschwitz had it much, much worse than the prisoners of Colditz. But the POWs still faced hunger & food shortages, near-constant supervision, and of course the danger of being powerless in enemy hands. Yet prisoners of Colditz were among the better-treated POWs - the main men in charge of the camp actually (mostly) adhered to the Geneva Convention of 1929. Which naturally didn't stop the prisoners from attempting to escape. Some of the most comedic bits of this book are during escapes. Their creativity and courage was indomitable. Games of volleyball were one way that Allied PoWs passed the long days at Colditz, along with music, drama and social clubs. (Image by Topfoto)

A remarkable cast of characters, previously hidden and lost in history emerges - prisoners and captors who lived in a thrilling and horrific game of cat and mouse. A pretty terrifying one. It’s a vast, 700-room Gothic schloss on top of a cliff, overlooking the town of Colditz: a very dominating, domineering piece of architecture. The castle was built in the 11th century by the electors of Saxony, effectively as a demonstration of power. And it was also used, from its very earliest times, to incarcerate people who did not fit in with the existing power regime. Over the years, it had been a psychiatric hospital, a prison, a place where the electors would put their unwanted and dangerous siblings. So it’s always had a history of being somewhere people were held against their will. My English speaking 2 hour tour was with Alex who was excellent. Some Yorkshire bikers, who had not booked, turned up after about 20 minutes but Alex was able to accommodate them. They loved it.Colditz Castle: a forbidding Gothic tower on a hill in Nazi Germany. You may have heard about the prisoners and their daring and desperate attempts to escape, but that's only part of the real story. The somewhat Monty Python-like atmosphere of Colditz Castle – with its prisoners and eccentric escape artists – clashes with the reality of nearby concentration camps, where the extermination of Jews, Sinti-Roma peoples, Slavs, disabled people, political dissidents and religious minorities was carried out through labor and starvation. “Nobody talked about this in Colditz. The German guards said it was an SS thing; the contrast between both kinds of camps was abysmal. It forces us to relativize the history of the castle and its prisoners.” Buses only run every 2 hours. There was a 90 minute period from when the bus dropped me off to my return one, which was plenty for me. Others may want to stay longer but if you are using public transport from Leipzig, plan accordingly as the town itself is quiet.

Find sources: "Colditz Castle"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( June 2023) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. Macintyre's genius has long been to excavate the nuance, subtlety and ambiguity beneath the myths he explores . . . remarkable Matthew D'Ancona, Tortoise Media 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.As the end of the war approached, the danger facing the prisoners rose to a new level. No one knew what would happen to them. Would the guards flee and leave the prisoners abandoned to their fate? Would they all be taken out and shot by the SS? Would the Prominente be used as a human shield around a last-ditch defence by Nazi diehards? As the rule of law collapsed, so the level of peril facing the few hundred prisoners rose. Anything related to the sexual exploits or frustrations of the prisoners wasn't really something I was keen on reading, but thankfully, it was kept fairly brief. The author made a bit of a stretch, claiming oh so many of the men engaged in homosexual acts. We know some did from memoirs or whatnot, and I'm not so naïve as to think others didn't and just never came out and admitted it. But the author also claimed that it must have been going on in a fairly large scale, while in the same breath, mentioning that (with the aforementioned exceptions) it was never verified/caught onto by the guards/we don't have proof. Well, then, I guess better to leave it at that.