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Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle

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The larger outer court in front of the Kommandantur (commander's offices) had only two exits and housed a large German garrison. The prisoners lived in an adjacent courtyard in a 90ft (27m) tall building. Outside, the flat terraces which surrounded the prisoners' accommodation were watched constantly by armed sentries and surrounded by barbed wire. The prison was named Oflag IV-C (officer prison camp 4C) and was operated by the Wehrmacht. [3] In retelling the story of Colditz, [Macintyre] makes it his own. [An]entertaining yet objectiveandoften-moving account.” — The Wall Street Journal

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. When the Nazis gained power during 1933, they converted the castle into a political prison for communists, homosexuals, Jews and other people they considered undesirable. Starting 1939, [1] allied prisoners were housed there. With renovations largely completed, the castle now includes both a museum and guided tours showing some of the escape tunnels built by prisoners of the Oflag during the war. The chapel has been restored to its prewar decoration, with glass panels inserted to the flag stone flooring to reveal an escape tunnel dug by French escapees.With Prisoners of the Castle we learn about the wily World War II prisoners of Colditz, and their ceaseless breakout attempts - told with the adulation and humor only warranted by a vivaciousness such as theirs. Astonishing triumphs of industry and inventiveness are clarified. For example, we learn some of methods this group of clever men utilized to spy on the Allies from prison. The camp's first British prisoners were the Laufen Six on November 7, 1940, who were transferred to Colditz after their first escape attempt from the Laufen Camp.

Pat Reid was one of the few prisoners to make a successful escape to freedom from Colditz, in 1942; when he was honoured on This Is Your Life decades later, Eggers was the surprise guest. ‘Myth of Colditz’ Eggers, Reinhold (1961). Gee, Howard (ed.). Colditz: The German Story. London: Robert Hale & Company. p.184. ISBN 0-7091-3643-9.

Renovations and use as a mental hospital

During the Middle Ages, the castle was used as a lookout post for the German Emperors and was the hub of the Reich territories of the Pleissenland (anti- Meißen Pleiße-lands). During 1404, the nearly 250-year rule of the dynasty of the Lords of Colditz ended when Thimo VIII sold Colditz Castle for 15,000 silver marks to the Wettin ruler of the period in Saxony. Well, that’s just what the hundreds of British, French and Polish officers attempted to do over the following five years of the war, as told in Colditz: Prisoners Of The Castle, author Ben Macintyre’s new account of the infamous prison's wartime history. All with a cast of real-life characters you couldn’t make up. Baybutt, Ron; Lange, Johannes (1982). Colditz: The Great Escapes. Little, Brown. p. 8. ISBN 0316083941. Joan, his widow, had never heard them before. We were both in floods by the end because it is an astonishing first-person account. He was still furious but there was forgiveness,” said Macintyre. Food was used as a bartering chip, and they used some of the rations to make drinks. Alcohol production was made using the strangest of ingredients. One of them was a batch flavored with aftershave. It was said to have eaten a hole in the bottom of the plastic container it sat in overnight. Most officers could stomach this variety, but they succumbed to cataclysmic headaches, blurred vision, discolored teeth, and so on. It was not discouraged because it kept morale up, and any prisoner who was inebriated was easier to manage.

Macintyre stressed that, in relation to the castle, we must forget – with a few exceptions – the stereotype of brutal Nazi German guards. In fact, the author describes them in his book as very patient with the constant taunting of the British prisoners and the escapes, some of which were truly ridiculous. One involved French Lieutenant Émile Boulé, who tried to walk out the door disguised as a woman. A subset of the World War II movie was the 'escape' picture; and one of its crown jewels being The Colditz Story, based on the memoirs of former prisoner, Pat Reid, played by John Mills (who else) in the rousing film adaptation. 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.Macintyre said that The Great Escape, the 1963 film about a real-life escape from Stalag Luft III, was another example of our desire for history to be turned into an uplifting tale of British heroics. Deeply researched and full of incredible stories, this is a tale of ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances - and will change how you think about Colditz forever. 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...... Another of Colditz’s famous prisoners was David Stirling – known as “the ghost commander” – who was the famous creator of the Special Air Service (SAS): a special forces unit within the British Army. He described the castle as “the best-guarded pension (hotel) of the Third Reich.” Stirling was captured in one of his famous raids against the airfields and bases of the Afrika Korps in January of 1943. After several escape attempts from various POW camps, he ended up in Colditz. How did this bold, determined, slippery guy not manage escape? “The problem was that he was very tall,” Macintyre said.

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