Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle

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You can see the [White House] rhetoric begin to ratchet down [after reading Gordievsky’s reports]. Now, he’s not the only player in this scenario, and I wouldn’t give him singular credit, but the Cold War began to get warmer from that point onwards.” One of Macintyre’s myth-busting achievements is to blow the idea of the Colditz crew as a band of brothers, whose shared misfortune had erased pre-war divisions. The French officer contingent decided to ostracise their Jewish comrades who were forced to take their meals separately. Most of the British prisoners were public school chaps, but this did not mean a community of equals. The only faint criticism I have of this book is that it is, by nature, rather episodic. It does focus on a few of the prisoners, but there are many who come and go - whether by escape, transfer to another POW camp, or death. Still, I had no trouble following the cast of characters and events outside the castle's walls. It certainly made interesting reading after having seen the movie "The Great Escape" any number of times. No motorcycle stunts in this book (or at Stalag Luft III, for that matter), but fascinating nonetheless.

There was also the crushing boredom of a daily ritual that remained the same month in, month out; year in, year out. And unlike conventional prison sentences, no one in a POW camp knew how long they would be incarcerated for, or what the endgame would be. At that point, [then US president Ronald] Reagan’s speeches were incredibly incendiary; he was poking the bear very, very hard. Gordievsky’s information was, ‘They may be paranoid in the Kremlin but they genuinely believe you’re about to launch your first strike.’ That story has never been told before because it doesn't fit into the template of accepted Colditz stories.

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In a forbidding Gothic castle on a hilltop in the heart of Nazi Germany, a band of British officers spent the Second World War plotting daring escapes from their German captors but that story contains only part of the truth. Ben reveals for the first time a tale of the indomitable human spirit and one of class conflict, homosexuality, espionage, insanity and farce. A new television series will dismantle the “mythology” of Colditz and show the racist side of British officers imprisoned there. Apparently not. Ben Macintyre’s book is the second on the subject to appear this year, following Robert Verkaik’s excellent The Traitor of Colditz. Whereas that focussed on a single episode, this is a soup-to-nuts account of everything that happened inside Oflag IV-C from 1940 to 1945, marrying the perspectives of captive and captor alike. 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.” He was also fascinated by Mazumdar’s experience in Colditz and eventual escape. He refused an offer to leave Colditz and serve in India because it would have broken his pledge to serve Britain. He endured the racism of his fellow POWs, and eventually went on hunger strike.

A special intelligence operation in the UK, MI9, came up with dozens of ingenious ways of smuggling contraband and information to the Colditz prisoners. MI9 wisely equipped flyers with many hidden escape aids, in case they were shot down and captured. When you read about some of these bits of spycraft, you won’t be surprised to learn that their inventor inspired the creation of the Q character in the Bond films. Amazingly, Denholm Elliott, who played Q, was a POW of the Germans in WW2 (though not at Colditz). The French had the first few successful attempts. Some vaulted over the wire and climbed the walls, while others dressed up and walked out during a large sporting match. Mrs. Markowska, also known as Jane Walker, was an agent of British intelligence and a lead associate in the Polish underground. She would shelter escaped British POWs and help smuggle them to safety. She was extremely intelligent and a supreme asset because she spoke German, French, and Polish. Her intolerant and sympathetic behavior was endearing to the escapees, and she treated each one like her own children. She was known for giving the POW’s pep talks, medical treatments, and formal dinners. The POW’s adored her and often times said they loved her. A lot of the information for this book came from a series of wonderful tape recordings made in the 1980s and 90s by the Imperial War Museum of survivors from Colditz, who by that point were men in their 70s and 80s. 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.The Great Escape is a fairly well-known movie with a star-studded cast. It is set in a POW camp in Poland and portrays the real-life audacious escape attempt of 76 Allied airmen during WWII. A different POW camp in Germany was Colditz Castle. It was supposed to be the most secure German POW camp so was specifically used as the prison of last resort for Allied officers who had previously attempted escape or were otherwise high risk. Despite the designation of "escape proof," Colditz turned out to be the ideal camp for escape-inclined Allied prisoners. With so many escape-prone prisoners housed together it was inevitable that they would plan escapes. They organized and created an "escape committee" which arranged the details of each escape, including who would produce or procure money, tools, maps, disguises or any other required materials. They also organized the dates of escapes so that one group did not interfere with another. Many of the emotions felt by the men incarcerated in the medieval castle were the same as those felt by all prisoners of war. There was a sense of guilt. They had joined up to fight but had ended up in captivity. Many felt it was their duty to try to escape. One British lieutenant, Michael Sinclair, felt this so strongly that he attempted seven breakouts, more than any other individual. Some of them nearly succeeded but not one came off. Stories about class and race and sexuality and mental health and all those things that were taboo to a postwar society.”

That's also true of the prisoners in Colditz. None of them wanted or chose this life. But thrust upon them were the sorts of decisions that in the modern world we never really have to make. But, like all myths, it is partial. It doesn’t tell the whole story. Very early on in the project I thought, ‘There is an entirely separate set of stories that have never been told.’”Christopher Clayton Hutton's bizarre achievements prove that war is not solely a matter of bombs, bullets and battlefield bravery. They also serve who work out how to hide a compass inside a walnut." But as Macintyre shows, the story of Colditz was about much more than escape. Its population represented a society in miniature, full of heroes and traitors, class conflicts and secret alliances, and the full range of human joy and despair. In Macintyre’s telling, Colditz’s most famous names—like the indomitable Pat Reid—share glory with lesser known but equally remarkable characters like Indian doctor Birendranath Mazumdar whose ill treatment, hunger strike, and eventual escape read like fiction; Florimond Duke, America’s oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent; and Christopher Clayton Hutton, the brilliant inventor employed by British intelligence to manufacture covert escape aids for POWs. One can only wonder what Oleg Gordievsky would make of the reaction to Mikhail Gorbachev’s passing in August 2022. The Soviet leader was venerated as a liberator in the West but held in contempt by many Russians for destroying the Soviet empire. Almost four decades later, realpolitik has turned full circle, with Vladimir Putin trying to resurrect the empire through his brutal invasion of Ukraine.