Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle

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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. 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.” The writer explained that this escape is remembered because of the savagery with which the prisoners were punished and not because it was ingenious, especially when compared to the various attempts made at Colditz Castle. While the numbers are still in dispute, Macintyre estimates that a total of 32 prisoners managed to escape the castle, including 11 Brits, 12 Frenchmen, seven Dutch, one Polish and one Belgian. Of those who were held at Colditz Castle, none are living – the last former inmate died in 2013. Some escapes were sensational, such as that of French alpine hunter Lieutenant Alain Le Ray, who only spent 46 days in Colditz before escaping to Switzerland. A group of prisoners in Colditz Castle. SBG gGmbH (SBG gGmbH) The final section is about after Reid steps down from being the escape officer so that he can actually try escaping himself. The book's finale is his own escape from Colditz halfway through the war, which again has more of a narrative to it and is therefore much more compulsively readable than the main part of the book. Slightly annoying that it ends basically by just saying 'now read the sequel'.

He specialises in excavating the stories that have been overlooked or bringing new perspectives to old stories. Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle is one of the latter. There can hardly be a story from the second World War that has been told as many times as that of Colditz. The feature film, The Colditz Story, was released in 1955, followed by Colditz, the 1972 TV series broadcast on the BBC that attracted a television audience of seven million viewers. Most recently there was Colditz, the TV series, broadcast on Channel 4 in 2005. There has been a proliferation of books and documentaries about this infamous German POW camp. It's not really a spoiler to reveal that author Pat Reid eventually escapes Colditz, but this retelling is a fascinating look into life at the prison, and the many failed escape plans that fell through before his success in 1942. It's jovially told; it almost sounds like boys on a bizarre camping trip, with how much mischief they get up to and how many privileges they seem to be privy to considering their prisoner status. Though it does sober up when the task of actual escape is at hand. They were in real danger and they knew it, but otherwise the cast seem like a merry band of regular folk in a strange set of circumstances. Those familiar with MacIntyre’s work will recognise many of the attributes that have made him such a successful writer. He tells compelling stories well, with energy and humour. His unerring eye for the telling detail that can illuminate a greater story is apparent in Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle.

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I read this as part of an anthology, so not this specific edition. I've read it twice and vastly preferred it the first time, I suppose because it was more exciting. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest either in POWs in WWII or in prison escape stories. Oflag VII-C, замъкът Лауфен). Не разбираме почти нищо за неговото детство, началото на войната, нито за пленяването му във Франция. Основният фокус на цялата книга е върху плановете и стратегиите за бягство. Рийд не се задържа дълго в Лауфен. Успява да избяга през прокопан тунел, но е заловен на половината от пътя към неокупираната все още Югославия. Изпратен е в най-тежко охранявания офлаг в Райха - замъкът Колдиц в Саксония (Oflag IV-C). В Колдиц попадат само специални и високорискови за нацистите военнопленници - имащи вече опити за бягство от други лагери или със специални "провинения". This is my second reading of this book, I read it probably 20 years ago and just found an old well read 1st edition. I bought it for less than a dollar and as I started to re-read it I realized how fortunate I was!

Secrets are very intoxicating and can also be very bad for you. If you do keep them, they have a corrosive effect over time. You often end up doing a bad thing for a good cause, in your own mind, breaking the law or manipulating people or deceiving the people you love.” Macintyre produces a great and thoughtful ending to a fine book that is about heroism and cowardice, kindness and cruelty, collaboration and inventiveness. Highly recommended. Colditz: prisoners of the castle Ben Macintyre Macintyre’s Colditz offers an anatomy of prison life that depicts a microcosm of the British class system, subterranean currents of racism, anti-Semitism and homosexuality, and a surprising code of respect exhibited by their German captors. But Macintyre also makes it clear that Colditz was unlike most POW camps. Firstly, its extraordinary location made escape appear impossible. And then there was the fact that everyone housed there was classed as deutschfeindlich, ‘German-unfriendly’, and had been sent there because they had tried to escape from other camps. It was like a school where all the bad boys had been gathered together under one roof.One of the most demystifying cases that appears in the book is that of Douglas Bader, one of the most legendary pilots of World War II. Bader was a Royal Air Force flying ace credited with 22 aerial victories. He had both his legs amputated after an accident and continued to fly with prostheses (which he filled with ping pong balls to be able to float if he crashed into the water). 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. And much more,” added Macintyre, who has written widely about double agents and secret missions during the Nazi era. “I grew up, like most Britons, wrapped up in the Colditz myth. At the age of 14, I watched the 1972 BBC series with David McCallum. I played the board game, created by Pat Reid, [who was] one of the castle’s real escapees. Colditz’s heroes were part of my personal mythology: a story of brave Englishmen and courage. But, as often happens, the story turns out not to be so simple and not so uplifting.” The inventiveness that came out of this was remarkable, and one escape attempt followed another. But few were successful in making ‘home runs’. One of only a handful who did was Airey Neave, later a leading Tory politician and supporter of Margaret Thatcher. Divided inmates