Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle

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For example, we learn some of methods this group of clever men utilized to spy on the Allies from prison. The British also began to set up clubs: bridge, chess, sports clubs, but also the social clubs that were so much a part of prewar British culture.

It was brave British men outwitting the Germans and tunnelling out of this vast Gothic castle in a way that continued the war by other means. About Douglas Bader: "Each Camp Commandant was deluged with requests from local bigwigs who wanted a chance to see him. One was that Colditz, while very impressive to look at, was full of holes and actually not a very good place to have a security camp.But although he set an example of tenacity and willpower and courage, he was also a bastard,” Macintyre noted. He is a columnist and Associate Editor at The Times, and has worked as the newspaper's correspondent in New York, Paris and Washington. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Wing Commander Douglas Bader ranked as the greatest war hero in the prison and was met on arrival with salutes from German sentries.

The story is not, in fact, exclusively British since there were also French, Polish and Dutch prisoners at Colditz. When he was shot down, the Germans allowed the RAF to deliver a new leg, which seemed an incredible allowance during wartime. Lee Carson, a beautiful and fearless journalist who traveled with American troops, who was known as the “Rhine Maiden. Prisoner abuse was rare, and in fact the German prison guard tended to be older non-combatants of World War I.After the outbreak of World War II, the castle was converted into a high security prisoner-of-war camp for officers who had become security or escape risks or who were regarded as particularly dangerous. Bader was shot down in August of 1941, captured and interned in various camps (from which he inevitably tried to escape), until he was sent to Colditz. Prisoner abuse was rare, and escape attempts were punished by solitary confinement, not execution, although conditions deteriorated in the war’s final year. Yet, as Macintyre will reveal, the story of Colditz is also one of snobbery, class conflict, homosexuality, bullying, espionage, boredom, insanity and farce. The PoWs put on dozens of different productions: plays, revues, pantomimes, skits, and a lot of musical stuff as well.

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. Macintyre produces a great and thoughtful ending to a fine book that is about heroism and cowardice, kindness and cruelty, collaboration and inventiveness.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. It is set in a POW camp in Poland and portrays the real-life audacious escape attempt of 76 Allied airmen during WWII. The castle thus functioned as a hospital during a long period of massive change in Germany, from slightly after the Napoleonic Wars destroyed the Holy Roman Empire and created the German Confederation, throughout the lifespan of the North German Confederation, the complete reign of the German Empire, throughout the First World War, and until the beginnings of the Weimar Republic.