Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle

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Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle

Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle

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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. “Bader was one of my childhood heroes, as he was for many British children. But although he set an example of tenacity and willpower and courage, he was also a bastard,” Macintyre noted. 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).

The population was comprised of Americans, Dutch, French and Polish and the groups tried to keep each other informed of their escape plans and shared ideas. At one point they even constructed a glider but the camp was liberated before it could be used. During this period the portal at what is known as the church house was created during 1584, made of Rochlitz Porphyr ( rhyolite tuff) and richly decorated in the mannerist style by Andreas Walther II. This dimension stone has been in use in architecture for more than 1,000 years. It was at this time that both the interior and the exterior of "the Holy Trinity" castle chapel that links the cellar and electors' house with one another were redesigned. Soon thereafter the castle became an administrative office for the Office of Colditz and a hunting lodge. During 1694, its then-current owner, King Augustus the Strong of Poland, began to expand it, resulting in a second courtyard and a total of 700 rooms. 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.Baybutt, Ron, and Johannes Lange. Colditz: The Great Escapes. Boston: Little, Brown, 1982. ISBN 0316083941 Capt Pat Reid, Royal Army Service Corps, one of the Laufen Six then British escape officer at Colditz, before writing about his experiences Years ago, you could see a replica of a glider that was clandestinely built at Colditz Castle, on the top floor of the Imperial War Museum in London. Crazily enough, some of the officers attempted to escape by plane. “I’m not very convinced that they could have managed to fly.I think 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,” said Macintyre.

An epic story of survival, class wars and daring escapes: inside the fortress walls of Colditz Castle One of those who arrived as a Prominente was Douglas Bader, the flying ace who had lost both legs in an aeroplane accident in 1931. Bader was later presented as one of the war’s great heroes, with Kenneth More playing him in the 1956 film Reach for the Sky. Macintyre shows how the mood in the castle prison changed as the war progressed. In 1942, there was hope that victory might be around the corner. By 1943, this had turned to despair that it might instead go on for years to come. 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.

Colditz Castle was used as a Nazi prison for Allied POWs, but not just your run-of-the-mill soldiers. These were high ranking officers and troublesome escapees who were a thorn in the Reich’s side. “…if you put all the naughtiest boys in one class, they pool their resistance, egg one another on, and soon your classroom is on fire.” There were larger-than-life characters, daring escape attempts, plenty of contraband, and no shortage of misery. Find sources: "Colditz Castle"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( June 2023) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Karl Höffkes German film archive Newsreel from a private archive: Two minutes of film of the castle and prisoners during World War II starts at timestamp 10:14:37



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