Colditz The Definitive History

 

Chancellor's account of the escapes from Colditz castle in Saxony during World War II makes compelling reading. This was where the Germans sent the officer prisoners of war who had caused them most trouble; and it was from here that, in the teeth of great difficulties, many successful escapes were made. Chancellor relies on original accounts from those in the castle, which had over 700 rooms, clustered round two courtyards. The small inner courtyard, its walls 90ft high, held the prisoners, of several nationalities: Poles, Belgians, Dutch and French as well as British, Commonwealth and Americans. The Poles soon mastered the castle's locks, old-fashioned and easy to pick. The Germans fitted modern ones; these were picked too. Many prisoners were in touch with MI9, the escape service in London, by coded letter; and once they had mastered the locks on the parcel room, they could purloin parcels full of escape equipment while their guards slept. Switzerland was several hundred miles away, but several escapers reached it all the same, while others found their way through Baltic ports to Sweden. Chancellor describes their adventures, as well as the Germans' often successful attempts to counter them, with skill and understanding. This was an odd, eccentric corner of a great war; the book shows most sharply how brave men can struggle against adversity and - given luck - defeat it. The prisoners were fortunate indeed to remain in the hands of the Wehrmacht, where they were on the whole correctly treated as the Geneva Convention laid down. 400 Hungarian Jews, in the hands of the SS nearby, were massacred as the Allied armies approached in April 1945; the castle's prisoners survived.

 

Henry Chancellor

Hardcover with d/w 457pp Hodder & Stoughton 2001 1st Ed

 

Vg/Vg

Book Code:  SA0148