Of the 35,000 Allied troops who made their way to safety from captivity or after being shot down about half were carrying one of Hutton's maps." British pilot Douglas “Tin Legs” Bader was one of Colditz’s most famous prisoners. Credit: Getty Images 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. A radio was produced so they could keep up-to-date with what was happening on the outside. Magazines of the front were pilfered from guards. This gave the POWs ideas on how others were trying to escape from their respective prisons. Colditz, the medieval castle, located in the state of Saxony in Germany, is probably the most famous of the Nazi's POW camps in WWII..........so well known that films have been made about it (although usually fictional). Those Allied prisoners held there were known as "difficult" because they had escaped or attempted to escape from other camps. Colditz was meant to be totally secure and the Nazis were sure that no one would ever break those bonds. Oh, were they wrong!

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.’ There are two components that dominate Macintyre’s monograph; the replica of the British social class structure that dominated prison life, and the integration of an eclectic and diverse group of prisoners whether British, Dutch, French, Polish, or American. There are other themes that the author introduces that include the Nazi leadership that ran Colditz, the ebbs and flows of the war which prisoners were able to keep up with by building a surreptitious radio, the planning of escapes and what happened to the escapees, the plight of Prominente – a group of influential and famous prisoners whom the Nazis sought to maximize a return, and how Berlin reacted to what was occurring in the prison. The book isn’t just about the escape attempts, though. A closed community tends to have intensified social dynamics. On the positive side, the prisoners threw themselves into cultural pursuits, including putting on concerts, skits and plays. Hilariously, the British chaplain was appalled at prisoners dressing up as women for some of the plays and skits they acted out in the castle’s theater, thinking that even these ridiculously ersatz women would stir the men’s passions. If one is interested in spy craft and traitors during World War II and the Cold War there are few authors that have produced more satisfying works than Ben Macintyre. Macintyre is a writer-at-large for The Times (U.K.) and has written monographs whose narratives include the history of the British SAS; deceptions that encompass plans to misinform the Nazis in the lead up to the invasions of Sicily and D-Day; well-known spies such as Kim Philby, Oleg Gordievsky, the woman known as Agent Sonya, Eddie Chapman; and his latest the escapees from the Nazi fortress, Colditz. Whether describing and analyzing the actions of double agents loyal to the United States, Britain, or Russia or other topics, Macintyre’s approach to conveying espionage history is clear, concise, entertaining, and remarkably well written. All books are based on sound research and his readers will welcome his latest effort PRISONERS OF THE CASTLE: AN EPIC STORY OF SURVIVAL AND ESCAPE FROM COLDITZ, THE NAZIS FORTRESS PRISON. Macintyre’s depiction of Bader is a healthy corrective to the heroic image promoted by British propaganda long before he was shot down. He was a hero, yes, but also an egotistical monster and if anyone deserved the epithet he flung at Ross it was himself. This is just one judgment in a fine feat of storytelling that forces a major reassessment of the rosy picture constructed down the decades, and will surely become the last word on the subject.

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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. War stories are usually about what happened. The story of Colditz, by contrast, is largely a tale of inactivity, a long procession of duplicate days when little of note occurred, punctuated by moments of intense excitement. 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. 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.” There is just SO much here to talk about; so many interesting tidbits and stories and individuals, some slimy, others much more heroic. Eggers started a Colditz Museum with foiled escape souvenirs, complete with photos of reenacted escape attempts. They legitimately caught several prisoners attempting escape (one dressed as the Colditz electrician, another dressed as a woman) and requested they pose for a photo for the museum scrapbook. And these are supplied mid-book, which was fantastic. There is too much I could go on about, so just read the book honestly.

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I tend to prefer to read a book before listening to the audiobook but in this case, I think I would have preferred to listen to the audiobook from the outset. The audio sample sounds good and I may return to it some day. Since it was not his intention to write a definitive history, or even a convincing ‘debunking’ history, what was his intention? Well, he gives the game away to some extent in a long and tedious digression about the (highly secretive) work of MI9 in which – you’ve guessed – he manages to shoe-horn in the name ‘Ian Fleming’, one of his (and The Times’) pet obsessions. Then, of all the hundreds of prisoners in Colditz, the two with whom we are expected to most identify are a rich, privileged, well-educated Indian doctor who was a victim of racial prejudice from his fellow prisoners, and Julius Green, a Jewish dentist from Scotland who sent coded messages to England. Given Macintyre’s spy monomania, the latter is understandable to some extent, but why then does he not mention the contribution, in this regard, of Douglas Bader, Peter Tunstall and numerous others? Why only Green? I think there might be a personal agenda here. As for the Indian, readers who are familiar with recent politics might well remember Theresa May’s speech after the EU referendum in which she said: “This country welcomes people from India, particularly the rich.” Obviously, this is a war story so most of this is pretty bleak. However, there are plenty of moments of humor, touching humanism, and joy. I got legitimately choked up when the men starting building the glider, despite the extreme unlikeliness that it would work. "...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." After years of mostly failed escape attempts, increasing loss of hope as rations and other supplies dwindled, and deep fears that the prisoners might all be murdered if Germany was losing and the Allied powers reached the castle....imagine these defeated men pooling their ingenuity to build something so magnificent, such a beautiful dream of freedom. Ugh, it got to me. In later life, Gordievsky has been cantankerous and reproving. His accusations over the years have proved controversial and his claims have been interpreted very differently by the right and left in Britain. But there is no doubt that he played a profound role in undermining the Soviet system, not least by explaining the paranoia and fantastical thinking inside the KGB to western policymakers and agencies. His two books on Soviet intelligence operations with historian Christopher Andrew are invaluable. Gordievsky remains under sentence of death. He knows all too well the KGB’s view of treachery, and that his enemies play a long game. Another name familiar to an Irish audience is Airey Neave. Before he was murdered by the Irish National Liberation Army in 1979, Neave was most famous for having been the first British prisoner to escape from Colditz. He was hugely frustrated when an elaborate ruse to smuggle him out as a German officer was foiled as the counterfeit uniform appeared too green under the searchlight. He escaped in January 1942 and made his way to Switzerland. After returning to Britain he helped co-ordinate the Pat O’Leary line, named after a Belgian, not Irish doctor, which smuggled downed Allied airmen out of occupied Europe.

I would recommend this book to history buffs and WW readers alike. It tells quite a few enduring and humbling stories about those poor, brave souls who had to endure the camps for years. We first meet the POWs of Colditz as they try their hand at an escape attempt they have been cooking up for several months. The false German uniform had been made, the travel passes had been created, and photographic passports had been produced by clever means. All that was left to do was complete the plan and walk through the gates of one of the most daunting prison camps in the world. 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 Enlisted men received harsher treatment even at Colditz, which included forced labor as batmen to the officers. Elsewhere, Soviet POWs experienced far, far worse. According to Wikipedia, “It is estimated that at least 3.3 million Soviet POWs died in Nazi custody, out of 5.7 million. This figure represents a total of 57% of all Soviet POWs and it may be contrasted with 8,300 out of 231,000 British and U.S. prisoners, or 3.6%.” Most of the Soviet soldiers who died in German custody were among the 2.8 million taken in 1941-42 as the Nazi juggernaut raged across Russian land toward Moscow and Leningrad.

Retailers:

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. The Prominenten formed a series of clubs and disparaged all prisoners who did not have exalted connections. Most of the POW’s had skills to contribute to the daily escape attempts. There were magicians, card sharks, pole vaulters, theater actors, famous ace pilots, electricians, rugby players, charmers, and more. After the failed July Plot to assassinate Hitler, the SS took over control from the military. The SS were no respecters of the Geneva Convention, and now even those who had not tried to escape were in danger of their lives from the SS. Absolutely fascinating. Well researched and written, this book was a treasure trove of information on not only the history of the camp but also the psychology of the prisoners and the guards. The bravery of all the prisoners of Colditz is astonishing, as well as their maintained sense of humor. I appreciated how the author used nationality as a guiding point but not a definitive personality guide. The differences between the German and British minds (and of course American, Dutch, Polish, the list goes on) is shown in stark contrast - but it's not all-absorbing.

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." Colditz Castle, where Allied prisoners who repeatedly attempted to escape from other German camps during World War II, were sent. Credit: Getty Images Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil. This is a comprehensive book about its subject. I can’t imagine any more details could be included. I have to give it 5 stars since it’s such a perfect book about Colditz. A half star off because even though it sometimes read like a thriller and was mostly interesting, at times it read slowly and was close to boring with all the minutiae. 4-1/2 stars The account is given (almost) chronologically and I think doing that was a good choice.

The Sydney Morning Herald

With the post-war division of Germany into zones, Colditz was in the Russian zone, and was used for various purposes: a psychiatric hospital, an old people’s home, and a storehouse.