![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Book Review: Colditz - Prisoners of the Castle, by Ben Macintyre
I visited Colditz during a holiday in 2002; the staff at the ticket office just rolled their eyes at my apparent mis-pronunciation. I imagined, "Oh, you English, for you the war is never over". As it turned out, the trip from Leipzig was partly by train and the remainder by replacement bus service.
Ben Macintyre takes a chronological trip from 1940 to 1945. Oflag-IV C was a Prisoner of War camp for officers, but a particular class of men assessed by the Third Reich as posing particular threats or difficulties. Some had escaped other camps, or been disruptive. A few (increasing over time) were categorised based on their presumed links to the British government or state (in general the Germans over-interpreted such links; a communist nephew of Churchill's was never going to be a particular bargaining chip). Initially multinational, the camp contained Polish, French, Belgian, Dutch, British and Canadian inmates; there was rivalry between these groups, and cooperation was improved when it finally dawned on them that they were inadvertently hampering each others' escape attempts. Later on, other European nationalities were moved elsewhere, and Americans joined the camp.
Macintyre's history is informative, and seeks to even out some of the myths popularised by one or two of the more prominent escapees (Pat Reid, Airey Neave) who wrote about their experiences shortly after the war. Douglas Bader comes over as quite an unpleasant and unbearable individual. Under the Geneva conventions, officers were entitled to have orderlies shipped in from elsewhere in the PoW system to act as manservants; they, of course, were not offered any opportunity to take part in escape schemes, and sometimes rebelled over working practices. As usual, the Germans come over as being of limited imagination; but it's perhaps at least as much a case of ingenuity on the part of the inmates, with nothing else to do, who came up with schemes to supply parts and intelligence for escaping. The French, for example, installed a radio in an attic. How did they get the parts? By copying a key for the post room, thus able to raid incoming packages before they were searched by the Germans. Likewise, coded messages in letters home provided information and further requirements such as maps and tools to be supplied in future. Of course, Macintyre documents many escapes and escape attempts. In the 1940s, they could catch the train straight from Colditz station: no replacement bus service required. However I don't recall any reference to Harry Elliott's plan to destroy the castle by setting dry rot in the timbers.
In the final months of the war the situation became more tense: what would the Nazi regime do with these infamous prisoners? A considerable amount of Macintyre's work makes use of the German viewpoint, memoirs written by Wehrmacht security officer, and sometime Anglophile, Reinhold Eggers. Throughout the war he had been concerned to manage the camp correctly, but he was worried that if the SS took over, they would not be scrupulous; in fact, in the final days roles were effectively reversed in the camp, with the remaining Germans staying for their own protection as a battle raged outside between the US Army and local diehards. During the DDR period, the castle fell further into disrepair, an embarrassment and/or irrelevance to the regime. But still, the English (and other nations) continue to visit. An experiment with one of several replicas of the Colditz glider was successful in 2012.
I visited Colditz during a holiday in 2002; the staff at the ticket office just rolled their eyes at my apparent mis-pronunciation. I imagined, "Oh, you English, for you the war is never over". As it turned out, the trip from Leipzig was partly by train and the remainder by replacement bus service.
Ben Macintyre takes a chronological trip from 1940 to 1945. Oflag-IV C was a Prisoner of War camp for officers, but a particular class of men assessed by the Third Reich as posing particular threats or difficulties. Some had escaped other camps, or been disruptive. A few (increasing over time) were categorised based on their presumed links to the British government or state (in general the Germans over-interpreted such links; a communist nephew of Churchill's was never going to be a particular bargaining chip). Initially multinational, the camp contained Polish, French, Belgian, Dutch, British and Canadian inmates; there was rivalry between these groups, and cooperation was improved when it finally dawned on them that they were inadvertently hampering each others' escape attempts. Later on, other European nationalities were moved elsewhere, and Americans joined the camp.
Macintyre's history is informative, and seeks to even out some of the myths popularised by one or two of the more prominent escapees (Pat Reid, Airey Neave) who wrote about their experiences shortly after the war. Douglas Bader comes over as quite an unpleasant and unbearable individual. Under the Geneva conventions, officers were entitled to have orderlies shipped in from elsewhere in the PoW system to act as manservants; they, of course, were not offered any opportunity to take part in escape schemes, and sometimes rebelled over working practices. As usual, the Germans come over as being of limited imagination; but it's perhaps at least as much a case of ingenuity on the part of the inmates, with nothing else to do, who came up with schemes to supply parts and intelligence for escaping. The French, for example, installed a radio in an attic. How did they get the parts? By copying a key for the post room, thus able to raid incoming packages before they were searched by the Germans. Likewise, coded messages in letters home provided information and further requirements such as maps and tools to be supplied in future. Of course, Macintyre documents many escapes and escape attempts. In the 1940s, they could catch the train straight from Colditz station: no replacement bus service required. However I don't recall any reference to Harry Elliott's plan to destroy the castle by setting dry rot in the timbers.
In the final months of the war the situation became more tense: what would the Nazi regime do with these infamous prisoners? A considerable amount of Macintyre's work makes use of the German viewpoint, memoirs written by Wehrmacht security officer, and sometime Anglophile, Reinhold Eggers. Throughout the war he had been concerned to manage the camp correctly, but he was worried that if the SS took over, they would not be scrupulous; in fact, in the final days roles were effectively reversed in the camp, with the remaining Germans staying for their own protection as a battle raged outside between the US Army and local diehards. During the DDR period, the castle fell further into disrepair, an embarrassment and/or irrelevance to the regime. But still, the English (and other nations) continue to visit. An experiment with one of several replicas of the Colditz glider was successful in 2012.
Schloss Colditz in 2002