Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle

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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.’ A special intelligence operation in the UK, MI9, came up w 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." Some chapters are short and filled with details on attempts of varying degrees, while others dig deep into those who had a great impact on their success in escaping. One of those heroic people was Mrs. Markowska.

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. Mrs. Markowska, also known as Jane Walker, was an agent of British intelligence and a lead associate in the Polish underground. She would shelter escaped British POWs and help smuggle them to safety. She was extremely intelligent and a supreme asset because she spoke German, French, and Polish. Her intolerant and sympathetic behavior was endearing to the escapees, and she treated each one like her own children. She was known for giving the POW’s pep talks, medical treatments, and formal dinners. The POW’s adored her and often times said they loved her. The Red Cross was initially able to send parcels to Colditz, and these included a wide variety of books (their contents carefully vetted, of course). For an annual subscription of three guineas, individual prisoners received a selection of ten books a month. There were many literary discussions and lectures. The saga of Colditz Castle and the truculent band of Allied PoWs banged up inside its towering walls has lodged itself deep in the national consciousness. Since the early 1950s there has been a stream of books, a film, and in the 1970s a long-running television series, leading one critic to groan “is there no escape from Colditz?”This was utterly fascinating, not only the escape attempts of the prisoners, but also the politics within the prison, the relationships with the guards, the people on the outside who collaborated to smuggle escape equipment into the prison...... But Macintyre also makes it clear that Colditz was unlike most POW camps. Firstly, its extraordinary location made escape appear impossible. And then there was the fact that everyone housed there was classed as deutschfeindlich, ‘German-unfriendly’, and had been sent there because they had tried to escape from other camps. It was like a school where all the bad boys had been gathered together under one roof. 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. Although this has incredible accounts of those who tried to escape, often successfully, it is also the story of a very unique prisoner of war camp. It held many officers, who could not be forced to work for the Reich, and whom often imposed their own class rules and public school ways onto those inhabitants of the camp. There are theatre shows, tunnels, coded letters, M19, bizarre escape attempts and many wonderfully erratic and eccentric prisoners. Many are well known - such as Airey Neave, Pat Reid and Douglas Bader. I found the incredibly rude and rather unpleasant Bader curiously moving. When he was shot down, the Germans allowed the RAF to deliver a new leg, which seemed an incredible allowance during wartime. Once he had two prosthetics, he immediately hoisted himself out of a window and hobbled off - even the Germans, who he aimed endless venom at, seemed impressed. Colditz Castle, where Allied prisoners who repeatedly attempted to escape from other German camps during World War II, were sent. Credit: Getty Images

I listened to the audiobook with Simon. They say that truth is stranger than fiction.... This is an amazing book full of incredible true stories of escape, or many attempted escapes of prisoners of war from the notorious castle prison of Colditz. I'm not sure that Colditz is as well know in the U.S.A. In the U.K. it was entrenched in our culture and truly inspired fear.Secrets are very intoxicating and can also be very bad for you. If you do keep them, they have a corrosive effect over time. You often end up doing a bad thing for a good cause, in your own mind, breaking the law or manipulating people or deceiving the people you love.” In Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle , bestselling historian Ben Macintyre takes us inside the walls of the most infamous prison in history to meet the real men behind the legends. Heroes and bullies, lovers and spies, captors and prisoners living cheek-by-jowl for years in a thrilling game of cat and mouse - and all determined to escape by any means necessary. Colditz, a forbidding German castle fortress, was the destination for Allied officer POWs, and some other high-profile prisoners. It’s important to know that Colditz was different from POW Stalags for enlisted men run by the often brutal Gestapo and SS guards. Colditz was staffed by Wehrmacht (regular army) personnel who generally complied with the Geneva Convention. According to the Geneva Convention, captors were allowed to set their enlisted prisoners to work—but not officers. As a result, most of the prisoners at Colditz were at the leisure to go stir crazy, unless they thought of other ways to keep their minds busy—like dreaming up escape plans. With Prisoners of the Castle we learn about the wily World War II prisoners of Colditz, and their ceaseless breakout attempts - told with the adulation and humor only warranted by a vivaciousness such as theirs. Astonishing triumphs of industry and inventiveness are clarified. For example, we learn some of methods this group of clever men utilized to spy on the Allies from prison.

Those familiar with MacIntyre’s work will recognise many of the attributes that have made him such a successful writer. He tells compelling stories well, with energy and humour. His unerring eye for the telling detail that can illuminate a greater story is apparent in Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle. 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. No. I have to tell you that, even if I did. But no, I didn’t.” The hint of a smile appears on his face and he again pauses. “But I was really fascinated by the idea of the double life.” The French had the first few successful attempts. Some vaulted over the wire and climbed the walls, while others dressed up and walked out during a large sporting match. Because ultimately, this is the story of captivity. I had to read it in small doses because reading about POWs’ imprisonment does not make for a happy subject. Sure, I was rooting for the guys who, few and far between, actually succeeded in escaping. But every prisoner is a bored, angry, sexually frustrated captive and additionally there was plenty of elitism and racism.

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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.” 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. But it was the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia that propelled Gordievsky towards the west and, as he put it, determined “the course of my own life”. By this point Gordievsky was a junior spy abroad, working for the KGB’s first directorate, and living in Copenhagen. He resolved to fight the communist system from the inside. His first tentative step was to call his then wife Yelena from an embassy phone bugged by the Danes, and to declare: “They’ve done it! I just don’t know what to do.” He expected an approach from western intelligence. It didn’t materialise. But in 1943 the Germans decided that Colditz should contain only British, Commonwealth and, later, American officers: all the other nationalities were moved out to other camps. I don't know if non-fiction thriller is a legitimate genre but if it is, Ben MacIntyre would be the Stephen King of it. In this book MacIntyre takes on the iconic nazi-castle of Colditz, where high ranking Allied prisoners or prisoners that tried repeatedly to escape, were guarded by the Wehrmacht, which mostly abided by the rules of the Geneva Conventions. In one instance, after succesfully escaping to France, the Germans dutifully sent his suitcase after him.