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Fully illustrated with photographs and historical artifacts, this detailed history reveals what life was like inside the infamous Nazi POW camp. During the Second World War, the centuries-old Colditz castle took on an infamous new purpose. It became the site of Oflag IV-C, a prisoner of war camp designated for Allied officers who had escaped from other camps, including such famous names as Douglas Bader, Lorne Welch and Jack Best. This authoritative history reveals the secrets of the Sonderlager—or “Special Camp.” Historian Michael Booker draws on forty years of research into the subject, including interviews with former prisoners, as well as the German commandant Gerhard Prawitt and the head of security Captain Reinhold Eggers. He relates stories of British, Polish, and French prisoners, and their many and varied attempts to escape. These narratives are supported throughout with rare wartime photographs as well as a priceless collection of artifacts and memorabilia from the castle, some of which have never been seen before.
Colditz Castle was one of the most famous Prisoner of War camps of the Second World War. It was there that the Germans interred their most troublesome or important prisoners. Hundreds of ingenious escape attempts were made but the most ambitious of all was to build a glider and fly to freedom.Though the glider was built, the war ended before it could be used, and it was subsequently destroyed. Using the original plans and materials used by the prisoners, in March 2012 a replica of the glider was constructed in a bid to see if the escape attempt would have succeeded. The glider was then launched from the roof of the castle roof.Anthony Hoskins is the man who built, and helped launch, the glider. As well as examining the story behind the building of the original glider, he details the construction of the replica and the nail-biting excitement as the Colditz Cock finally took to the skies. Packed with photos of the glider and its flight over Colditz, this is the inside story of the recreation of one of the most intriguing episodes of the Second World War.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “entertaining [and] often-moving account” (The Wall Street Journal) of the remarkable POWs whose relentlessly creative attempts to escape a notorious Nazi prison embodied the spirit of resistance against fascism, from the author of The Spy and the Traitor “Macintyre has a knack for finding the most fascinating story lines in history.”—David Grann, author of The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon In this gripping narrative, Ben Macintyre tackles one of the most famous prison stories in history and makes it utterly his own. During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners. For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend. But as Macintyre shows, the story of Colditz was about much more than escape. Its population represented a society in miniature, full of heroes and traitors, class conflicts and secret alliances, and the full range of human joy and despair. In Macintyre’s telling, Colditz’s most famous names—like the indomitable Pat Reid—share glory with lesser known but equally remarkable characters like Indian doctor Birendranath Mazumdar whose ill treatment, hunger strike, and eventual escape read like fiction; Florimond Duke, America’s oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent; and Christopher Clayton Hutton, the brilliant inventor employed by British intelligence to manufacture covert escape aids for POWs. Prisoners of the Castle traces the war’s arc from within Colditz’s stone walls, where the stakes rose as Hitler’s war machine faltered and the men feared that liberation would not come soon enough to spare them a grisly fate at the hands of the Nazis. Bringing together the wartime intrigue of his acclaimed Operation Mincemeat and keen psychological portraits of his bestselling true-life spy stories, Macintyre has breathed new life into one of the greatest war stories ever told.
The Nazis thought escape was impossible. Colditz is the true story of the Allied prisoners held there and their (sometimes successful) efforts to escape, written by one of the POWs.
Contains a collection of alphabetically arranged entries that provide definitions of terms related to prisoners of war and interned civilians from ancient times to the present.
Critical Acclaim for TOP SECRET TALES of World War II "A book for rainy days and long solitary nights by the fire. If there were a genre for cozy nonfiction, this would be the template."-Publishers Weekly "Perfect for the curious and adventure readers and those who love exotic tales and especially history buffs who will be surprised at what they didn't know. Recommended for nearly everyone."-Kirkus Reviews This war was fought by soldiers out of uniform. Stealth and ingenuity were their weapons. Victory was their only code of conduct. In Top Secret Tales of World War II, noted military historian William Breuer documents espionage-in all its forms-as it evolved in the hands of both Allied and Axis agents of intelligence and counterintelligence. Here you'll find riveting tales of patriotism and treachery, subversion and sabotage, kidnappings and assassinations, and bribes and blackmailing-with frequently startling revelations about the secret wars behind both the battlefields and the headlines.
“A remarkable memoir of a British lad’s salad days flying bombers against the Nazis and then repeatedly escaping their prison camps” (Kirkus Reviews). The product of a lifetime’s reflection, The Last Escaper is Peter Tunstall’s unforgettable memoir of his days in the British Royal Air Force and as one of the most celebrated British POWs of World War II. Tunstall was an infamous tormentor of his German captors. Dubbed the “cooler king” on account of his long spells in solitary, he once dropped a water “bomb” directly in the lap of a high-ranking German officer. He also devised an ingenious method for smuggling coded messages back to London. But above all he was a highly skilled pilot, loyal friend, and trusted colleague. Without false pride or bitterness, Tunstall recounts the hijinks of training to be a pilot, terrifying bombing raids, and elaborate escape attempts at once hilarious and deadly serious—all part of a poignant and human war story superbly told by a natural raconteur. The Last Escaper is a captivating final testament by the “last man standing” from the Greatest Generation. “Right up there with Stalag 17 and The Great Escape.” —New York Post “The historical account of behind-the-scenes drama makes this a valuable addition to the period literature.” —Publishers Weekly “The stark reality of war is ever present in his detailed accounting of life as a prisoner of war. We are taken through the highs and lows of not only each failed attempt but the psychological effects of imprisonment on himself, others in the camps and ultimately how it changed each person involved.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"This book looks in detail at the life of ordinary British and American soldiers, seamen and airmen, officers and other ranks, from capture, through long days of boredom and hard labour, to the readjustment to home life after release. Using objects, photographs, and original materials-- including letters to and from home-- the author reveals prisoners' personal experiences in this intriguing account that discloses some surprising attitudes towards them from the folks back home"--Page 4 of cover.