The Colditz Story

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And the guard? He kept his 100 Marks; he got extra leave, promotion and the War Service Cross." The French tunnel [ edit ] Equipment etc. from 'the French tunnel'. Exhibits in The International Museum of WW2. The aircraft museum was a ‘labour of love’ put together by broadcaster Keith Fordyce when he moved to Devon in 1970. He had made his name hosting TV and radio shows throughout the Swinging Sixties, and worked with all the big names of the era. There was definitely an unconscious racism, when they said, "Of course you can't escape Jumbo, because you're the wrong colour". Perhaps that seemed true, but in the end it was proven not to be, because he did manage to get out." Colditz (Hodder & Stoughton, 1962) : This was an omnibus edition of the previous two books, and served as the basis for the BBC Television series Colditz, which ran from October 1972 until April 1974. Reid served as technical advisor to both the TV series and the 1955 film.

There were also prisoners called Prominente (German for 'celebrities'), relatives of Allied VIPs. The first one was Giles Romilly, a civilian journalist who was captured in Narvik, Norway who was also a nephew of Winston Churchill's wife Clementine Churchill. Adolf Hitler himself specified that Romilly was to be treated with the utmost care and that: Polish Lieutenant Kroner was transferred to Königswartha Hospital where he jumped out of the window.After the liberation of Colditz Castle by the Americans, he retired from active service and returned to his post as a teacher as he was able to prove that he had never joined the Nazi Party. He became a headmaster and then a lecturer at Halle University. Capitaine André Vaillant (Gerard Paquis) – Capitaine Vaillant is a stereotypical Frenchman who is characterised as self-serving, self-righteous, dashing, and a shameless womaniser. Romilly, Giles; Alexander, Michael (1973). Hostages at Colditz. Sphere Books. p.138. ISBN 0-7221-7463-2. He was a rugby-playing cheerful chappie, an Irishman who wasn't going to be got down by anything," says Macintyre.

The castle in Saxony, south-east Germany, near Dresden, would eventually hold 600 or so Allied prisoners of war who had already tried to escape or been identified as "Deutschfeindlich" - "German unfriendly" - by their captors. French prisoners, incarcerated in Colditz Castle during the Second World War, spent some 8 months digging an escape tunnel. This 5.2m vertical shaft, located in a corner of the chapel, is a small part of the construction. So one will be told through the eyes of Mazumdar, one perhaps through Reinhold Eggers. There is a way of taking the mythology that we all remember and playing with it, and creating a quite different 21st-century narrative to look at that story again.” He was adopted as a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate by the Conservative Party in 1953, but failed to win a seat in the 1955 election. [2] Liniennetz Landkreis Leipzig, Region Muldental" (PDF). Mitteldeutscher Verkehrsverbund. 11 December 2016. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 March 2017 . Retrieved 8 March 2017. Map of bus services in the area

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I can think of no sport that is the peer of escape, where freedom, life and loved ones are the prize of victory, and death the possible though by no means inevitable price of failure.' —Major P.R. Reid, 1952 ColditzCastle.Net Oflag IVc & Colditz — A definitive history & guide to visiting: large photo gallery, then & now Escape from Colditz: The Two Classic Escape Stories: The Colditz Story, and Men of Colditz in One Volume (Lippincott, 1953) [15] Dutch Lieutenant Hans Larive escaped August 15, 1941. He hid under a manhole cover in the exercise enclosure, emerged after nightfall, took a train to Gottmadingen, and reached Switzerland in three days.

Mazumdar eventually became a GP in Somerset and married an Englishwoman. He rarely spoke of his wartime experiences but recorded his experiences on microcassettes around 10 years before his death, which Macintyre used as research material. Drue Heinz, and the little literary mystery of a wartime striptease". phoenixarkpress.com. 15 December 2010 . Retrieved 10 October 2011.Macintyre said that many ex-prisoners had a level of admiration for Eggers, judging that he had retained his humanity during the war. Members of the Prominente, under a U.S. guard, outside the Hungerberg Hotel on May 5, 1945, shortly after their release. L to R: John Elphinstone, Max de Hamel, Michael Alexander, unknown, George Lascelles, and John Winant Jr. [1] Oflag IV-C, often referred to by its location at Colditz Castle, overlooking Colditz, Saxony, was one of the most noted German Army prisoner-of-war camps for captured enemy officers during World War II; Oflag is a shortening of Offizierslager, meaning "officers' camp". Royal Navy ERAs W. E. "Wally" Hammond (from the sunken submarine HMS Shark) and Don "Tubby" Lister (from the captured submarine HMS Seal) campaigned for a transfer from Colditz, arguing that they were not officers. They were transferred to Lamsdorf prison, escaped from a Breslau work party, and reached England via Switzerland in 1943. [9] [10] [11]

Most escape attempts failed. Pat Reid, who later wrote about his experiences in Colditz, failed to escape at first and then became an "escape officer," charged with coordinating the various national groups so they would not ruin each other's escape attempts. Escape officers were generally not themselves permitted to escape. Many tried unsuccessfully to escape in disguise: Airey Neave twice dressed as a guard, French Lieutenant Boulé disguised in drag, British Lieutenant Michael Sinclair even dressed as German Sergeant Major Rothenberger (an NCO in the camp garrison), when he tried to organize a mass escape, and French Lieutenant Perodeau disguised himself as camp electrician Willi Pöhnert ("Little Willi"):Pat Reid was one of the few prisoners to make a successful escape to freedom from Colditz, in 1942; when he was honoured on This Is Your Life decades later, Eggers was the surprise guest. ‘Myth of Colditz’ Bernardi, Peter J. (4 April 2005). "A Passion for Unity". America Magazine. America Magazine . Retrieved 21 January 2013. British Lieutenant Airey M. S. Neave escaped January 5, 1942. Crawled through a hole in a camp theatre (after a prisoner performance) to a guardhouse and marched out dressed as a German soldier. He reached Switzerland two days later. This first successful British escape was a joint British-Dutch effort. Neave later joined MI9. After two weeks on the run, Winslow is recaptured and returned to Colditz. While he is in the solitary compound, he talks to La Tour during a physical exercise session and watches as La Tour, helped by a compatriot, leaps over the barbed wire fence. Winslow runs into a guard to stop him shooting La Tour who runs to freedom. Soon afterwards, Richmond expresses annoyance that no British officer has yet made a complete escape. Pilot Officer Peter Muir ( Peter Penry-Jones) – P.O. Muir is a rash officer who has a reputation for not "looking before he leaps". Nevertheless, he is a keen member of the escape team. He formed part of Pat Grant's escape team, but was wounded by a gunshot when he and Player were recaptured. [1]