Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle

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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. But there is no exploration of what that was like: how did it manifest; how did it feel; what did people do?

During the Middle Ages, the castle was used as a lookout post for the German Emperors and was the hub of the Reich territories of the Pleissenland (anti- Meißen Pleiße-lands).Bestselling author Ben Macintyre tells the astonishing true story of one of the Second World War’s most infamous prisoner-of-war camps. Coat of arms of Augustus of Saxony and his wife Anne of Denmark over the gate to the outer courtyard. We use Google Analytics to see what pages are most visited, and where in the world visitors are visiting from. Windows users should also consider upgrading to Internet Explorer 11, Microsoft Edge, or switching to Firefox or Chrome.

While there is marginal mention of life prior to the arrival of the first British POWs in 1940, there were already French, Belgian and Polish POWs in Colditz. Colditz was the last stop for Allied prisoners who had been caught escaping from other, less secure camps around Germany. In short, Macintyre illustrates how the manifold strengths and weaknesses of humanity were present in the dour, claustrophobic, Disneyesque castle that was Colditz.

Much caricatured by the prisoners, not least by Airey Neave, and hated by some for his efficiency as a security officer, this anglophile English teacher turned wartime soldier, who had never been a member of the Nazi party, emerges from Macintyre’s book as a fundamentally decent man.