Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle

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One British lieutenant, Michael Sinclair, felt this so strongly that he attempted seven breakouts, more than any other individual. Perhaps the most daring escape was carried out by a French cavalry officer who vaulted over the barbed wire using the cupped hands of a fellow Frenchman as a springboard. During 1083, Henry IV urged Margrave Wiprecht of Groitzsch to develop the castle site, which Colditz accepted.

Between 1914 and 1918, the castle was home to both psychiatric and tuberculosis patients, 912 of whom died of malnutrition. This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Although it was considered a high security prison, it had one of the greatest records of successful escape attempts. During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners.

Yet, as Macintyre will reveal, the story of Colditz is also one of snobbery, class conflict, homosexuality, bullying, espionage, boredom, insanity and farce. Coat of arms of Augustus of Saxony and his wife Anne of Denmark over the gate to the outer courtyard. Henry Chancellor’s Colditz The Definitive History, published in 2002, is based on a C4 televison series, Escape from Colditz, which for the life of me I cannot currently remember. 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. During 1694, its then-current owner, King Augustus the Strong of Poland, began to expand it, resulting in a second courtyard and a total of 700 rooms.

For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin. When the Nazis gained power during 1933, they converted the castle into a political prison for communists, homosexuals, Jews and other people they considered undesirable.For many years after the war, forgotten hiding places and tunnels were found by repairmen, including a radio room established by the French POWs, which was then "lost" again only to be rediscovered some twenty years later. The latter were prisoners regarded as of particular value by the Germans because of their family connections.