Prisoner of War: The Inside Story of the POW from the Ancient World to Colditz and After, with Maurice Michael (1983)

Within days of his arrival, Reid was planning an escape, determined to return home by Christmas. After seven weeks digging Reid and a group of prisoners completed a tunnel, 24 feet (7.3m) long, from the prison basement to a small shed adjoining a nearby house. At 06:30 on 5 September 1940, Reid and five others broke out and made for Yugoslavia, only 150 miles away. Initially they made some progress walking across country at night, but as they entered more mountainous terrain they were forced onto the roads. The escapees were recaptured after five days in Radstadt, Austria, travelling around 50 miles. They were stopped by some locals; one of the escapees spoke fluent German, and by himself he might have bluffed it, but as they did not have any identification and the others did not speak German the locals became too suspicious. [5] Reid was sentenced to a month of solitary confinement, on a diet of bread and water. [6] 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. It was a way of dignifying the prisoner-of-war experience. It was a very familiar myth and, like all myths, it was partly true. The story of the escapes from Colditz are fabulous: the ingenuity, the courage, the lateral thinking that went into them is extraordinary.The Indian war hero who stood up to the Nazis — About Captain Birendra Nath Mazumdar M.D. the only Indian POW at Colditz. Christian Führer (1943–2014), priest in Colditz from 1968 to 1980, an initiator of the peaceful revolution in the GDR as pastor of the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig

The idea, a brilliant idea if it works, is to try to tell this story in a series of episodes, taking a different vantage point for each episode,” he explained. Chancellor, Henry (2001). Colditz: the definitive history. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-79494-1. OCLC 45592911.Prisoners built a false wall to hide the space in the attic where they slowly built the glider out of stolen pieces of wood. Since the Germans were accustomed to looking down for tunnels, not up for secret workshops, the prisoners felt safe from detection. However, they still placed lookouts, and created an electric alarm system, to warn the builders of approaching guards. At 1:30a.m. on 13 April 1945, while the final battles of the war approached the area, the Prominente were moved under guard and the cover of darkness, over the protestations of the other prisoners. The Allies were concerned that the Prominente might be used as hostages, bargaining chips and human shields, or that the SS might try to kill them out of spite. But they reached the American lines alive a couple of weeks later, an action aided by the SS head of POW camp administration Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger, which contributed to his lessened sentence after his war crimes verdict in 1949.