Dimensions
129 x 197 x 28mm
During the Second World War, this mediaeval fortress served as the only high security camp in Germany. Its massive walls contained every persistent escaper, trouble maker and valuable hostage captured by the Germans. There were as many guards as prisoners. Colditz was considered escape proof; it proved to be the very opposite. The prisoners pooled their collected talents to create the greatest escape academy of the war. Three hundred officers attempted to escape, and thirty of those achieved a "home run", returning to their mother country.
For the first time this book contains the prisoners' own story. Using over fifty original interviews, the English, French, Dutch and Polish officers, and their guards describe their experiences. Many have never spoken before. What emerges is a story of breathtaking ingenuity and daring, a game of wits between captives and captors bound together by mutual respect and extraordinary tolerance.
The book also tells for the first time of the boredom, desperation, jealousies and sexual frustrations; it invites readers to experience the challenges of making maps out of jelly, constructing tunnels using cutlery knives and building a glider from bed boards and sheets. The stories are comic and tragic by turns, as so much labour and invention ended in failure but in the end what was a prison has become a symbol of the invincibility of the human spirit.
This book grew out of the remarkable television series, 'Escape From Colditz', which was twelve years in the making, won sweeping critical praise and has been shown around the world.
