The Oldie

ALAN JUDD

Viking Penguin £20

War stories are usually about glamour or glory. But, for a prisoner of war (POW), there’s neither. Your war is over, you’ve been defeated and there’s nothing you can do except survive. Or escape.

Colditz Castle was used by the Germans in the Second World War to house officer prisoners who had escaped from other prisons or who, because of their attitude, were designated deutschfeindlich – ‘German unfriendly’.

For centuries, it had been used as

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