They Have Their Exits: A Classic World War Two Memoir of Action and Escape

By Airey Neave

The author, who as a senior member of Mrs. Thatcher's Government was tragically assassinated by the IRA, had the most distinguished of war records. Wounded and taken prisoner in the desperate fighting at Calais in 1940, he became a compulsive escaper and the first one of the very few to make a 'home-run' from Colditz Castle.

Thereafter he rejoined the fighting, serving in France and Holland before becoming a member of the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremburg War Crimes trials. There he was to meet the most notorious members of the Nazi hierarchy as they faced justice and, in many cases, death. For the quality of its writing and the breadth of its author's experiences, They Have Their Exits is arguably the finest memoir to emerge from the Second World War, and one for which the sobriquet 'classic' seems wholly inadequate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Release date: Sep 1, 2007
• ISBN: 9781783379439

Airey Neave

Airey Neave worked as an intelligence officer for MI9 in World War Two before serving with the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg trials. After the war he became Member of Parliament for Abingdon. The author of several highly acclaimed books on the Second World War, he was assassinated by the Irish National Liberation Army in a car bomb attack at the House of Commons in 1979.

Reviews for They Have Their Exits

[lamour_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Neave was the first Englishman to escape from the castle at Colditz. Colditz was the German prisoner of war camp for Allied combatants who had escaped or attempted to escape from other POW camps. Supposedly escape-proof, there were some men who did escape including the Dutch soldier who left with Neave.Neave became involved in the prosecution of the Nazi leaders at Nuremberg. He enjoyed the irony of this task considering how much he suffered from their activities why he was a P.O.W. and during his several escape attempts. A bonus of this book is Neave's descriptions of what life was like in Germany for the German citizens that he remembered from traveling through the cities while either as he escaped or being moved around by the German soldiers. He observed that It was bleak and austere even during the early years of the War when they were winning.