Summary of Prisoners of the Castle By Ben Macintyre: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison

By Willie M. Joseph

DISCLAIMER

This book does not in any capacity mean to replace the original book but to serve as a vast summary of the original book.

Summary of Prisoners of the Castle By Ben Macintyre: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison

 

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"Prisoners of the Castle" by Ben Macintyre is an "entertaining yet objective and often-moving account" of one of history's most notorious prisons. The book traces the war's arc from within Colditz's stone walls, where the stakes rose as Hitler's war machine faltered.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Willie M. Joseph
• Release date: Jan 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215481134

Willie M. Joseph

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This is an unofficial summary & analysis of Ben Macintyre’s Prisoners of the Castle: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison designed to enrich your reading experience.

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PROLOGUE

Franz Josef

Gustav Rothenberger carried out an inspection of the castle perimeter every evening. Guards with machine guns were posted at intervals of thirty feet along the length of the terrace. He barked: There is an attempted escape on the west side. Report to the guardhouse immediately. The sergeant major was a replica Rothenberger, a fake Franz Josef.

His escort was Michael Sinclair, a British lieutenant who had already escaped twice from Colditz. Each carried a counterfeit travel pass, forged using a typewriter and a photograph taken with a cigar box and spectacles. Franz Josef plan depended on ingrained German habits of military obedience, preparation, timing, luck, and the credibility of Sinclair's false whiskers. Many of the prisoners had been captives for almost three years. If it worked, this would be the first mass breakout in Colditz history.

1940

The Originals

Pat Reid was a natural contrarian and a born exhibitionist, a most dependable ally, and as an opponent, obstinate and insufferable. He saw faint-heartedness of any sort as a moral failing, and refused to countenance it, in himself or anyone else. Colditz Castle stood on a hilltop 150 feet above the Mulde River, a tributary of the Elbe in the east of what is now Germany. The nearest city was Leipzig, twenty-three miles to the northwest, and the closest border to a country outside Nazi control was 400 miles away. During the First World War it housed tuberculosis and psychiatric patients, of whom 912 died from malnutrition.

In 1939 it became what it will always be remembered as: a camp for prisoners of war. Colditz Castle was built to protect the people, but it was always a projection of power. The colossal stone warren had been built in layers, one on another, by men who had died for centuries. It was riddled with hidden compartments, abandoned attics, and long-forgotten fissures. Eggers was the supreme security chief of Colditz concentration camp in World War Two.

The son of a blacksmith, Eggers fought at Ypres and the Somme and finished the war with an Iron Cross. His diary offers a remarkable insight into Colditz from Nazi Germany's perspective. But Adolf Hitler's schoolmaster, Gerhard Eggers, saw flaws in the Wehrmacht's plan from the start. Inmates were deutschfeindlich, undesirables with reputations as disturbers of the peace. As POWs, the Polish officer contingent at Colditz were welcomed with a slow-rising chant: Anglicy, Anglicy. Most felt only visceral loathing for the Germans, which they did little to disguise.

It had taken the Poles less than a week to work out that the ancient locks on the castle's internal doors could be opened with ease. Inmates in Colditz were moved to permanent quarters with flushing lavatories, showers, spasmodic hot water, electric light, a stove, and a long hall used as a mess room. Compared with some of their previous camps, the castle seemed almost comfortable, despite the peeling walls and pervasive smell of mold. First Colditz prisoners were the cream of their nations' professional armed forces, new graduates from Sandhurst and Saint-Cyr. By the end of 1940, some 2,000 British officers and 39,000 other ranks were in the bag.

After the adrenaline of combat, Colditz seemed a place apart, almost surreal. Most of the castle remained empty and locked, occupied only by the ghosts of former inmates. The Poles laid on a Christmas dinner of sorts, and staged a puppet show of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

1941

Le Ray’s Run

It also held orderlies, ordinary soldier-prisoners employed by the Germans to perform menial tasks and work as servants for their senior officers. Orderlies were not invited to take part in escape attempts and were not expected to assist them. Sidney Goldman was batman to the first Senior British Officer

Reviews for Summary of Prisoners of the Castle By Ben Macintyre

[Hammed Tella · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting! Good and fantastic.
A nice book to read as it was greatly summarized.