Colditz Castle - WW2 Maximum Security Prison Camp

On a cliff top above a small town in eastern Germany stands one of the most potent symbols of the Second World War. This grim 18th century castle is Colditz is the most notorious PoW camp in history. There has been a stronghold atop this hill, overlooking the river Mulde, since 1014. With its massive, imposing walls, steep cliffs and rigorous policing, Colditz was seen as the ultimate prison. It needed to be. Here were assembled the worst troublemakers from allied PoW camps all over Europe, habitual escapees who had broken out of lesser camps.

The Germans believed escape from Colditz was all but impossible. Over five extraordinary years they were proved wrong time and again.

The castle was originally built in 1014 as a hunting lodge for the kings of Saxony. Throughout its history, it has been the centre of war and siege, and thus rebuilt many times. The castle was completely destroyed in the 15^th century during the Hussite wars. It was then rebuilt and given as a wedding present to a Danish Princess in 1583. In 1634 Imperialists captured the castle only to lose it again to Sweden in 1706. Its role then changed to a prison in 1800 and then a hospital for the mentally ill in 1828. This is how the castle remained for over 100 years, until starting its relatively short span as a prisoner of war camp during the Second World War.

The castle originally took on the role of a transit camp for Poles after the fall of Poland. This small group were relocated in the early summer of 1940, and were later replaced by 140 Polish prisoners. In November 1940 a handful of British RAF officers arrived, soon to be followed by 6 British Army officers, and later by some French. So, the castle became an international camp. More British, French, Belgians and Dutch soon added to the prisoner contingent which would reside in Colditz castle until its liberation on 16^th April 1945.

The castle was visited by Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering early on in the war, and was declared to be "Escape Proof" - a prediction which, with hindsight, was rubbish. Throughout the five and a half years of war, over 300 escape attempts were made. This resulted in 120 ‘gone aways’ (escapers which got out of the castle but were later recaptured). At the fall of Colditz to the Americans in April 1945, 31 prisoners had successfully reached home - a figure unequalled by any prisoner of war camp during the Second World War.

The first British inmates arrived at Colditz on 6^th November 1940. The sentiments of Capt Kenneth Lockwood were echoed all over the camp; “Uppermost of all we wondered how we were going to get out of the place”. Officers were under orders from their respective governments to escape wherever possible – and herein lay the Germans problem: put hundreds of escapees in one camp and you create an escape academy. There were locksmiths, linguists, forgers, tailors, engineers and spies. Everyone had a contribution to make. The ingenuity astounded the security officer Captain Reinhold Eggers, who later wrote: “We kept them in with rifles and machine guns. We searched them by day and night. And yet they got out.”

Officers were under orders from their respective governments to escape wherever possible. Until 1943 escaping prisoners were protected from being shot by the terms of the Geneva agreement, and at Colditz a unyielding game of cat and mouse developed with the cream of the allied officers pitting their wits against their German captors. A friendly rivalry also developed between the different nationalities held within the castle to see who could score the most ‘home runs’. The British government set up a special division of its secret service whose sole purpose was to further escape attempts. M19 produces a wide range of escape aids that could be concealed in everyday objects and sent to prisoners via the international postal service. Such ingenuities as maps of Germany which emerged when playing cards were submerged in water, and compasses which could be concealed within the lid of a fountain pen, were invaluable to the Colditz escape committee. But the cunning and diligence of the men on the inside was equally vital.

In 1942 Pat Reid, the British escape officer, began his fourth escape attempt from the castle. Having been foiled on three previous occasions he was more determined than ever to succeed, but all did not go according to plan… The escapees could only get across the courtyard when the two sentries on guard had their backs turned. To help them across an elaborate network of ‘stooges’ had been established, whose job it was to give a signal to Reid when the time was right. It was agreed that when the courtyard orchestra paused momentarily the coast was clear and it was safe to cross. Unfortunately for the escapees the orchestra stopped playing completely for no apparent reason and the men were forced to rely on their own hearing to judge where the sentries were.

The courtyard safely navigated, Pat Reid now pulled out his skeleton key designed to open one of the courtyard doors. He was still grappling with the lock an hour later – the carefully copied key had failed to open the door. Having come too far to turn back now, the men had no choice but to push on. Reid led them round the barracks to a cellar he believed had direct access to the outer wall of the castle. He was right. Once inside all that separated them from the outside world was a single wall, with the narrowest of gaps at the top. Stripped to the skin Reid made it through the gap, and armed with his M19 map and compass he crossed the border into Switzerland. It was Britain’s first home run and would become known as “the naked escape”.

The Red Cross Box
The growing British contingent in Colditz by 1942 resulted in an accompanying surge of personal belongings in the dormitories. These often impeded German searches, and hence it was decided that all prisoners should pack away any unwanted belongings. They were to be packed into empty Red Cross cases, and stored in the attics of the Kommandantur buildings. Flt. Lt. Dominic Bruce saw this as his big chance. He concealed himself in one of the chests, and was carried to the attics by the orderlies. Once the attics had been locked up again, he emerged from his box, climbed out of the window and descended the outside face of the castle using a home-made rope.

Bruce left a small piece of paper in the empty box, on which he wrote ‘Die Luft in Colditz gefallt mir nicht mehr. Auf Wiedersehn!’ (‘The air in Colditz no longer pleases me. Au revoir!’) The next morning the castle was visited by General Wolff, officer in charge of POW army district 4. He inspected the camp and found everything to his satisfaction. Fortunately for the camp Kommandantur, as Wolff was driven away, his back was turned to the southern face of the castle. If he had turned his head he would have seen a sixty-foot length of blue and white checked (bedsack) rope dangling from a remote window. It was, however, noticed by a hausfrau in the town, who quickly reported it to the duty officer. Flt. Lt. Bruce was captured a week later in Danzig.

Gris Davies-Scourfield **
Gris David Scourfield was well known to the Germans as one of their most dangerous prisoners. His escape plan was simple – to dress himself in a stolen German uniform and simply walk out of the camp. All he had to do was to find a way of getting out of the prisoners quarters unnoticed. His solution was not a pleasant one - he would persuade the two Scottish orderlies who carried the rubbish out of the compound to conceal him in their cart. Wearing three sets of clothes (his civilian clothes, his German uniform and a pair of regular dungarees on top), Gris made the perilous journey across the courtyard covered in rubbish. Once deposited into the rubbish shoot he removed the dungarees, smartened himself up and walked out of the camp as a German officer.

Often however escaping the castle walls was only the first hurdle. Once on the outside Gris still had to get across Europe without arousing suspicion. In this he was helped by the fact that the prison authorities did not even know he was missing. Back at Colditz his place had been taken by a ghost… Jack Best had faked his own escape six months earlier, convincing the guards that he had gone, when in fact he had been in the camp, living beneath the floorboards ever since. His job as a ghost was to take the place of any newly escaped prisoners to ensure the alarm was not raised until they had reached safety. Gris’ ghost enabled him to make good headway, dressed in his civilian clothes and being as inconspicuous as possible. He nearly made it. Only 100 miles from the Dutch border he was questioned by suspicious soldiers and recaptured.

Mike Sinclair
In the spring of 1943, the British hatched what became one of the most infamous escape plans in history. At its centre was Mike Sinclair, a fluent German speaker who had escaped four times before arriving at Colditz. Sinclair was to be made to look like one of the guards, a prodigiously moustachioed officer nicknamed Franz Josef. With attention to detail, Sinclair perfectly recreated the uniform, moustache, gait and mannerisms of Franz Josef. The plan was then for ‘Franz Josef’, and two other prisoners disguised as guards, to relieve the sentries on duty and replace them with British troops dressed as Germans. They would let at least 30 or 40 British officers out through the main gate. Each officer would then make bid for freedom, using passes and maps placed in cigar cases hidden in their backsides.

The scale of this escape attempt sent the escape industry into overdrive. As well as the enormous amounts of dummy equipment that had to be manufactured, each escapee would also need a forged identity and pass to travel through Germany. All manner of materials had to be employed to complete the escape equipment, along with a great deal of cunning and ingenuity. Maps for example were precious and always in short supply, but the prisoners devised a simple way of producing copies. Using the gelatin from their Red Cross parcels they made up trays of lemon jelly and laid the maps on the surface. When the original was removed the jelly retained the outline of the map and allowed copies to be transferred to clean sheets of paper. The German penchant for rubber stamping official documents also provided a challenge for the escape committee. One officer had the laborious task of carving the Nazi insignia out of rubber shoe soles using razor blades. These dummy stamps were then coated in a mixture of indelible crayon and spit and used to authenticate the fake passes.

This ambitious escape attempt went exactly to plan in its initial stages. In the guise of Franz Josef, Sinclair had managed to dismiss the first two security guards, but when he reached the final gatepost the colour of his pass aroused suspicion. The alarm was raised and German officers descended on the scene. In the ensuing confusion Sinclair was shot in the chest. It is testament to the brilliance of his disguise and the fluency of his German that several of the guards present remained convinced that Franz Josef himself had been shot.

The bullet missed Sinclair’s heart by an inch. He survived to attempt another escape before the end of the war.

Pic courtesy of the Basingstoke Gazette
Former prisoners of war Pat Ferguson, Hugh Ironside, John Beaumont, Bill Goldfinch, Jack Best, Kenneth Lockwood, and Jean Claude Tine, (with glider pilot John Lee),
watched as a replica of the glider they built for their escape was successfully launched into the sky.

By 1944 the German guards had plugged every gap in the castle’s security and breakouts were more difficult than ever. Escape attempts had to be truly original to succeed - and this one certainly was. A group of four British prisoners set about designing and building a glider to launch from the roof of the castle. The idea of catapulting two prisoners, seated inside a glider to land on the far side of the River Mulde was conceived by Bill Goldfinch and Antony Rolt. They were soon joined by Jack Best and Stooge Wardle, and the four set about finding a secret workshop where they could build their machine unnoticed.

It was Tony Rolt’s idea to build a false wall at one end of the attic above the chapel, sealing off a few feet in which the glider could be built. The wall was constructed using a number of prefab frames, canvas palliasse covers and debris which had been dug from the French tunnel. The next day, when the attics were inspected by the Germans, everything was found to be in order. The plan was that on the day of the flight, a hole would be made in the west wall of the attic, and the glider moved out on to the roof. The sixteen-feet wings would be attached to the main body on a trolley, attached by a system of pulleys to a bath tub filled with concrete. Bill Goldfinch calculated that when dropped 60 feet through the floors of the castle, the bath tub would accelerate the glider beyond its stalling speed. Construction of the glider properly began in May 1944. It continued, guarded by an elaborate stooging system, until its completion in early 1945. The stage was set for the greatest escape of all time. Unfortunately, the allied advance across Europe had beaten them to it - Col. Tod declared that escaping from Colditz was now considered a far too great risk to take: ‘The glider is to be held in reserve in strict secrecy until the castle is liberated, or until you have further prior instructions from myself or my successor in command.’ Hence, the glider remained hidden in the attic until the castle’s liberation in April 1945. After the war, failing to appreciate its significance, the townspeople of Colditz destroyed it. Fifty five years later C4 commissioned the rebuilding of the original “Spirit of Colditz”. A full scale model of the glider was constructed and flight tested. It flew perfectly.

Colditz Castle was the "maximum security" prisoner of war camp situated over 300 km from the nearest "safe" border and housed those allied officers who had persistently escaped from other "stalags" within occupied Europe. It was supposed to be escape proof and the Germans boasted to the prisoners just that fact. This, naturally, gave to allied officers all the encouragement needed, and they immediately formed an escape committee to organise the very thing! The walls were 3 meters thick, built on solid rock and had a death drop should anyone get past the wire! The methods of escape were ingenious to say the least. The first officer out, a British officer, managed to reach Austria after walking the entire distance, even getting a lift from an SS Staff Car en route! He arrived at the still neutral American Embassy in Vienna, very hungry, weak and in desperate need of food. He was turned away!! The staff at the American Embassy refused to help him. He must have hit the low spot in depression! He was too weak to think coherently and eventually gave himself up to the authorities who shipped him back to Colditz. Maybe he could not find the Swedish Embassy, who almost certainly, would have helped him.

Pictures 1 and 2 were painted by Major Anderson, a prisoner in Oflag 4C, Colditz Castle, pictured right.

The first "home run" came in the form of a French Officer who made it home and then joined the French Resistance. Another "home run" came in the form of a daring escape by an British Officer, Airey Neave and a Dutch Officer. They dressed up in painted German Officer's uniform, with cardboard badges and clambered through a corridor, through a hole punched in a ceiling, down some stairs into the Guardroom and then, with the Dutch Officer chatting in fluent German, sauntered out of the Guardroom, where the guards were stood to attention, and out of the gate to freedom. Airey Neave went on to become a successful Member of Parliament until murdered by an IRA car bomb, in the car park of Westminster Palace. He had survived all that the Germans could throw at him only to be butchered by cowards in the autumn of his life.

Pat Reid, an extremely "infamous" escaper, was also holed up in Colditz. His exploits were legendary! By trade he was a civil engineer and was in charge of the escape committee. His expertise was invaluable in organizing and eventually implementing tunnels and other routes out of the castle. His book "Escape from Colditz" was required reading for all children who loved the classic "hero and adventure" associated with such a character.

The German Officer in charge of Security, Reinhard Eggers, also has a book in print, entitled "Colditz, The Other Side" and I can personally recommend both books to you.

29 July 2001. The English Newspaper Daily Mail, was running an "expose" on what life was "really" like in Colditz. The serialisation of a book "Colditz - A Definitive History" by Henry Chancellor, published by Hodder & Stoughton on August 9 2001. The author claims 12 years of research and interviews with 50 prisoners and guards. One of the allegations is that RAF fighter Ace Sir Douglas Bader was well known for throwing his rank about and, when the Germans said they were repatriating his "batman"; he stormed at them that they would not - he was his lackey and would continue to be so, thereby ensuring the unfortunate prisoner had to endure another 2 1/2 years in confinement. Also alleged is that, in over 300 escape attempts, only 32 succeeded and that, unlike the films, British involvement was minimal. Bader was also the main instrument of "goon baiting" or teasing the guards. One German Officer retorted "Are you officers or children?". Most of the British Officers looked upon "goon baiting" as childish and counter-productive.

16 September 2002. Colditz is about to be renovated and converted into a Youth Hostel.

I am very grateful to Melissa Parker and Adam English for the following information:

John Winant was a prisoner at Colditz. According to Pat Reid, Lieut. John G. Winant (USAAF) was captured on 10/10/43; arrived in Colditz on 7/4/45 and departed on 13/4/45. Due to his status as the son of the U.S. Ambassador in London, he was sent to Colditz potentially to be used as a hostage. He and other special prisoners were called the 'Prominente'. I was a co-producer on a documentary series made for Channel 4 called 'Escape From Colditz'. My partner/co-producer, Adam English, and I made the final programme in the series called 'Eureka!'. This programme dealt with the years 1943-45 at Colditz which included the building of the glider and the Liberation. The programme aired in February 2000. We also conducted research after this for the American version of the series and so were charged with finding any extant U.S. Colditz POWs. Our only hope was John Winant as we knew that he had been seen by another ex-POW in the 1970's. Luckily, I located John Winant's family and spoke to his brother. He told me that John Winant had died - as I recall in 1990. He also told me some stories that John had told him of his time incarcerated at Colditz and of the Prominente's hasty journey at the end of the war. There are photographs of John Winant and the other members of the Prominente (i.e. Giles Romilly, Michael Alexander, Earl Haig etc.) taken when they were released after this journey. I think they were in the archives (NARA) in Washington. There may have been some copies at the photo archive in the Imperial War Museum, London though. There is also a portrait of John Winant in the 1946 book, 'Detour' by J.E.R. Wood drawn by John Watton. (Both of these men were at Colditz). I keep in touch with some of the ex prisoners and American liberators and retain an interest in Colditz although my partner and I no longer work in the television industry.

**Thank you to Kenneth Lockwood for correcting my spelling of Gris Davis Scourfield's name.

	3. Mid May 1941 Polish Lieuts. Niki Surmanowicz and Mietek Schmiel, doing time in solitary confinement, somehow managed to get out of their locked cells and into the prison yard. Friends in the Polish quarters in floors above lowered a rope, which the pair used to get into the adjacent guardroom's attic. Putting the same rope out the attic window on the castle's western side, they began sliding down, but the nails in Schmiel's boots scraped on the wall, giving them away.
	4. May 1941 British prisoners bribed a German guard to turn a blind eye at the eastern gate on an upcoming but unspecified night. The guard told his superiors, and the Germans were there when a patch of turf suddenly rose up off the grass terrace outside the British canteen, and Captain Pat Reid appeared. He and his accomplices had slipped out of the canteen through a drain cover, which the Germans had earlier cemented but the British had loosened before the cement had dried. (For the German view of this attempt, see The Jailor's Story
	5. June 1941 Prisoners on their supervised daily walk to the park near the castle paused by a gate leading out to let a German woman through. The German guards said nothing, but as the woman walked away from the castle, one of the prisoners noticed she had dropped her watch. "Hey, Fräulein, your watch!" he said. She didn't respond, so a guard went after her -- and found "her" to be Lieut. Chasseur Alpin Bouley, a Frenchman. Untimely chivalry cost Bouley his freedom.
	6. June 1941 Not long after Bouley's "womanly" escape attempt, two prisoners went missing after the daily stroll in the park. The Colditz security apparatus swung into action: Local police headquarters, railway stations, and foresters were notified, and guards searched the surrounding landscape on bicycle and foot. But while examining the park walk with a fine-toothed comb, one German suddenly remembered an air-raid shelter situated in an old house along the park path. The Germans found the door unlocked -- and inside were Captain Harry Elliot and Captain Janek Lados. The Germans determined (rightly) that this must have been the way Le Ray and at least one other French officer had escaped.
	7. June 1941 One night while in detention for his air-raid-shelter attempt, Captain Janek Lados, who had somehow gotten hold of a hacksaw, cut through the bars of a window in his cell on the castle's western ramparts. He shimmied down the length of his bedsheet and dropped the final 20 feet to the ground, breaking a bone in his ankle. Astonishingly, he made it as far as the Swiss frontier before being captured and hauled back
	8. 2 July 1941 On a walk in the park, one French officer helped another wearing only a T-shirt and shorts get over the wall and away amidst shots fired by startled guards. The escaper had left a note in his room: "Should I succeed, I should be obliged by the dispatch of my effects to me at the following address -- Lieut. Pierre Mairesse-Lebrun, Orange (Vaucluse). May God help me!" He did succeed, and the Germans obliged.
The hidden air shaft lies roughly in the middle of this photograph taken from the German yard	9. 28 July 1941 Dressed as German civilians, two French officers slid 40 feet down a rope lowered into an airshaft that led from the prisoner's theatre four stories up to the German kitchen on the ground floor. They walked out into the German yard and on to the park gate, where the guard let them through. But the prison laundryman, who had idly watched them go, thought it odd he didn't recognize them. Mulling it over for an hour, he finally informed the security officer, who went after them with dogs and guards on bicycles. Lieuts. A. Thibaud and R. Perrin were caught about six miles away.
	10. 31 July 1941 One night, a German guard went to the lavatory in the northeast end of the Kommandantur, or German headquarters building. While in the bathroom, which backed onto one of the British prisoners' rooms, the guard heard a scratching noise. Informed, Colditz security personnel lay in wait. This night, two British officers dressed as civilians suddenly broke through the wall behind the john and walked out of the bathroom. "This way, please, gentlemen!" their welcoming committee announced. In all, ten prisoners came through the hole before the Germans decided to end the sport.
	11. Late Summer 1941 On three occasions in summer 1941, two Dutch officers managed to escape. Two were caught, but four reached the Swiss border safely. The Germans were stumped, until they noticed two Dutch officers slip into a manhole in the park. The Germans had bolted the manhole cover shut, but the Dutch had managed to get it off and replace it with a glass bolt, which those hidden within could break by pushing from inside. When the moment was right, those hidden climbed out and slipped over the wall
	12. December 1941 For their manhole escapes, the Dutch had tricked the guards into thinking they were all present at the prisoner count conducted in the park before the return to the castle. Two weeks before Christmas, the Germans discovered how. Suspicious that something was up during the count, the officer in charge asked all prisoners standing to the right of him to step to the right, and all those to the left of him to step to the left. One man remained in the middle. Turns out it was a dummy, all dressed up and standing in -- along with another equally gussied-up mannequin -- for two Dutch officers, who were soon found hiding under a pile of leaves.
	13. December 1941 One day two German officers appeared at the gate leading out of the prisoners' yard. The guard saluted them and let them through, then recalled that he was supposed to ask for passes from all military personnel. As the pair walked toward the arch leading into the German yard, the guard ran after them and asked for their passes. "That's all right, we're coming straight back," one said. Though his German was good, the guard grew suspicious and called security. The German officers? Belgian Lieut. Baron D.W. van Lynden and a Captain Steenhover in homemade uniforms. After the war DW van Lynden became the Ambassador for Holland in Bonn in the early seventies. (Info: Herman Steenhouwer. See also note at base)
	14. 6 January 1941 On this night, four officers, operating in pairs, slipped through a specially cut hole in the British theater floor, dropped into a unoccupied room, and walked out into a corridor that led over the main gate of the prisoners' yard and into an attic over the German guardroom. Dressed as German officers, first one pair and then the other descended into and walked out of the temporarily unoccupied guardroom, strolled under the archway into the German courtyard, and exited the main gate. Fearful of being stopped at the final gate beyond the moat, they turned east out of the main gate and, under cover of darkness, clambered over the unguarded wall along the park road. Though the Germans captured one pair, they did not get the other: Dutch Lieut. Tony Luteyn reached Switzerland with his partner, English Lieut. Airey Neave, the first Brit to flee successfully.
	15. March 1942 In January, the Germans had discovered a tunnel that French officers were digging beneath the chapel, storing the removed earth in an attic. The Germans set the prisoners to carrying the dirt out of the attic and placing it in a cart for removal to the town dump. One day, as one of these carts rumbled down the main street of Colditz Town, a French officer suddenly came up spitting and choking from beneath the heap of dirt: Lieut. H. Desjobert.
	16. 7 September 1942 Deciding that the prisoners, particularly the British, had too many personal belongings, they ordered them to box the possessions up in three-cubic-foot Red Cross wooden crates, then carry them up to a third-floor storeroom at the castle's south end. The next day, a guard noticed a rope of bedsheets tied together hanging out the storeroom window. In the room, guards found one of the crates opened, with a note scribbled on top: "I don't like the air in Colditz. Auf wiedersehen. Ex-PW Flying Officer Bruce." The diminutive Englishman Dominic Bruce was caught a week later.
	17. 9 September 1942 On this morning, the Germans discovered six officers missing. It seems that some prisoners had snuck at night into the office of the German Sergeant-Major nicknamed Mussolini and, right behind his desk, had cut a hole through the back wall to a storeroom beyond. When the time was right, the six chosen escapers slipped through Mussolini's office and exited the storeroom disguised as two German officers and four Polish inmates. A real German officer opened the gate for them, and they were gone. Four were recaptured within a day, but two -- British Flight-Lieut. William Fowler and Dutch Captain D.J. van Doorninck -- reached Switzerland
	18. 15 October 1942 Four British officers were gone. Dogs failed to follow the trail away from the castle, but they did follow what remained of it back to the castle wall on the south end near an air shaft. How could prisoners have gotten across the German yard, where a sentry patrols day and night, and through the German Kommandantur building? In what proved one of the most audacious escapes at Colditz, the four escaped through the back of the prisoner's kitchen, onto the roof of the German kitchen, and across the German yard in the full glare of the searchlights. They slipped into the cellar of the Kommandantur and stumbled upon the air shaft. All four reached Switzerland.
	19. December 1942 Late one afternoon around Christmas, Willi, the castle's German electrician, entered the French quarters to replace a blown fuse. About 5:30 p.m., Willi strolled through the gate out of the prisoners' yard, turned left through the archway into the German yard, and made his way to the park gate. Here, even though he was well-known to everyone, Willi was asked for his pass. He had the wrong one. In fact, "Willi" was Lieut. A. Perodeau. Though his disguise was near-perfect, Perodeau's scarf may have tipped off the guard: It wasn't the same colour as that worn by the real Willi.
	20. 11 May 1943 After Mairesse-Lebrun's escape from the park, prisoners in solitary confinement took their exercise on the northwest terrace. During his walk on this day, Flight-Lieut. Don Thom of the Royal Canadian Air Force suddenly leapt over the terrace's balustrade and grabbed a hold of the crossbars in the windows of the guardroom. He dropped to the bars of a lower window, which he held for a moment before dropping to the ground. As the guards opened fire on him, he got over a barbed-wire curtain and ran into the woods before being stopped by coils of wire. Security officer Reinhold Eggers called it "the maddest attempt of all."
Franz-Josef & Sinclair	21. 2 September 1943 About midnight, the grandiosely moustachioed Sergeant-Major whom the prisoners had nicknamed Franz Josef appeared at the eastern gate with two sentries. Claiming the camp had had an air-raid distant warning, he relieved the two sentries on duty at the gate early, replacing them with his own. For reasons he could not explain later, the second relieved sentry asked for Franz Josef's pass. It seemed to be in order, but Franz Josef didn't know the password when asked. The sentry pressed his warning bell. A German corporal appeared and demanded Franz Josef's revolver. A scuffle apparently ensued, and the corporal shot Franz Josef. "Good God," cried one of the sentries. "You've shot our Sergeant-Major." But no: It was English Lieut. Michael Sinclair, who survived and went on to attempt two other escapes.
Jack Best	22. 19 January 1944 It was about 5 p.m. Darkness had fallen, but the searchlights had yet to come on. Suddenly a bell rang in the guardroom below the west terrace. Thinking someone wanted to be let in from the upper terrace, the guard went out, only to catch a glimpse of a rope being quickly withdrawn into the prisoners' quarters in the cellar house. The bell had momentarily distracted the guards, allowing Lieut. Michael Sinclair and Flight-Lieut. Jack Best to escape off the lower terrace. The pair managed to get as far as the Dutch frontier before being caught and sent back.
	23. 2 May 1944 On the road leading to the park was an old garbage heap full of cans, cardboard, sticks, rags, and the like. The Germans didn't give it a thought until one day a prisoner was reported missing and, during a search outside the castle, guards came upon a thin, fair-haired man trotting along a path in broad daylight. Tucked under his arm he carried a blanket covered with sewn-on cans, cardboard, sticks, rags, and the like. It was English Lieut. John Beaumont, the French horn player in the prison orchestra, who had hidden in the rubbish until he saw his chance to get over the wall
	24. 25 September 1944 Reinhold Eggers, Colditz head of security, deemed him "the greatest escaper." He was Michael Sinclair, and he had made seven previous escape attempts from Colditz and elsewhere. This warm autumn day, without anyone knowing his plans, Sinclair suddenly leapt over the fence while on the exercise walk in the park. Perhaps he thought he could get through the main wall 150 yards downhill, where a stream flowed beneath it, but a grid covered the opening. Sentries shot him dead, and the Germans buried him in Colditz military cemetery with full honours.
	25. April 1945 The greatest escape that never happened was ready to take flight -- literally -- when Allied troops occupied the castle a few weeks before the end of the war. Behind a dummy wall high in an attic above the chapel, British prisoners had spent months secretly cobbling together a glider. They built it in sections from wooden shutters, mattress covers, and mud fashioned out of attic dust. A German discovered the dummy wall at one point but was silenced with a bribe of 500 cigarettes. After the war, locals broke up the glider. As is chronicled in the NOVA program "Nazi Prison Escape," a replica of the glider recently built by ex-Colditz POWs flew successfully, proving that the inmates' most extraordinary escape vehicle ever may very well have worked, if only given the chance.

Note on Steenhouwer: He became an officer in The Dutch Indies army. Came back to Holland as a Captain in 1939 The reason was to study at the Military High School for being able to get a promotion to Major. Unfortunately the second world war started shortly after that. After that he went back as a Lieutenant Colonel to the Dutch East Indies and retired 1949 after the take over of the Republic Indonesia . Evert died in 1979. (Herman Steenhouwer.)