Much of the drama in MacIntyre’s account centers on the almost continuous succession of attempted escapes, many of which were extremely elaborate and required months of preparation. One British officer tried eight times, but many others were almost equally persistent. Few were successful. Although there are reports of 174 who made their way outside the castle’s walls, only thirty-two of them reached home. Colditz was 400 kilometers from Switzerland, and the route led through vast expanses of heavily policed Nazi territory. A new television series will dismantle the “mythology” of Colditz and show the racist side of British officers imprisoned there.

Another of Colditz’s famous prisoners was David Stirling – known as “the ghost commander” – who was the famous creator of the Special Air Service (SAS): a special forces unit within the British Army. He described the castle as “the best-guarded pension (hotel) of the Third Reich.” Stirling was captured in one of his famous raids against the airfields and bases of the Afrika Korps in January of 1943. After several escape attempts from various POW camps, he ended up in Colditz. How did this bold, determined, slippery guy not manage escape? “The problem was that he was very tall,” Macintyre said. One of the most demystifying cases that appears in the book is that of Douglas Bader, one of the most legendary pilots of World War II. Bader was a Royal Air Force flying ace credited with 22 aerial victories. He had both his legs amputated after an accident and continued to fly with prostheses (which he filled with ping pong balls to be able to float if he crashed into the water).Having read many WWII books and memoirs, Prisoners of the Castle is a new and unique addition to my WWII library that helps to broaden my perspective and understanding of the war and lives of those touched by it. Well, that’s just what the hundreds of British, French and Polish officers attempted to do over the following five years of the war, as told in Colditz: Prisoners Of The Castle, author Ben Macintyre’s new account of the infamous prison's wartime history. All with a cast of real-life characters you couldn’t make up.

Macintyre so seamlessly fuses so many different accounts that their compilation creates something more profound than a simple escape yarn.” ― The Washington Post Enlisted men received harsher treatment even at Colditz, which included forced labor as batmen to the officers. Elsewhere, Soviet POWs experienced far, far worse. According to Wikipedia, “It is estimated that at least 3.3 million Soviet POWs died in Nazi custody, out of 5.7 million. This figure represents a total of 57% of all Soviet POWs and it may be contrasted with 8,300 out of 231,000 British and U.S. prisoners, or 3.6%.” Most of the Soviet soldiers who died in German custody were among the 2.8 million taken in 1941-42 as the Nazi juggernaut raged across Russian land toward Moscow and Leningrad. Baybutt, Ron; Lange, Johannes (1982). Colditz: The Great Escapes. Little, Brown. p. 8. ISBN 0316083941. Some clever bits include stealing a key, pressing into a bar of soap, and melting tin gathered from the roof to fashion keys to help them in their escape attempts. There is just SO much here to talk about; so many interesting tidbits and stories and individuals, some slimy, others much more heroic. Eggers started a Colditz Museum with foiled escape souvenirs, complete with photos of reenacted escape attempts. They legitimately caught several prisoners attempting escape (one dressed as the Colditz electrician, another dressed as a woman) and requested they pose for a photo for the museum scrapbook. And these are supplied mid-book, which was fantastic. There is too much I could go on about, so just read the book honestly.The only faint criticism I have of this book is that it is, by nature, rather episodic. It does focus on a few of the prisoners, but there are many who come and go - whether by escape, transfer to another POW camp, or death. Still, I had no trouble following the cast of characters and events outside the castle's walls. It certainly made interesting reading after having seen the movie "The Great Escape" any number of times. No motorcycle stunts in this book (or at Stalag Luft III, for that matter), but fascinating nonetheless. Macintyre said that The Great Escape, the 1963 film about a real-life escape from Stalag Luft III, was another example of our desire for history to be turned into an uplifting tale of British heroics.