The day of freedom is not set by judge or jury, but by events in a distant theater of conflict." Those familiar with MacIntyre’s work will recognise many of the attributes that have made him such a successful writer. He tells compelling stories well, with energy and humour. His unerring eye for the telling detail that can illuminate a greater story is apparent in Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle.

The astonishing inside story, revealed for the first time in this new book by bestselling historian Ben Macintyre, is a tale of the indomitable human spirit, but also one of snobbery, class conflict, homosexuality, bullying, espionage, boredom, insanity and farce. With access to an astonishing range of material, Macintyre reveals a remarkable cast of characters of multiple nationalities hitherto hidden from history, with captors and prisoners living for years cheek-by-jowl in a thrilling game of cat and mouse. 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. Apesar da sua aparente inexpugnabilidade houve muitas fugas com sucesso - conseguiram sair da Alemanha - e nem todas pelos tradicionais túneis escavados e algumas delas dignas de um filme hollywoodesco como por exemplo a de Mairesse-Lebrun. The Colditz Story is the tale of the British prisoners of war incarcerated in Oflag IV C, Colditz Castle, which was used to hold officers who had already attempted to escape from other camps by the Germans during the Second World War. Reid, as Escape Officer (co-ordinator of escape attempts) helped organise many escapes and was in an ideal position to document them. The book covers the period from Reid's arrival as Colditz was being set up, to his own successful escape to Switzerland a couple of years later. Douglas Bader may have been a national hero but Macintyre shows him to be a heartless, arrogant bully.

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One can only wonder what Oleg Gordievsky would make of the reaction to Mikhail Gorbachev’s passing in August 2022. The Soviet leader was venerated as a liberator in the West but held in contempt by many Russians for destroying the Soviet empire. Almost four decades later, realpolitik has turned full circle, with Vladimir Putin trying to resurrect the empire through his brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Colditz is a castle in the German town of the same name, best known for being a POW prison housing captured Allied officers during World War II. It had a reputation for being inescapable, so of course this is a story about escaping the fortress. He’s referring here to the fact that when Gordievsky was safely ensconced in England, the Russian used his prodigious memory to pass on vast troves of intelligence to the West. Most notably, he revealed the extent to which the Soviets were paranoid that the US would launch a first strike against them. Bader may have been a national hero but Macintyre shows him to be a heartless, arrogant bully. How much is known about Bader’s true character? “Well, not as much as is in this book. Douglas Bader interests me because he’s a bastard, but on the other hand he was one of my childhood heroes. Yet he did incredible things for handicapped people.”

The Sydney Morning Herald

This book covers, not only the successful escapes but also the many unsuccessful attempts (and there were many). The prisoners were determined and some of their efforts were quite daring, inventive, and amazing. The author delves into the lives and personalities of these brave men and those of the Nazis who were in charge of the camp. The treatment of the prisoners was fairly humane except for solitary confinement and boredom was basically the worst part of the experience. World War II prisoner-of-war escapes are a staple of adventure fiction. IMDB lists twenty-one films on the theme, most prominently the 1963 production The Great Escape, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough. In reality, however, successful escapes were rare. Britain’s Imperial War Museum notes that “Of the 170,000 British and Commonwealth prisoners of war in Germany in the Second World War, fewer than 1,200 of them managed to escape successfully and make a ‘home run.'” But the numbers fall far short of conveying the sheer drama in the German camps. And perhaps the most colorful examples have emerged from Colditz, the Nazi camp for Allied officers in Germany’s east from 1939 to 1945. Author Ben MacIntyre brings the drama into high relief in Prisoners of the Castle, a nonfiction rendering of life in the most famous of the nearly one hundred WWII Nazi POW camps. It´s quite amazing all these things they have come up with! I must say I don´t believe I could´ve. And the boldness it´s taken them! But they used all the chances they found and were given. Just quite unimaginable. All this snooping and test escape plans are getting me quite excited! Feel like playing a little escape from colditz! So they are making a tunnel, climbing route did not work.

Bader was shot down in August of 1941, captured and interned in various camps (from which he inevitably tried to escape), until he was sent to Colditz. “Bader was one of my childhood heroes, as he was for many British children. But although he set an example of tenacity and willpower and courage, he was also a bastard,” Macintyre noted. The inventiveness that came out of this was remarkable, and one escape attempt followed another. But few were successful in making ‘home runs’. One of only a handful who did was Airey Neave, later a leading Tory politician and supporter of Margaret Thatcher. Divided inmates The prisoners sent to Colditz had all escaped before from other camps and were sent there because it was considered escape-proof - ha! The Germans' mistake, of course, was to concentrate all that energy and skill in one place, so the prisoners were not so much concerned with whether they could escape but whether they could beat their fellow prisoners to the draw. As 1944 became 1945, serious hunger stalked the prison camp. The Red Cross parcels ceased to arrive, but the inmates still fared better than their guards, who had no extra supplies to add to their now-miserable diet.Most of the POW’s had skills to contribute to the daily escape attempts. There were magicians, card sharks, pole vaulters, theater actors, famous ace pilots, electricians, rugby players, charmers, and more. Of the 35,000 Allied troops who made their way to safety from captivity or after being shot down about half were carrying one of Hutton's maps." War stories are usually about what happened. The story of Colditz, by contrast, is largely a tale of inactivity, a long procession of duplicate days when little of note occurred, punctuated by moments of intense excitement. British pilot Douglas “Tin Legs” Bader was one of Colditz’s most famous prisoners. Credit: Getty Images Obviously, this is a war story so most of this is pretty bleak. However, there are plenty of moments of humor, touching humanism, and joy. I got legitimately choked up when the men starting building the glider, despite the extreme unlikeliness that it would work. "...It had more to do with mythical escapism and imagination than with a real escape. It was a dream for the prisoner collective: to fly away to freedom." After years of mostly failed escape attempts, increasing loss of hope as rations and other supplies dwindled, and deep fears that the prisoners might all be murdered if Germany was losing and the Allied powers reached the castle....imagine these defeated men pooling their ingenuity to build something so magnificent, such a beautiful dream of freedom. Ugh, it got to me.