While the camp was home to prisoners of war from many different countries, including Poland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Canada, in May 1943 Wehrmacht High Command decided to house only British and American officers. Commendably, Macintyre has attempted to answer these questions, whilst at the same time presenting a readable and entertaining book. As a result of family dynastic politics, the town of Colditz was incorporated into the Margraviate of Meissen. if you put all the naughtiest boys in one class, they pool their resistance, egg one another on, and soon your classroom is on fire.

The incredible untold origin story of cyberwar and the hackers who unleashed it on the world, tracing their journey from the ashes of the Cold War to the criminal underworld, governments, and even Silicon Valley.During 1999, a full-sized replica of the glider was commissioned by Channel 4 Television in the UK and was built by Southdown Aviation Ltd. The title to be read and discussed is sign-posted and on sale for the whole of the previous month (with a discount for those who make it known they intend to come) and everybody is welcome, whether first-timer, part-timer or regular-timer. Colditz has become synonymous with daring escapes by stiff upper-lipped British soldiers, in a cat-and-mouse game against their ruthless but foolish German captors. In short, Macintyre illustrates how the manifold strengths and weaknesses of humanity were present in the dour, claustrophobic, Disneyesque castle that was Colditz.

Tales of what happened inside Colditz during those years began to spread even before the war ended, and in the eighty years since those stories have assumed the stuff of myths and legends. During 1694, its then-current owner, King Augustus the Strong of Poland, began to expand it, resulting in a second courtyard and a total of 700 rooms. In a forbidding Gothic castle on a hilltop in the heart of Nazi Germany, an unlikely band of British officers spent the Second World War plotting daring escapes from their Nazi captors. In a forbidding Gothic castle on a hilltop in the heart of Nazi Germany, a band of British officers spent the Second World War plotting daring escapes from their German captors but that story contains only part of the truth.This slim yet insightful and entertaining volume documents the many instances where wine drinkers did not get what they paid for, sometimes with deadly consequences. But, and there's always a but, it merely skims the surface, skates over the inner courtyard cobblestones.

Bringing together the wartime intrigue of his acclaimed Operation Mincemeat and keen psychological portraits of his bestselling true-life spy stories, Macintyre has breathed new life into one of the greatest war stories ever told. His books are frequently made into films and television series, including Operation Mincemeat and SAS: Rogue Heroes in 2022. For younger bookworms – and nostalgic older ones too – there’s the Slightly Foxed Cubs series, in which we’ve reissued a number of classic nature and historical novels.Much of this was because the planning of escapes and generally trying to outwit and annoy the German guards was one of the best ways of keeping occupied and amused. I have not yet fully read the book, but one other key factor that stands out is the general behaviour by the German guards towards their captives. Prisoners of the Castle traces the war’s arc from within Colditz’s stone walls, where the stakes rose as Hitler’s war machine faltered and the men feared that liberation would not come soon enough to spare them a grisly fate at the hands of the Nazis. In 2012, Channel 4 commissioned a team of engineers and carpenters to build another full-sized replica of the glider at Colditz Castle, and launch it (unmanned) from the same roof as had been planned for the original.

He is a columnist and Associate Editor at The Times, and has worked as the newspaper's correspondent in New York, Paris and Washington. In adding so much more colour to the story Colditz, Macintyre does not forget that at heart this was a prisoner of war camp, many of whose inmates were dedicated to continuing the war by other means, of which escaping was the regarded as the best. K.) and the bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor, A Spy Among Friends, Double Cross, Operation Mincemeat, Agent Zigzag, and Rogue Heroes, among other books. During the reigns of Electors Frederick III the Wise and John the Gentle, Colditz was a royal residence of the electors of Saxony.For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend. Macintyre details the famous escapes, but, just as importantly, gives a vivid picture of everyday life in what became Germany’s most elite prison.