Colditz Castle in Leipzig, Germany: the Prison of No Escape

An old medieval castle in Leipzig, Germany was used as an inescapable prison during World War II. However, like any prison, there were many attempts by inmates to escape. In this prison 130 attempts over a small 4 year period. 30 of them were successful.

The castle was built in 1041 as a hunting lodge for the Saxony Kings. Throughout its' history the castle was used in war and siege. It has been rebuilt and updated many times. During the 15th century, it was totally destroyed by fire. In 1583, it was rebuilt and given as a gift to a Danish Prince. In 1800 the castle was used as a hospital for the mentally insane. It stayed this way until World War II, when the Nazi's converted it into an inescapable prison.

The Germans wanted a secure prison for Allied POW's. They converted, what they thought would be the strongest security prison in the world, the Golditz Castle. They added improvements to it to make it stronger and they even had more guards than prisoners. Many of the prisoners were sent to Golditz because they had tried or even escaped from other prisons. Escaping from Golditz was only part of the solution. Since the prison was in Germany, prisoners were behind enemy lines. They needed disguises and had to use escape and evade tactics.

If a prisoner was recaptured, they had three weeks in solitary confinement. The commandant of the Prison was Reinhold Egger's. He would often take pictures of the prisoners with their disguises and keep a journal on how each escape transpired. In 1961 he published a book about his time in charge of the prison. The book was titled "Golditz, The German side of the Story." Egger's followed the rules of the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners. He was a former schoolteacher. He was not like the other heel-clicking officers with a short temper. He was more laid back and sort of amused by the way different escapes tried to proceed from the castle.

One of the most fascinating stories of an escape that failed was about the construction of a glider. In April of 1945, the allied forces had taken control of Golditz. While they were there they found a glider that had been built by British POW's. They had constructed it without the Germans ever knowing about it. It was made out of mattress covers and wooden shutters. They even used mud and dirt from the prison floors. They built a fake wall to hide the glider in a room. However, it was discovered by a German Guard. He was bribed with 500 cigarettes to keep quiet, which he did. The glider took months to build but it was never used because the war ended. The Allied forces that occupied the castle after the war left the glider there but, locals broke it up once they regained control of Golditz after the war. A few years after the war, former POW's of Golditz rebuilt a replica. It flew. They believe it would have worked in an escape attempt.

There are other remarkable accounts of escapes, too. The first attempt on April 12, 1941 was a successful attempt. A French Lieutenant named Alain Le Ray escaped while on their daily exercise walk in the park. He hide in a cellar of house along the park walk, waited till dark, climbed the park fence, and vanished into Switzerland.

In the late summer of 1941, several prisoners unexpectedly disappeared over the course of a few days. Dutch officers managed to escape through a manhole in the park. Four got away but, two were captured. The Germans tried to bolt the lid down but, the Dutch officers figured away to get it open.

May 2, 1944, Englishman John Beaumont successfully escaped. He would pass a trash dump each day on his walk to the park. It was located alongside the road. One day, he made a blanket that he had sewed items of trash on it. He had rags, sticks, cans, and cardboard on it. He quickly jumped on the dump, covered himself up, waited till dark, and scaled the wall to freedom. Egger's was upset. the prison orchestra had lost their only French Horn player.

Several prisoners became straw mattresses. At the request of the Germans on May 8, 1941, the prisoners brought down unused mattresses from the attic to be taken to the dump. They loaded them on a cart and hauled them to the city dump in Golditz. Although some were eventually re-captured, Peter Allan got away. The prisoners hid inside the mattresses.

I sometimes wonder how Frank Morris would have done at Golditz. Supposedly, Morris is the only prisoner to escape from Alcatraz. I am sure with his superior intellect, Morris would have been quite and addition to Egger's book.

sources; Reinhold Eggers, Golditz, The German Side of the Story