Notes

prisoners of the castle
Ben Macintyre.
xxii, 353 pages ; 32 unnumbered pages of plates ; illustrations, maps, portraits.
Summary: 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 German captors. Or so the story of Colditz has gone, unchallenged for 70 years. This is a tale of the indomitable human spirit, but also one of class conflict, homosexuality, espionage, insanity and farce. Through a range of material, the author reveals a remarkable cast of characters, wider than previously seen and hitherto hidden from history, taking in prisoners and captors who were living cheek-by-jowl in a game of cat and mouse. From the elitist members of the Colditz Bullingdon Club to America's oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent, the soldier-prisoners of Colditz were courageous and resilient as well as vulnerable and fearful -- and astonishingly imaginative in their desperate escape attempts. (Publisher)