Colditz Castle is probably best known as a high security prison used by the Nazis during World War II to contain Allied prisoners who they considered to be “incorrigible”. However, the castle is over 800 years old so there is far more to its history than the six years when it was known as Oflag IV-C.

Work began in the mid 12th century on the imposing castle set on a hill overlooking Colditz in Saxony, Germany. Within a few years, settlements sprung up in the area of the castle and after nearly 250 years, it was sold by the Lords of Coldtiz.

A major fire in the early 16th century meant that large parts of the castle had to be rebuilt as well as the city hall, church and large parts of the city. Over the centuries, renovation and rebuilding work saw the shape of the castle change and in the 19th century it was rebuilt again and used as a workhouse and later a mental hospital right up until 1924.

In 1933, the Nazis came to power and converted the castle to a prison for political prisoners. After the start of World War II in 1939, Prisoners Of War were housed here. It was used to contain high risk prisoners who were considered dangerous and likely to try to escape. Although it was a high security prisoner, the nature of the inmates at Oflag IV-C (it’s prison camp name), meant there were many ingenious escape attempts. There was even one scheme where prisoners planned to use a glider although it was never used as the Allies retook the castle before the escape attempt could be staged.

Colditz was a prison camp for officers and there were also a number of famous inmates including the British air ace, Douglas Bader, Patrick Reid who wrote a number of books on Colditz after the war, Airey Neave who was the first officer to escape from the prison and was also eventually elected to the British Parliament, Sir David Stirling who founded the Special Air Service and Charles Upham from New Zealand who was awarded the Victoria Cross and bar. One of the most notable of all was Giles Romilly who was the nephew of Winston Churchill’s wife.

In recent years, Colditz Castle has been renovated and is open to visitors to see this historic building for themselves.

Rob Atherton
http://www.robatherton.com