Occasional Observations

Sometimes, people are more famous internationally than at home. Take 1980s heavy rock band Def Leppard, for example, who could fill stadiums in the US but never really made a lasting impression on the charts in the UK, despite being originally from Sheffield, and the unknown-at-home-but-big-in-America Bush.

Colditz Castle in Saxony, Germany, falls into the same category. In Germany it?s almost unheard-of and certainly not on the map for most tourists visiting nearby Dresden and Leipzig. But for Brits it?s up there ? probably in the top 10 places an Englishman would have heard of in Germany.

Why? Because during WW2 the castle was used as a prisoner-of-war camp for Allied officers: not all, but those who had already tried to escape from a PoW camp. A then-abandoned mental hospital, Colditz already offered secure accommodation for 600-plus prisoners as well as further barracks for German soldiers. Tucked away between Leipzig and Dresden, Colditz also had geography on its side, being several hundred KM from the borders of neutral Switzerland, and from the North Sea.

It was only in the 1950s that Colditz? rise to fame began ? with the publication of his first-person escape from the castle by Pat Reid. Further books followed, since 25-plus British, French and Canadian prisoners managed to escape and make a ?home run? to freedom between the years 1941 and 1945. Superstardom arrived with the movies The Colditz Story and later, the TV series. The castle was ?home? to many high-profile prisoners including Douglas Bader and Airey Neave.

Tourists hoping to visit Colditz, however, were disappointed, as the castle was behind the Iron Curtain and therefore largely inaccessible to tourists. It was only after the wall came down that renovations to the castle began, and at the end of 2006, the section that was the former German barracks opened as an International Youth Hostel.

The legend of Colditz is told during a guided tour which lasts approximately an hour and provides a glimpse of the famous tunnel dug by French PoWs, from a 16^th Century wine cellar into the adjoining Chapel ? continuing between the floorboards and the stone floor along the length of the Chapel and to within 10 meters of freedom. Just days before the tunnel was completed, it was discovered, therefore thwarting the escape of up to 200 prisoners.

Visitors hoping to see the home-made glider will however be disappointed. There?s only one photograph ? taken by a US GI in 1945 when the castle was liberated ? and no chance to visit the attic where it was built. The plan was to launch the glider with the help of a bathtub which, when dropped over the sheer castle wall, would provide the momentum to launch the glider into flight for the planned 500-meter flight into a riverside meadow within sight of the castle. Possibly more of a white elephant than a real escape project, the glider was one of many ingenious escape ruses that no doubt kept morale high for the officer PoWs.

They weren?t exactly suffering though ? thanks to the Geneva Convention, the most-severe punishment that could be meted out to prisoners was a stretch of solitary confinement, but still with regular meals and an hour?s fresh air per day. Outside solitary, the prisoners received pay (in the form of a micro-currency valid only for the prison shop), food parcels from the Red Cross, and were probably better-fed than their German guards.

Labels: tourism

# posted by Nesjo : 10:01