Amazing photos showing daring escape bids from the Nazis “inescapable” Colditz Castle prison camp have come to light.
They show the ingenuity of the Allied fighters who devised ever-bolder ways of breaking out during World War Two.
A life-like dummy in army uniform is held up among the men at roll call to trick guards into thinking an escaper was still in the castle.
One would-be fugitive is pictured poking his head from a hole in the floor where a toilet once stood.
Photos taken outside the castle show a rope of tied bed sheets PoWs tried to slide down from a top-floor window.
Others reveal the many tunnels dug using tools smuggled inside in care parcels.
Flying ace Douglas Bader is seen front centre in a group shot with 17 other escape experts including Flt/Lts Bill Goldfinch and Jack Best who built the renowned Colditz Cock escape glider.
Poignantly, there are also images of prisoners who did not survive.
They include seven British commandos photographed days before they were executed on Hitler’s orders for a 1942 raid on a Norwegian hydro-electric plant.
The thousand-year-old castle near Leipzig had seven-foot-thick walls and was built on a cliff 250ft above a river.
The Germans, who reserved it for officers who had made serial escape attempts, considered it impenetrable.
But they had not taken into account the resourcefulness of the inmates.
They would fashion German uniforms and try to impersonate guards or officers during a commotion.
Tools were smuggled in concealed in everyday items including soap, hairbrushes and cotton reels. Several tunnels were dug but there were also more outlandish attempts. One man got out nailed into a tea chest; another was sewn into a mattress.
But perhaps the most daring was the two-seater glider built in an attic by Bill Goldfinch and Jack Best.
It had a 32-ft wingspan and was to be launched down a runway made of tables.
The glider never flew. It was approaching completion when American forces liberated the camp on April 16, 1945.
However, a replica took to the air in a 1999 TV reconstruction. When inmates were not trying to escape they took part in elaborate stage productions. One photo shows prisoners performing in drag while another captures the camp band.
The 663 images sparked a bidding war when they went under the hammer with auctioneers Warwick & Warwick – achieving four times the estimate.
The album, which contains many unpublished shots, was sold by a private collector for £7,000.
Paul Murray, auctioneer at Warwick & Warwick, said: “The inmates tried anything they could think of in order to escape.
You can only admire their courage and resourcefulness. Along with the Great Escape camp (Stalag Luft III), Colditz is the other German PoW camp that comes to mind. It is iconic.”
The castle also housed “prominente” – notable prisoners the Germans thought may be useful. They included Winston Churchill’s nephew and two nephews of King George VI. Thirty-two PoWs managed to escape, 15 achieving “home runs” across Europe to safety.
One was Airey Neave who later served in Margaret Thatcher’s government and was killed in a 1979 IRA bomb attack.
adam.aspinall@mirror.co.uk
@MirrorAsp
