Prisoners of the Castle: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison

(Paperback, Large Print Edition)

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The entertaining [and] often-moving account (The Wall Street Journal) of the remarkable POWs whose relentlessly creative attempts to escape a notorious Nazi prison embodied the spirit of resistance against fascism, from the author of The Spy and the Traitor

Macintyre has a knack for finding the most fascinating story lines in history.David Grann, author of The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon

In this gripping narrative, Ben Macintyre tackles one of the most famous prison stories in history and makes it utterly his own. During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners. For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend.

But as Macintyre shows, the story of Colditz was about much more than escape. Its population represented a society in miniature, full of heroes and traitors, class conflicts and secret alliances, and the full range of human joy and despair. In Macintyres telling, Colditzs most famous nameslike the indomitable Pat Reidshare glory with lesser known but equally remarkable characters like Indian doctor Birendranath Mazumdar whose ill treatment, hunger strike, and eventual escape read like fiction; Florimond Duke, Americas oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent; and Christopher Clayton Hutton, the brilliant inventor employed by British intelligence to manufacture covert escape aids for POWs.

Prisoners of the Castle traces the wars arc from within Colditzs stone walls, where the stakes rose as Hitlers war machine faltered and the men feared that liberation would not come soon enough to spare them a grisly fate at the hands of the Nazis. Bringing together the wartime intrigue of his acclaimed Operation Mincemeat and keen psychological portraits of his bestselling true-life spy stories, Macintyre has breathed new life into one of the greatest war stories ever told.

Reviews

Praise for Prisoners of the Castle

Macintyre so seamlessly fuses so many different accounts that their compilation creates something more profound than a simple escape yarn.The Washington Post

In retelling the story of Colditz, [Macintyre] makes it his own. [An]entertaining yet objectiveandoften-moving account.The Wall Street Journal

Not since Ian Fleming and John le Carr has a spy writer so captivated readers.The Hollywood Reporter

Macintyre details the famous escapes, but, just as importantly, givesa vivid pictureof everyday life in what became Germanys most elite prison. Set aside a few hours for this book, sinceonce you start reading, you will not stop until the last page.AirMail

Riveting . . . This is another engrossing tale of WWII intrigue from a master of the genre.Publishers Weekly

A mixture of derring-do and a vivid, warts-and-all portrayal of the iconic castle.Kirkus Reviews



Praise for Ben Macintyre

John le Carres nonfiction counterpart.The New York Times

Macintyre has a knack for finding the most fascinating story lines in history.DavidGrann

One of the most gifted espionage writers around.Annie Jacobsen

Macintyre is a supremely gifted storyteller. . . . His books are absurdly entertaining.The Boston Globe

Author Bio

Ben Macintyre is a writer-at-large for The Times (U.K.) and the bestselling author of Agent Sonya, The Spy and the Traitor, A Spy Among Friends, Double Cross, Operation Mincemeat, Agent Zigzag, and Rogue Heroes, among other books. Macintyre has also written and presented BBC documentaries of his work.