Colditz Read online

  Captain A. L. C. Dufour and Lieutenant J. G. Smit, officers of the Netherlands East Indies Army, would be the first to have a go at it. Lieutenant E. H. Larive (who later described the escapes in The Man Who Came in from Colditz) primed them for hours on “musts” and “must nots” for the journey to Switzerland. He drew them a detailed map of the Swiss border region of Singen.

  On Wednesday afternoon, 13 August 1941, the Dutch assembled for the park exercise parade. British officers had been temporarily deprived of this privilege and as usual tried to get out in borrowed uniforms, but two were recognized by the guards when counted and were sent back. This proved to be a lucky coincidence.

  An hour after their arrival in the park the plan was set in motion. The Dutch formed a great circle around the well and were throwing a football across to each other. Gradually they moved in closer. When the circle was so small that they touched each others’ elbows and had effectively screened the well, Dufour and Smit moved into the middle. The sentries along the fence were being watched and at a suitable moment a signal was given. Dufour lifted the lid and they quickly slipped in, closing the lid above them. The ball game went on and gradually the circle was enlarged again until the groups broke up. Nothing had been noticed.

  The trickiest part, however, had yet to come.

  A whistle sounded indicating that the time was up and the prisoners formed up near the gate for counting before being marched off. “Donnerwetter—two short!” The Germans searched the grounds, but as expected, overlooked the well, flush with the ground. Why not? The prisoners had overlooked it for a long time. Someone suggested that the numbers were quite correct, as the guard commander had sent two Englishmen back before leaving the Castle.

  Although they had counted the prisoners on arrival at the park and should have realized two were missing, the remark seemed to have its effect in casting doubts. The prisoners were marched back forthwith. On arrival at the camp, however, they were not allowed inside. At the outer gate they were recounted seven times by three different Germans who disagreed as to whether there were two short or not.

  The only answer was an Appell for all those who had not been out in the park. The Germans still could not make up their minds. The park parade was marched in and there was another Appell, this time the whole camp together. The answer foxed them completely—all present! The German officers present deliberated for five minutes and then gave up. The parade was dismissed.

  They had slipped up on one point.

  The Dutch group always stood in rows of five when fallen in, which made counting easy. The Germans merely counted the rows and so many times five plus an odd man or two gave the correct number. From the front, side and back the Dutch formed neat, straight lines. The Germans were so used to this that they had stopped looking from the side; if they had done so that day they would have noticed that the lines were not quite straight. To conceal the gaps caused by two absentees, two rows of four had to shift position slightly, thereby disturbing the “dressing” of the line. As customary, the Germans had only counted the rows—the officer from the front, the sergeant from the back. Correct!

  During evening Appell the same positions were adopted. The duty officer counted them from the front, made his calculations and said, “Stimmt”—correct! The sergeant completed his check-up and reported two rows of four! “Unmöglich,” said the duty officer—impossible. He had personally counted them and found everything in order.

  The next morning the same officer counted the Dutch very carefully, checking row by row. “Correct!” he told his subordinate. “You see!”

  After roll-call the Dutch thanked two Poles who had taken the places of Dufour and Smit.

  The Polish roll-call, however, had not disclosed any absentees either. They had their own method.

  They had two corner rooms in their wing which were interconnected by a little sliding panel window in the wall, making it possible to move from a bed in one room to a bed in the other room faster than a person could walk from one room to the other. During the Appell, four Poles were reported sick in bed. A German orderly was sent up to check; as soon as he had seen the two Poles in the first room, the latter shot like rabbits through the hole in the wall into the next room and tucked themselves nicely away under the blankets where they were counted again.

  “Four sick in bed,” reported the German orderly.

  This ruse was kept up for twenty-four hours. Lieutenants Flanti Steinmetz and Larive himself would make an actual attempt at breaking out through the well on 16 August while three others, Lieutenants Douw van der Krap, van Lynden and “Bear” Kruimink (all Royal Netherlands Navy), would hide inside the Castle for an indefinite period before actually attempting another form of get-away at a suitable moment. The Germans would be looking for five escapers when only Steinmetz and Larive had escaped. By the time the search activities for five absentees had ceased, the concealed three would at least be free from the pressure of a hunt. A camouflaged hole in the wall of the Dutch quarters led to a concealed space between two rooms. Ten days later, unfortunately, the Germans made a very thorough search of their quarters and discovered the three missing men.

  An additional distraction in the exercise park was added to the original scheme, to draw attention away from the well. After arrival in the park, Lieutenant G. Dames settled himself under a tree near the barbed wire, in between two guards, and, leaning backwards, was seen to be quietly reading a book. At a given signal, he began cautiously cutting a hole in the wire behind his back.

  While the Dutch circle gradually closed in on the well, another officer started to pull playfully at the barbed wire in another section of the fence until he had infuriated the nearest guard. The latter’s angry shouts drew the attention of all the other guards. When he was just about ready to shoot, the circle closed in and Steinmetz and Larive dropped into the well.

  At this moment, Dames, having completed his little hole, quietly pretended to creep through. As expected, he was seen practically the moment he tried. Raising his hands in surrender, he and others in the park shouted at the top of their voices: “Run, run!”

  The two escapers in the well took off their shoes, socks, pants and underwear, which they hung around their necks, and, descending a ladder of rungs, went right down into the water. To conceal this presence further they had a dark gray blanket which they spread out above their heads, holding it up in the corners with their hands. The camouflage might work.

  In a matter of minutes the Germans would start their escape-alarm system, if the search of the park proved fruitless. The two would remain in the well until it grew dark at 10 p.m. It was 3 p.m. now. The ruse whereby Dames made a hole in the wire, and the shouts of “Run, run!”, had the desired effect. The Germans only made a cursory search of the park after the count had revealed two were missing. After a couple of hours, when it became unlikely they would look in the well, the two Dutchmen crept out of the water and remained on the rungs inside the well; it was at least dry there and, by pressing their backs against the wall, they could rest their aching arms. Time crawled by for the two men and splitting headaches gradually numbed their brains, while their lungs heaved laboriously in the effort to breathe. Larive suddenly realized what the matter was—lack of oxygen—they were slowly suffocating. He dragged himself up the steps, lifted the lid an inch and inserted a pocket-knife to keep it ajar. With lips touching the lid they sucked in the life-bringing air.

  At 10 p.m. it was pitch dark. They nipped out, climbed over the barbed-wire fence and scaled the twelve-foot wall via a tree. They reached Leisnig at daybreak, in time for the first train.

  Steinmetz, who spoke the better German, bought tickets to Dresden. Aware of the fact that all railway stations in the neighborhood would have been alerted to look out for suspicious characters, they dreaded this moment. Incredibly enough, nothing happened. They did not waste any time in Dresden and went straight on to Ulm.

  Once in the train they asked the conductor for the best route to Ulm and he
advised them to change at Markt-Redwitz instead of travelling via Regensburg as they had intended to do. The connections at Ulm would be better he said. The journey was quiet and peaceful. They had money enough to travel in comfort all the way to Singen. They enjoyed the scenery like tourists. The only scare they had was the appearance from time to time of the military police patrols. Fortunately, however, they seemed to confine their activities to checking military personnel.

  At midnight they arrived in Nuremberg and discovered to their dismay that the train for Ulm did not leave until 6 a.m. They eventually found what they were looking for—just off the main street, completely in the dark, a church. In the garden were a number of benches, most of which were occupied by courting couples. As it might look strange for two men to sit in a garden in the dark, they had to pretend to be lovers as well.

  At 6 a.m. they caught their train and arrived in Singen an hour before dusk. After handing in their tickets they left the station and turned left, right and left again, crossed the single line, turned left and came to a road running parallel to the double track. Larive could not miss. He was sure and confident as if it were his home town. He had learned something about Singen in the past.

  Maybe he was overconfident. They suffered many vicissitudes during that afternoon: they were spotted and suspected by guards, they had to run for it, they were shot at and the frontier alarm was raised. They were near Gottmadingen. Hiding in a wood they observed great activity at a nearby guardhouse. The sky was heavily overcast and dusk was falling quickly now—a few minutes later it even started to rain. Good, the harder the better; it would make the night pitch black and the guards less observant. A group of soldiers on bicycles left the guardhouse and rode off towards the village. Every quarter of a mile one got off and took up guard duty on the road, which they had to cross to reach the Swiss border. That was not so good, but it was an advantage to know they were there. Suddenly they heard rifle shots behind them and the barking of dogs. The hunt was on! Not having the scent, the Germans were probably trying to raise the escapers by firing their rifles in the hope that the dogs would pick up the scent or sound of running feet.

  After a quarter of an hour the hunters seemed to have moved on and only the pitter-patter of rain dripping from the leaves could be heard.

  At about 10 p.m. Larive and Steinmetz left the wood. Utter darkness reigned all around, making it impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. With the aid of their phosphorus-dialed compass, they struck south, creeping forward on elbows and stomachs, yard by yard, repeatedly stopping to listen. Gradually they approached the road and moved even more stealthily when they could distinguish the outline of trees.

  Before crossing the road they took off their shoes and then slithered across, still on their stomachs. They were not taking any more chances and they kept up their reptile-like progress for the next hundred yards before putting on shoes to proceed on foot. It was about 2 a.m. now. It had taken them four hours to cover 600 yards!

  Carefully picking their way between the crops they slowly moved on, as if walking on thin ice, constantly stopping to listen for any signs of danger. On a southerly course they hit a road running due south. That would be the road from Gottmadingen to Switzerland. Then they noticed a signpost; Steinmetz climbed up the pole to distinguish the letters. “God! Deutsches Zollamt—German Customs!” he exclaimed and dropped down like a dead duck. If there were to be a sentry anywhere it would be here! Away they went again, as fast as they could.

  According to Larive’s calculations they should have crossed the border by now, but … had they? They were becoming extremely tired; they had been on their way for two and a half days now, without sleep and with only a couple of bars of chocolate to eat, while constantly on the alert or on the move. They were soaked through and the chill had numbed them. They leaned against the wall of a barn. They were now liable to do stupid things. Suddenly the stinging white beam of a strong torch flashed on them, making it impossible to see what was behind it. They could hear only the slushing sound of heavy boots in the mud—coming closer.

  They stood as if riveted to the spot, rigid with fright and pinned to the wall by that beam. Three feet in front of them the invisible man stopped and played the beam from left to right and from top to bottom. Then they heard what they feared to hear most of all—German! “Wer sind Sie? Was machen Sie hier? Who are you? What are you doing here?” Then he spoke again: “Sie sind in der Schweiz. Sie müssen mit mir kommen! You are in Switzerland. You’ll have to come with me.”

  In the village further down, called Ramsen, the police took particulars and when they heard that they were Dutch asked whether they knew Trebels and van der Veen. These two had crossed the border at the same spot and were actually taken into custody by the same Swiss guard.

  The Swiss had no knowledge, however, of Dufour and Smit.

  Back in Colditz the park was now so suspect as an avenue of escape that all walks were cancelled for some time. During the search in the Dutch quarters after the five were found missing, the Germans discovered a map “with detailed instructions how to get from Tuttlingen in south-west Germany to the Swiss frontier and over it.”

  There is a long story behind this map. After the Dutch capitulation, Larive had found himself in the naval barracks at Amsterdam, where officially the Dutchmen were prisoners of war, though they were free to move where and when they liked. When the time came on 15 July 1940 to sign the Declaration, Larive refused, and was joined by only one of his colleagues from the barracks, Lieutenant Steinmetz. They were taken to Oflag VIA in Soest. From Soest Larive escaped. He reached the Swiss frontier near Singen, where he was trapped, and taken to the area headquarters of the Gestapo. He was escorted into a room. Behind a desk was a big, bull-like man in a dressing-gown. In the corner a young man was typing. Larive told them he was an officer of the Merchant Navy, called into active service last year in the Far East. He was now on his way back to the Far East.

  The “bull” quite believed his story and became rather friendly in the end. He told Larive that he had been chief cook in a Dutch hotel a few years before the war. Larive described the last part of his journey. The “bull” remarked that the only clever thing Larive had done was getting off the train at Singen—all the rest was damned stupid.

  “Why?” asked Larive.

  “You must have known that Singen was the last station where anyone could get on or off the train without showing an identity card.”

  “No, that was just a guess.”

  “Having managed to get that far it was stupid to take a train instead of walking across the border,” he said.

  “Well, the reason is that I didn’t know how to get through the defense line.”

  “Defense line!” the “bull” exploded. “Defense line against whom? Surely not against those damned Swiss? What a crazy idea. There are no defenses at all; we haven’t got a single man to guard the border! You could have walked straight across.”

  From a drawer he produced a staff map and Larive had to point out the route he had taken.

  “You fool,” he said. “Look.” He indicated the spot where Larive had unknowingly walked past a part of the Swiss border jutting into Germany, at a distance of only about 300 yards. He asked Larive whether he remembered a certain house at the edge of a wood and the road leading past that house into the wood—the sharp bend further down? Well, a quarter of a mile beyond that bend Larive should have turned left off the main road and followed a path. After a few hundred yards, he would have been in Switzerland—just as easily as that.

  Larive asked him for some more information on various points. Naturally he would not manage to escape for the second time and besides, the war would be over by Christmas; it was not worth the risk of being shot for such a short term of imprisonment. Larive asked questions about everything which would be of any interest to an escaper, and he learned a lot.

  Within a year, five of his friends as well as himself escaped into Switzerland, making use of this informati
on, and crossing the border as indicated by the “bull.”

  In November 1940, Larive was moved to Oflag VIIIC in Juliusburg, near Breslau. The new camp was small and rather peculiar. It consisted of part of a nunnery-cum-orphanage and was called Amalienstift. Two-thirds of the main building had been requisitioned for a POW camp, while the remaining part was still occupied by nuns and orphans. There were about 450 Belgian prisoners and four Dutch officers, the latter having been sent there direct from Holland. Among them were Trebels and van der Veen, and it was from Juliusburg that they made their escape, crossing safely into Switzerland by means of Larive’s information about Singen.

  Also at Oflag VIIIC was van den Heuvel. The Germans soon realized that he was the leading personality in the escape organization and they tried to get rid of him. A sentry was posted in his cell with orders to shoot him at his first suspicious move—so van den Heuvel remained most of the time in his bunk. When the Germans could not eliminate him this way, they withdrew the sentry from the cell and tried another way.

  Van den Heuvel took his daily exercise by walking up and down along the barbed-wire fence. Their intention was to take him out for his airing during a meal hour when the other prisoners would be inside the building. The sentry accompanying him outside would remain out of the way and van den Heuvel would then be shot close to the wire from one of the machine-gun towers, allegedly trying to escape. One of the Oflag censors, however, a German who had lived most of his life in Belgium and had often passed the Dutch useful information in return for chocolate, coffee and other items, warned them in time against the plot. The next day several Dutchmen remained outside the building, unobtrusively reading newspapers and chatting on the steps. Half an hour before van den Heuvel was due to be “aired,” the guards in the machine-gun towers were relieved by soldiers who were recognized as Nazis, belonging to the SS, although it was not the usual time for guard-changing. Van den Heuvel had been warned. He stayed close to the wall. It was a disappointed security officer who saw van den Heuvel stroll into his cell again afterwards.