Colditz Read online

  The nut proved to be very difficult to unscrew, and only ten minutes of the game were left when the manhole was at last opened. The two escapers jumped in.

  The faking of the count on the park walk was accomplished successfully. Vandy however wanted to give his escapers as long a start as possible on their pursuers so he had manufactured two dummies. He had obtained a sack of ceiling plaster by bribing a workman. A Dutch sculptor carved a couple of life-size busts, which were then cleverly painted. Each had two iron hoops fixed underneath the pedestal part of the bust, which was shaped to rest on a man’s arm. A shirt collar and tie were fitted round the neck and finally a long Dutch overcoat was draped over the bust’s shoulders. When not in action, the dummy hung suspended under the forearm of the bearer, hidden in the folds of the overcoat—as if the bearer were carrying an overcoat over his arm. At action stations, the bearer unfolded the overcoat, an Army cap was placed on the dummy’s head, now upright, and the dummy was held shoulder high by a broomstick thrust upwards through a hole in the bust’s neck. This was held in position by the bearer with his arm concealed at elbow height in the flowing mantle of the overcoat. A pair of top boots was placed neatly under the coat in the position of “attention” by an assistant.

  The two busts worked perfectly, concealing the absence of Giebel and Drijber until Vandy allowed the escape to be blown on Sunday morning. They had successfully covered six Appells and given the escapers about thirty-six hours’ start. Indeed Giebel and Drijber crossed the frontier into Switzerland on 23 September. They were held in safe custody in Schaffhausen for five days before going on to Berne and then Geneva. They made use of their time to compose an intricately coded letter detailing their route and experiences, which arrived safely in Colditz—and helped later escapes. They also put together a chessboard and pieces, containing German banknotes and maps and files. The contraband was wrapped in a copy of a Dutch newspaper Vry Nederland, printed in London. This special edition contained the text of a message that Queen Wilhelmina had delivered a few weeks before over the BBC radio to her people in occupied Holland in a Dutch program entitled “Radio Orange.” Chessboard and newspaper arrived safely in Colditz. Major Engles assembled the whole Dutch contingent and in a solemn, moving reunion read out the Dutch Queen’s message.

  It is appropriate to wind up the story of the well at this juncture. Some weeks after the disappearance of Giebel and Drijber, 24 November to be precise, a keen-eyed sentry observed two men entering the manhole during recreation in the park. Lieutenants Geoffrey Wardle RN and Jerzy Wojciechowski were discovered inside. Eggers recorded:

  I felt that this must really be the Dutch escape route and wondered what bargaining had been struck to induce them to lend this “open Sesame” to the British and Poles. We had looked at that cover so many times. It had a great bolt on the top, which we controlled, again and again. We had looked inside regularly. Perhaps it would have been better had we left the cover off altogether.

  So it was only after this attempt that the manhole cover was effectively sealed by concreting a number of bars across it.

  As for the “bargain” that Eggers had the intuition to reflect upon, the Poles had given Vandy much assistance in covering up on roll-calls. They deserved a break! But what had the British done? Stooge Wardle (that is Geoffrey, not Hank, Wardle) thinks in retrospect that the Dutch thought the escape route was “blown,” and so let the British and Poles have a go. I do not remember this escape. I was probably doing “solitary.”

  On 21 September, an order came through from the OKW stating that all German officers had to be saluted when on duty by POWs of whatever rank. The Geneva Convention, however, stated the following in Article 18: “Officer prisoners of war are required to salute only those officers of the detaining power who are of equal or superior rank.”

  There had been a long history of controversy over saluting starting back in January. The Kommandant had decided to visit the prisoners’ quarters. It was 9 January and still extremely cold. The sun did not get over the roofs into the prisoners’ yard until a good 10 a.m. in the shorter days of winter, but even then many were glad to be living in a stone building and not a wooden barracks, which is always damp and cold. There weren’t many people walking in the yard that morning. Eggers went in to the yard with the Kommandant and called out “Achtung!” The circulation of officers stopped for a moment. That was the drill. Everyone looked towards Guy German for a second. He saluted, the circle moved round again.

  From there they went up the circular staircase in the south-east corner. On the first floor were the Polish officers. “Achtung!” Eggers shouted. Most of the officers were lying on their beds reading, smoking, thinking. They all got up slowly, unwillingly, all except Lieutenant Siefert, who stayed on his bed. Eggers took his name.

  On the evening parade Eggers read out the Kommandant’s sentence of five days’ arrest for failing to acknowledge a superior officer. This punishment was normal for officers in the German Army, and military prisoners were all subject to the German Militärstrafgesetzbuch (corresponding to Queen’s Regulations). The sentence was read out also to the French, Belgian and British companies in their own language. It was all very formal. The prisoners were unimpressed by this disciplinary action—sometimes it was warmer in the cells!

  So five days’ arrest meant nothing to any Pole, and when Eggers dismissed the parade, his compatriots rushed to their comrade, shook his hand, embraced him, and then, gathering round, threw him again and again into the air, catching him as he fell, as the Poles like to do with those they approve of.

  Eggers argued with their adjutant, Captain Jan Lados: “If you want us to treat you correctly under the Geneva Convention, you must behave correctly too.” The adjutant destroyed Eggers’ argument: “You Germans don’t apply the Geneva Convention to us. You say Poland as a country no longer exists. You don’t even allow us a Protecting Power to look after our interests as prisoners. The Swiss visit the British every three months. The French have their Scapini Committee to look after them, and they have a Government you recognize, even though it’s Pétain. The Dutch are looked after by the Swedish Government. But we, the Poles, are no one’s children.”

  The Poles had thought it all out, and were going to make a thing of it. A week later, the same incident occurred again. Again Siefert got Arrest. The third time it happened he got a court-martial in Leipzig. He was allowed a local lawyer, a man from the town who had been a prisoner of war in England during the First World War. He claimed to have been well treated, and was always willing to do something in return for this.

  In due course the prosecution at Leipzig demanded a heavy penalty. Here was a Pole, a member of an undisciplined and savage race, so they said, deliberately insulting a superior officer. An example must be made. The defense was that the prisoner did not understand the meaning of the word Achtung! He got a year’s imprisonment and appealed. Generaloberst (Colonel-General) von Beck, commanding the German Reserve Army, allowed the appeal and Lieutenant Siefert returned to Colditz a free man. Tremendous enthusiasm among all the prisoners in the camp! Further, the Polish Senior Officer, Admiral Unrug, protested against the insults to the Polish people uttered in court. The Kommandant tried in vain to get the appeal verdict upset. His failure made things worse, for the result was that saluting practically died out in Colditz, as between the Germans and prisoners, until our famous doctor tried to revive the practice a year later. The only occasion when the Germans were saluted was on roll-call. At the most, on other occasions, officers would stand up slowly when German officers entered quarters or reluctantly take their hands out of their pockets or their pipes out of their mouths when Germans spoke to them. German officers went into POW quarters only of necessity and they tried to speak, as far as possible, only to the Senior Officers of the different companies, and through their official interpreters. But over this matter, there is no doubt they had lost face.

  The court decision in 1941 made things more difficult for them. Not only
was it a rebuff for the Kommandant, who had previously given orders that offenders in the matter of saluting were to be reported and punished, but it brought out differences of opinion among the four German officers who, as Lageroffiziere (camp officers) were in constant contact with the prisoners, taking daily parades, attending searches, sorting out innumerable requests, inspecting quarters.

  Unfortunately, as Eggers has explained, there were two standards among the four camp officers. Eggers was then LO3 (Lageroffizier 3). Hauptmann Paul Priem LO1 was a lively character, fond of battle, fond of life, very much a joker, fond of the bottle, too, and the only one who the British agreed had a sense of humor. Sometimes he would refer to us as “the etceteras”: he would give out notices on parade as applying to the French, the Belgians, the Dutch, the Poles “und so weiter” (“and so on”). The British once put on a variety show in the theater performed by the und so weiter group. Priem did not worry much about discipline in the strict military sense. Having been a schoolmaster like Eggers, he thought he knew how to handle the “bad boys’” camp.

  LO2 was a cavalry captain, Rittmeister Aurich (until March 1941). He would blow up, going blue in the face at the least provocation, as the prisoners very soon discovered. He suffered from mortally high blood pressure. He was all in favor of violence against his charges.

  As for Eggers, LO3, he was not for peace at any price, but felt he was in the position that he knew so well, that of a teacher dealing with a lot of naughty boys. He knew that the first aim of unruly schoolboys is to make the person in charge angry, whatever the consequences, and Eggers also knew that if he lost his temper, he had lost the day and possibly the years to come as well. He said to the British Senior Officer once, “I will never allow you gentlemen the honor of getting me rattled. Correct behavior under the Convention or under our own disciplinary code is my line. Anything your officers do to offend, I shall report the fact. What happens then is not my affair.” Eggers was severely provoked for four years on end by the hotheads among hundreds of officers of all nationalities, ages, ranks and backgrounds. In his experience, it was not easy to put up with active insolence, but dumb insolence was even harder to bear.

  LO4, Hauptmann Hans Püpcke, was of much the same opinion as Eggers but the four were not a harmonious team.

  After the OKW order of 21 September, the German doctor, Hauptmann Doktor Rahm, a Bavarian, decided to take up the cudgels over saluting. He insisted on his salute, or tried to. He insisted that Poland no longer existed. He insisted on a salute not only from officers of equal and lower ranks but even from General Piskor himself. This was too much even for the Kommandant. He refused to back the Tierarzt, who nevertheless persisted in his campaign throughout the autumn and winter until matters came to a head in January 1942.

  On 25 September, almost a score of French officers who were born before or at the turn of the century left Oflag IVC to be repatriated. A number had already left on 4 August. They stood in their ranks of five, after Appell was dismissed, for a farewell speech from Colonel Marq who was their Vertrauensmann (spokesman). At the close of the proceedings, Hauptmann Priem stepped forward with a hand extended to Colonel Marq, and thanked him and them for their Mitarbeit—“collaboration”! There was much speculation as to the significance of that!

  The only “Royal leader” pictures which the Germans would allow on the walls of the French quarters were photographs of Marshal Pétain. The French contingent was divided in itself. There were many more Pétainists than just those who left Colditz in August and September. Most of those who left at that time were probably repatriated on compassionate grounds as les pères de grandes familles—heads of large families who had to support their families. The rest would be collaborateurs who squared their consciences either by a genuine preference for the Germans as compared with the British (the old enemy) or by a cynical appraisal of the war situation.

  Others of the French community were diehards—natural rebels—who preferred the atmosphere of Colditz to that of any other camp. Curiously, most of the French would admit to this—whatever their allegiance. The diehards revelled in being Deutschfeindlich and—typically French too—some collaborateurs preferred in principle to attempt to reach France by escaping rather than by repatriation for the purpose of “working for the economy of the German Reich.”

  This was an expression which formed part of a rigmarole relayed in French to the French and Belgian contingents at irregular intervals on Appell. The announcement asked for volunteers—particularly engineers, chemists or men with other technical skills—who would be lucratively employed if their skills could be fitted into “the economy of the German Reich.” They were invited to state their names and professions.

  There was no response for some time. Then, one day, to the horror of all assembled, a young French officer aspirant Paul Durant, stepped from the ranks, announcing that he wished to work for the Germans. The German interpreter beamed and translated this to the German officer taking the parade. Then he accosted the young Frenchman: “So you really wish to work for the German Reich?”

  “Yes,” replied Durant loudly, “I would prefer to work for a hundred Germans than for one Frenchman.”

  There were gasps and muttered oaths from all who could understand French.

  “All right! What is your name?” from the German.

  “My name is Paul Durant. I wish to make it clearly understood that I would prefer to work for a hundred Germans than for one Frenchman.”

  “Excellent! And what is your profession?”

  “Undertaker!”

  Durant was led away to the cells at once amidst the loudest laughter that the cobbled yard had echoed probably in its whole history. Even the Germans—those who could understand the French word croque-mort—had to join in the uncontrollable outburst.

  8

  The Incorrigibles

  Autumn and Winter 1941

  WITH AUTUMN DRAWING IN, some POWs were getting desperate. There were two incidents within a month when the sentries opened fire on POWs attempting to escape. The first was on 7 October when the French Lieutenant Desjobert climbed over a fence on the return walk from the park. Sentries opened fire and he was cornered without being hit. A second similar attempt over the park wall on 8 November, by two Belgian lieutenants, Marcel Leroy and André Lejeune, had repercussions within the Castle. The Belgians had climbed the wire in the park and were sprinting up the steep hill towards the wall when sentries opened fire. As the sentries stood in a circle they came close to hitting one another. Soon the sentries around the Castle walls joined in, and the British prisoners started trying to distract them by shouting abuse at them from their windows. In no time much of the shooting was directed at them and bullets were striking the Castle wall. Eventually Peter Storie-Pugh hung a Union Jack, left over from the Christmas festivities, out of one of the windows—this maddened the Germans and the shooting grew frenzied. Meanwhile the Belgians, having been unable to climb the wall at that point, stood with their hands up, still under fire.

  The French had known that an escape attempt was on. To attract the attention of the guards they had crowded the windows, shouting, blowing trumpets and singing their favorite refrain, which originated in the First World War: “Où sont les Allemands? / Ils sont tombés dans la merde, / Où on les enfonce—jusqu’aux oreilles.” * Shots were fired at their windows. A dummy wearing a tin hat was placed between the iron bars, and became the object of accurate fire.

  When the Germans conducted an inquiry, five of the sentries swore that they were actually fired on from the Castle! And two of them swore on their Diensteid (service oath) that they had seen the smoke from the shots! Eggers ventured a reconstruction of the action: “Presumably you could crack two bedboards together and blow out a concentration of smoke or tooth powder from a paper bag or football bladder. The five were absolutely certain that they were firing in self-defense. Thank God they killed no one.” At the same inquiry, a German officer concluded, “I regret that no one was hit. I
will instruct the sentries to shoot more accurately in future. There is obviously nothing served in trying to establish a Franco/German tolerance.”

  Five days later the French Senior Officer received the following letter from Schmidt:

  In reply to your letter addressed to me about the incident on the 8 Nov. 1941. During an escape attempt by two Belgian officers on the way to the park, there were what appeared to be shots from the French quarters, which later turned out to be artificially created, complete with smoke. At the same time, paper darts were thrown at the guards, and a steel helmet appeared at a window. It was very clear that the purpose of the demonstration was to distract the attention of the guards. Under the circumstances it was justifiable to open fire. I do not approve of the words used by a German officer, “It’s a pity no one was wounded,” and this I have told him.

  Michal (Miki) Surmanowicz had been escorted to Leipzig on 18 July to attend his court-martial for the bottle-throwing incident. A defense fund, officers contributing five Lagermarks each, was raised to secure the services of the local Colditz lawyer who was later to act for Lieutenant Siefert over his refusal to salute.

  The official notice was given out at morning Appell on 10 October that Surmanowicz had been given a four-year prison sentence. The only comforting aspect was that the war might not last the sentence out.

  Admiral Unrug was indeed so incensed by what he considered the treachery of the Kommandant that he resigned the post of Senior Polish Officer. The Kommandant had assured the admiral that upon the culprit confessing his action the court would be lenient. Instead a fierce sentence of four years had been imposed. General Piskor took over the office of SPO; he ranked senior to the admiral anyway.