Colditz Read online

  While the Poles and the French were waiting in the yard, Stabsarzt (Surgeon-Major) Rahm entered through the main gate, the “eye of the needle.” He was always punctual. It was exactly 9 a.m. Many officers were walking round. With a large number of potential salutes before him, he scented blood. The “horse doctor” made straight for the nearest group, whose attitude promised a rich harvest. The group split in two, one going towards the left-hand door, the other to the right. Rahm went after the group on the left, but they had disappeared through the door, leaving him alone in that corner. The other group had followed, shouting “Tierarzt, geh’ nach Moskau! (go to Moscow!)” and other insults. Those prisoners in their rooms crowded the windows.

  Rahm turned and rushed at his assailants, but they in turn disappeared through the right-hand door just as the first group reappeared and recommenced their shouts, backed up by the spectators at the windows. “Tierarzt, T-i-e-r-a-r-z-t!”

  This continued until the German duty officer arrived, followed by the inevitable Riot Squad (party of Goons with fixed bayonets called to a trouble spot). He cleared the courtyard. The Tierarzt, still suffering booing from the windows, made his way to the sick-bay.

  Not all the prisoners approved of this demonstration; among them Colonel Stayner and Padre Platt. The first consequence was the stopping of the park walk. Major Engles for the Dutch and Colonel Stayner for the British made a joint complaint that their officers were not in the Hof at the time, and the exercise ban should not therefore apply to them. The Kommandant agreed. But when Stayner acquainted British officers with these findings, it was pointed out that certain of the British contingent did share in the demonstration from the windows of their quarters, and had no wish to receive treatment discriminating them from their fellow-prisoners. Whereupon the colonel drew up another Antrag in which he disclosed to the Kommandant that British officers had shared in the demonstration after all, and that he wished to withdraw his plaint. He then repeated to the British his disapproval of shouting and booing, and hoped that officers might not be found doing so again.

  At about this time (March), Colditz had one of its periodic visits from members of the International Red Cross. They came to see that all was well with the supply, either indirectly, or as directed by them, of food parcels to the prisoners from the different Allied countries on the one hand, or from relatives on the other.

  Food parcels were more or less standardized in weight to about ten pounds each. They came from different countries and the British prisoners received them from England, Australia, Canada and the United States, in bulk. Besides food, the Red Cross also sent bulk consignments of cigarettes and tobacco for distribution among the inmates of the camps. From 1941 onwards the supply of parcels of different kinds was regular enough to keep all the British prisoners decently clothed, and sufficient also to provide one food parcel per fortnight for each prisoner, as well as about forty cigarettes a week.

  In addition, four private parcels could be sent per annum to each prisoner, from families or friends, and the Germans controlled the arrival of these parcels by an arrangement whereby they might only be sent against a special type of label which was issued in the permitted quantity to the person authorized. Private parcels usually contained clothing or books. Cigarette parcels were also allowed to individuals in unlimited quantity.

  The French received food parcels mainly from private sources, but they did have a certain amount of bulk supply in the form of what they called singe or “monkey,” which was tinned meat from their Army reserve. It came from Madagascar. They also had large quantities of Biscuits Pétains, French Army biscuits, which they exchanged with the British for cigarettes at the rate of one for one. The Poles and Dutch had private food parcels but in no such quantity as the British supplies, so that they were not particularly well off for food or clothes or cigarettes at any time during the war.

  From 1942 onwards most of the Colditz prisoners were nearly as well fed as the German civilians in the town, at least as regards calorie intake. They had chocolate, sugar, butter, tinned meat and dried food in quantities. They made wine from their sugar and raisins and distilled from this wine a highly intoxicating alcohol which they called firewater. What they did lack, of course, was fish and fresh fruit.

  All the parcels, together with the mail, were subjected to a strict censorship on the German side. They were after contraband. Eggers states categorically:

  We never on any occasion found any contraband, or anything that could be described as contraband, in the bulk supplies which came from, or through, the International Red Cross. We did, however, find a tremendous amount of forbidden goods in private clothing parcels and in private food parcels, in particular, those which came from France. We also found a lot of contraband in the “Welfare” parcels which were sent out from England either individually or by undercover organizations.

  The Germans were late in the contraband stakes. Now they began to take a much closer interest in parcels from sources other than the International Red Cross. They installed an X-ray apparatus and subjected every incoming object without exception to its revealing gaze. They found in particular that the Licensed Victuallers’ Sports Association was effectively helping to replenish the prisoners’ stocks of escape material. Hollow-handled tennis rackets contained tiny compasses and hacksaw blades. Gramophone records contained maps and yet more money in the center. Playing cards had maps inside them. Jumping ahead in time, when Wing Commander Douglas Bader arrived in 1943, his chess set produced 1,000 Reichsmarks, three compasses and seven maps!

  The Germans felt that this X-ray machine would soon put a stop to all this, but while it blocked one smuggling route used by the British, it merely served to open another and better one for both the English and the French.

  On Good Friday, 3 April, there was a lightning search of the British quarters in the late afternoon. The stooges had failed on their job. This time the Germans suddenly erupted from the Evidenzzimmer door which was close to the British quarters staircase door. The stooges had focused their attention on the main gate. How had they failed? According to Platt, the Germans had entered the Evidenzzimmer in small groups at various intervals during the day. When the groups came out, each group left one behind, whose absence was not noted. This story is to be doubted. It is more likely the Germans used a secret passage which they had constructed from their quarters into the Evidenzzimmer. Eggers says he can’t recall that they ever used this route (he may have been away on leave at this period), but having gone to the trouble of building the route why should they use the clumsy, time-consuming method suggested by Platt?

  The only notable outcome of the search was that Flying Officer “Errol” Flynn was caught at work on a new tunnel. He had only come out of solitary the previous day after twenty-eight days for a three-day break before a second twenty-eight days he was due to serve for making a break while on his way to the cells. This new tunnel offense would earn him a further twenty-eight days. This brought his total to 170 days with previous sentences accumulating.

  The chapel was still closed at Easter due to the French tunnel repairs—so the Easter Catholic services were held in the courtyard. The weather was kind. Platt records:

  Their services were in Latin. The Protestants or sectarians celebrated their Easter without saints and song, and much more simply. They had their own services, each in his own quarters and each in his own tongue. The Jews in Colditz had apparently no particular observance of the day of this Christian feast. There was no Rabbi among them anyway.

  Then on 8 April five French Jewish doctors of the Jewish contingent were sent off to work in Russian POW camps in Poland to deal with typhus epidemics (cholera was also rumored). According to War Office records, during the winter of 1941–1942 typhus, thought to have been brought in by Russian prisoners, broke out in six POW camps where British prisoners were held.

  When large numbers of Russian POWs were taken they were kept under appalling hygiene conditions, and were soon decimated by typhus.
The Germans, who until then had refused to make use of the Jewish doctor POWs, sent the French Jewish doctors in Colditz to one of these camps. Later, at the end of April, a few of them returned. They were very ill. Despite their fever, which could leave no doubt as to what it was, Dr. Rahm refused categorically to see the gravity of the situation, or to send them to hospital. He was immediately given another pseudonym, “Doctor Typhus.”

  The Red Cross were alerted. This led to an inquiry in situ by the German Medical Service. They saw immediately that these prisoners had typhus, which they had caught whilst caring for the Russians. This created panic in the Kommandantur. The Tierarzt and the Kommandant were punished. The Jewish doctors with typhus were removed to hospital. The Jewish quarters were isolated in an effort to prevent a spread of the fever. The prisoners lived in such crowded conditions that the risk of an epidemic was serious.

  The effect produced by the intervention of German top brass was clearly seen in the changed behavior of Rahm towards the Jews, whom he had always treated with contempt. He begged them to adhere rigorously to the “isolation” order, promising to ensure that food would be sent to their quarters; to have everything disinfected; and to provide them, within reason, with whatever they needed. This incident, however, spelled the end of Dr. Rahm. He left Colditz early in May and was replaced by the German doctor from the French generals’ camp at Königstein.

  The “saluting war” warrants a moment’s reflection. Today, perhaps, it seems to bear little relation to the realities of a world at war. With full knowledge of the events of forty years ago, we may feel tempted to condemn the fact that officer prisoners—an internationally privileged class in a walled-off, even protected, enclave—should be allowed the luxury of playing childish games with an unpopular German Army doctor.

  We must remember, however, that the prisoners in Colditz were ignominiously constrained while at the same time honored by being set apart—a contradiction brought about by a conglomeration of military considerations. The prisoners had no conception of war crimes perpetrated around them; had they known, it would not so much have brought humility into their own attitudes as a boiling fury into their reactions. Knowledge of world events such as they did possess produced two reactions: impatience and a feeling of impotence in their situation. They can be excused their apparent frivolity.

  The success of the saluting war—the dismissal and departure of Rahm—was ultimately the achievement of the French. The British, Poles and Dutch played little part: the British because of their own weakness—a sentimental softness for the underdog; the Poles because the climb-down of the OKW had already given them a moral victory; the Dutch because their honor demanded that they uphold the respect due from one officer to another, even though they be enemies—the age-old code of the officer and the gentleman. For when that code was infringed by one side, what might the other side not do—with honor if not justice on their side? The Germans were the victors and the captors. They could rebound powerfully.

  There were about twenty officers in the French contingent who were known as “Les Innocents,” because, although they had racked their brains, they could not establish to anybody’s satisfaction why they bad been sent to Colditz. Possibly they had been denounced out of some spite by fellow prisoners.

  The French Jewish officer contingent increased considerably in the spring of 1941 until by mid-June they numbered about eighty officers. Because their number had grown so much, the Germans insisted on their forming a separate group from the other French at Appell. They also allocated them separate living and sleeping quarters. There was considerable doubt in the minds of the members of the other nationalities as to how the French Jews came to be “hived off” from the other French. In the French contingent there was already a division of loyalty between Pétainists and de Gaullists. Several senior French officers, presumably Pétainists, had been repatriated on 9 August 1941. Pétainists would be more likely to succumb to wily German propaganda. Either the Germans in Colditz made the suggestion to some of the French or some of the French made the suggestion to the Germans, that as they were becoming overcrowded in their quarters, would it not be better for everybody if the top floor—i.e. above the French quarters—were employed and how better than by giving Jewish officers their own quarters? The Germans, whether they were the initiators or not, were the delighted perpetrators of this subtle move, calculated to disrupt the universal harmony between the nations.

  Eli de Rothschild, who had arrived in Colditz on 1 July 1941, had been heard to express considerable pleasure that “at last he was in a camp that had a British community.” Padre Platt comments that the remark had little significance, unless the Ghetto, to which the French officers had given their acquiescence, was in the background of his thoughts. Many of the British regarded this segregation as disgraceful, among them Airey Neave and Squadron-Leader Paddon, who spearheaded the expression of outrage. Jewish officers were regularly invited to dine and share British Red Cross food with certain British messes. The effect on the French was salutary—to some extent.

  Albert Maloire in his book Colditz—le Grand Refus (published in 1982) places the responsibility for the segregation of the Jews squarely on the shoulders of the Germans. Significantly, though, Le Brigant does not mention the subject in his book Les Indomptables.

  Most of the Jews were there because they were Jews—for political reasons. A few were there because they had some value as hostages, and a few because they had been recaught after escaping or had otherwise been labelled as Deutschfeindlich. Amongst them were some famous names: the Baron Eli de Rothschild, Dreyfus, Captain Robert Blum (French Artillery), and Captain Count André Hirsch. Hirsch, the balding and well-known Paris banker, was more than an astronautical enthusiast. In the “little book” which I have mentioned in Chapter 3 (Stratosphere and Rocket Flight [Astronautics]) the author, Charles G. Philp, referred to Hirsch’s establishment of the International Astronautical Award for the promotion of interstellar navigation. Hirsch gave a brilliant after-lunch lecture lasting one and a half hours on this subject at the end of December 1941. Robert Blum was a classical pianist. His sensitive features were set off with a neat professorial beard. Unenviably, he was the son of a famous father, Léon Blum the Socialist leader and former Prime Minister of France. Léon Blum was held under house arrest in the Pyrenees. Messages from his father reached Robert rarely, many times censored and long delayed. Robert’s mother was under house arrest in the Hôtel des Voyageurs in Urdos below the Fort du Portalet where Léon was incarcerated.

  Lieutenant Rémy Lévy had escaped (as I have described in Chapter 8) on an Elsterhorst hospital party from Colditz on 4 October 1941. He was recaptured 500 miles away at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). He was placed in a cell at a prison at Arnoldsweiler where he spent the rigorous winter of 1941. He nearly died of polio-arthritis and remained thereafter a complete invalid. There is a story that a German guard, while searching his meager belongings, found a handtowel marked Polizeigefängnis Aachen, meaning “Police prison Aachen.” The German guard commented, “That is the last straw! He continues to steal even in prison!”

  12

  Never a Dull Moment

  Late Spring and Early Summer 1942

  WITH SPRING IN THE AIR the escaping season would soon be accelerated into top gear. The German counter-attack took the form of the biggest search organized so far. On 16 April at 6:30 a.m. the “spring-cleaning” started. At 10:30 the “personal” search began, everyone being herded into the day-room, then taken out one by one to the kitchen where all clothing was removed and subjected to close scrutiny. Finally there was the “body search,” including the soles of the feet and a torch-light examination of the hair, the ears, the mouth (false teeth removed), the armpits, the crotch and, bending down, the backside, which the French called the codette du Légionnaire. By about 1 p.m. everybody was dressed again and slouching in the courtyard while the day-rooms were put through it. Books, papers, toilet requisites, cupboards, tables, chairs and stools upt
urned, beds shifted, bedding removed, floorboards torn up. The British quarters were left in such confusion and wrecked disorder that a placard was erected outside them. It read: “You are invited to visit an example of Nazi culture.”

  To relieve the monotony, Lieutenant Monty Bissell refused for obscure reasons to undress except in the presence of a doctor or a priest. The Germans were bemused. They produced the Indian doctor Mazumdar, who saw the point at once and reinforced Monty’s prejudices by insisting on further ritualistic observances during the body search to the dumbfounded amazement of the Goons.

  Early in April, fifty Upmann Havana cigars arrived in two cedarwood boxes of twenty-five each addressed to me. In 1932 some engineering graduates of that year from King’s College, London University, had formed a “13” Club, just to keep in touch with each other as the years went by. We had been close friends at King’s. Then the war came, and in 1941, when they learned that I was a POW, they decided to send me a private parcel containing what they knew I was most fond of. The cigars were three months in transit, but they arrived safely in Colditz. This says much for the International Red Cross Organization and something for the honesty of the Germans, who treated Red Cross and next-of-kin parcels with the utmost respect. The cigars were each contained in their aluminum tubes, sealed and in good condition.

  As each cigar was smoked either by me or by one of my friends, I felt like the little girl at school who had a box of chocolates, the most popular girl in the school until the box was empty! In this case there was a difference because the aluminum tubes were far more durable than the ephemeral cigars and they were greatly sought after and treasured for one purpose for which they were uniquely adaptable—namely as “arse-creepers.”

  There is nothing new about the concealment of contraband in the body. However, a package containing a button compass, 100 Reichsmarks in notes of various denominations, a route map from Colditz to Singen, a workman’s Ausweis (passport) in stiffish card and a leave permit on foolscap paper, presented a formidable problem. Before the advent of the cigar tubes, and there were only fifty of them, the ingenuity of the POWs had been seriously taxed. There was a great scarcity of any kind of waterproof packing paper. Cellophane did not exist. The nearest was an oiled or greased toughened paper, very difficult to come by. Occasionally the canteen produced a small stock of some articles in a container which could be adapted.