Colditz Read online

  Pierre Mairesse Lebrun (whose adventures I recount in Chapter 5) states that the French Jewish officers were transferred to Colditz as hostages. Certainly the French banker, Eli de Rothschild, who was among them, would be considered one. Few were escapers, and they were collected together from various camps. By now in mid-June they numbered about sixty officers. Many were doctors, French-born.

  There was a morale-booster on 22 June, when the news broke of the declaration of war between Germany and Russia. The Germans had apparently started their invasion on 20 June. Polish officers claimed they had heard the news at 7 a.m. over the radio. The atmosphere was electric all day. Padre Platt records what happened:

  All day the atmosphere was charged as though heralding an electric storm. The outlet came immediately after Lichts aus [lights out] when, from the other side of the Hof … a carolling voice breathed on to the still, confined air the strains of the “Volga Boatmen.” I grinned, as did scores of others—it was a good joke. Within a trice a score of voices wailed the lugubrious “Yoho heave-ho” and within another second not a score but a few hundred songsters leaned from the windows and joined in a dolorous crescendo which reverberated on the age-old walls.

  The guards on duty are of a new detachment. They are not yet au fait with the drill of an officers’ camp, and perhaps on such a day a Russian song made them feel hot under the collar. One of the two pulled himself to his full height and in the interval between the singing of patriotic songs of first one nation then another, he told everyone in plain Deutsch to get to bed. In response to this a couple of hundred and more voices rose and fell in lively imitation of an air raid siren.

  Then the storm broke! The whistle of falling bombs, the roar of dive bombers (what lungs some of these fellows have!), and as a soft background, heard only at intervals, the song of the Russian river-folk. For twenty minutes it was a perfectly hideous pandemonium in which everyone shared! Then someone, with the idea of adding realism to the show, bomb-whistled loudly and from a great height sent a beer bottle crashing on the sets below. It was followed by a second in which the beer had been well shaken, and the crash was appropriately louder. Cries of protest went up from almost every window, and no more were dropped, but the Hof was gay with newspaper-folded gliders which shot gracefully across the fifteen or twenty paces to the other side, and then petered out on the ground like falling stars.

  Most of us were uneasy about the bottles. They were capable of the worst interpretation; but I am persuaded they were not meant to intimidate the guards, and did not drop near them. One of the Germans, however, went to the guardhouse to seek advice and help. An Unteroffizier returned with him, and after examining the smashed glass shouted something that was lost in the infernal din of battle songs, war-machine noises, and screams as of terrified women.

  Three officers and several NCOs next arrived, and Priem, after looking at the mess of the broken bottles, called for what was presumably silence, though his voice was lost in the hideous noise. He tried again, with no better result. Then the order to shoot was given and, quick on the draw as the guards were, we were out of the windows and crouching on the floor a good deal quicker. Rifles cracked and bullets ricocheted, spattering the walls and splintering window panes. Silence! It was as still as a grave. Yes, P.O.W.s, more than most men, know the respect due to active fire-arms.

  Appell was called, and we all trooped down to the Hof and fell in. Instead of being harangued as we expected, Major Menz, the second-in-command, called upon the Senior Officer of each nationality to line up before him. Then he said, “Throwing bottles at sentries is not gentlemanly behavior. In future you should not expect to be treated as gentlemen.”

  He did not address us, the rank and file, but dismissed the parade forthwith. Once back in our quarters the Colonel addressed us and, the typhoon being spent, no one was sorry when ordered to his bunk. The net results so far today are: radios disconnected, no newspapers delivered, all exercise cancelled.

  Some time about noon, Micky Surmanowicz, who has just finished his punishment for breaking out of the cells and scaling the vertical wall of the guardhouse, rather than have the whole camp strafed vicariously, confessed to Priem (through Admiral Unrug) that he had dropped the two beer bottles. Courtyard gossip had it that the real culprits have failed to come forward and Micky has done so pro bono public. Courtyard gossip, however, is worth little. He is now back in solitary.

  The Kommandant had intimated that serious consequences would ensue for all unless the bottle-throwing culprit owned up. He would be court-martialled in July.

  On 25 June I was in a group of POWs marching down to the park when an attractive German girl passed by, going up the ramp towards the courtyard. The prisoners whistled their admiration, for she was a veritable bronze-haired Rhine Maiden, smartly dressed and handsome—a fitting consort for a Germanic deity.

  As she swept by, her stylish wristwatch fell from her arm to the feet of Squadron-Leader Paddon. The Rhine Maiden did not notice, but Paddon, ever the gentleman, picked it up and shouted: “Hey, Miss, you’ve lost your watch.”

  The girl had already passed out of sight, so Paddon signed to the nearest guard and called out “Das Fräulein hat ihre Uhr verloren.” The guard took the watch and, running back up the ramp, shouted to a sentry in the courtyard to stop the girl. As he made to do so, the sentry suddenly noticed something wrong. A moment’s scrutiny was enough. By the time our guard arrived panting with the watch, the Rhine Maiden was exposed. Her fine hat and abundant wig were off, revealing beneath the bald head of Lieutenant Boulé, who unhappily neither spoke nor understood German. He was a reserve officer, about forty-five years old, whose baldness and fresh complexion may have been the inspiration behind his disguise.

  Loudspeakers in the prisoners’ dayrooms were switched on from the guardhouse in the afternoons. POWs were regaled with concert music, news bulletins and propaganda. Lord Haw-Haw’s nightly talks in English were treated with contempt. Another entertaining form of propaganda was known as a Sondermeldung (special report). The program would suddenly be interrupted. With a crackling sound, extra power would be switched on. A fanfare of trumpets would herald an important announcement. A Liszt prelude would hold the expectant audience for some bars, followed by a tattoo of drums. Then the announcer’s voice would report in sonorous tones the latest victory on land, sea or air. Most commonly in 1941 Sondermeldungs concerned Allied shipping sunk by German U-boats. A brass band would then strike up the war song “Wir fahren gegen Engeland.” To the further accompaniment of falling bombs, thunder of artillery and crackle of machine guns, the interlude would culminate with a fanfare heralding victory.

  The intention was to demoralize the enemy. In Colditz windows everywhere would fly open. Musical instruments, the louder the better, would emerge and a cacophony of sound would fill the courtyard, reverberating down into the streets of the town. Knowledgeable prisoners calculated that the Germans had sunk the Allied merchant fleets more than once.

  Gradually the loudspeakers were silenced one by one: not because of the broadcasts, but because their insides were of use to the escaping fraternity.

  5

  Tameless and Proud

  Early Summer 1941

  LIEUTENANT PIERRE MAIRESSE LEBRUN, a handsome French cavalry officer, had succeeded in escaping from Colditz once before, on 9 June. On one of the park outings, a very small Belgian officer, Sous-Lieutenant Verkest, had been hidden during the outgoing “numbering off” parades. He had simply clamped his legs around a colleague’s thighs while two others supported him by the elbows. The man in the middle wrapped his coat and some blankets round the Belgian and then nonchalantly unfolded a German newspaper. During the recreation period, Lebrun, aided by a series of diversions, climbed into the rafters of an open-sided pavilion in the middle of the park. He was not missed at the return counts because Verkest of course stood in for him. Nor did the dogs, sent in after each park visit, get wind of him.

  As arranged, a bugle blown from
a Castle window signaled the “all clear.” Lebrun descended, wearing a smart gray suit made from special pajamas sent to him in the winter, and climbed out of the park. He walked to the station at Gross Bothen, six miles from Colditz, to catch a train to Leipzig. At the ticket office he offered a 100-mark note. To his horror the clerk pointed out that it was invalid, dating from 1924 in the time of President Ebert. He found himself in the station-master’s office, suspected first of being an English spy and then of being an escaper from Colditz. Pursuing the second idea, the station-master left Lebrun alone in his office while he went off to telephone. Lebrun promptly climbed out of the window. Unfortunately he dropped at the feet of a woman who at once shrieked with terror. In moments he was recaptured.

  On Wednesday afternoon, 2 July, prisoners in the Castle heard volleys of shots from the direction of the park. Mairesse Lebrun was trying to escape again.

  He had got twenty-one days’ cells for his park attempt. His disappointment after yet another failure is easy to understand, having for brief moments held all the trump cards in his hands. It was galling to have succeeded in getting out of the fortress and to have failed later for such a banal reason as an out-of-date bank note, a note that had been hidden in a nut-shell inside a jar of jam for many months, after arriving in a next-of-kin food parcel. During his time in cells he had many dismal thoughts and moments of despondency, but refused to allow himself to become dismayed by his bad luck. He swore that he would not be a prisoner for more than a year, so there was no time to waste before getting a new escape plan under way. Yet it seemed impossible to expect to get out of that accursed fortress once again. Even in a camp full of experienced escapers he was now very much a marked man.

  For prisoners in cells the exercise period each day was from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. An officer, a Feldwebel and three armed guards kept the prisoners company in the barbed-wire enclosure in the park. With Lebrun was a comrade, Lieutenant Odry, who was also in cells following an escape attempt. For the first hour, Lebrun exercised and for the remaining hour lay in the sun. Each day he ran at least 800 yards. He knew already, with a fresh plan in his head, that his legs and lungs would need to be in good shape. He had now decided to make his break during an exercise period. He could see no other solution than to leave from under the very noses of the guards, and at the risk of being shot. He was planning to jump the park fence, and he needed to clear it at one go. He discussed the plan with his companion. Odry, though he felt it tantamount to committing suicide, knew that Lebrun’s mind was made up. He agreed to help.

  The escape clothes were simple. Running shorts, a short-sleeved shirt that he had carefully kept for such an occasion (it was the one he was wearing when first taken prisoner and was something like a Nazi shirt), a leather sleeveless jacket, socks and plimsolls with rubber soles. He had wrapped a razor, soap, a little sugar and chocolate in a silk cravat. A rather tight belt kept the bundle in place inside the jacket.

  By 25 June he was ready. His comrades smuggled thirty Reichsmarks into his cell; they also sent him nourishing food every day—after all, he needed to be fit. For five exercise periods he was ready to go, but each time the circumstances were not quite right. These false starts put an enormous strain on his nerves—he was too tense before each of them even to eat.

  On 2 July the sky was overcast. He told Odry as soon as they arrived in the park that, whatever happened, he was going to have a go that day. They would walk round and round for an hour to reassure the guards. As they walked they chose the exact spot for the leap over the wire, which was eight feet high. They marked the spot with a pebble. At last Lebrun warned Odry that the next circuit of the park would be the last. When they arrived at the pebble, Lebrun placed a foot in Odry’s clasped hands; a strong heave and he was over the wire, landing in a dive rather awkwardly on the other side. Then he sprinted in a zig-zag for the wall of the Castle grounds, fifty yards away, as a sentry started shouting. The three sentries fired and the bullets hit the wall in front of him. He knew that he now had to get over while the sentries were reloading. He leaped, pulled himself on to the top of the wall and jumped down on the other side.

  He ran for the nearby wood, and as he made his way through it he crossed a river twice, hoping in that way to throw the dogs off his scent. By the time he reached the edge of the wood, a siren was warning of an escaped prisoner, so it was now vital that he should not be seen by a farmworker. He decided to hide in a cornfield, slowly walking in backwards, lifting up the flattened stalks as he went. It was 2:30 p.m. He would have to wait until darkness fell at 10:30 p.m.

  For three nights and two days it rained continuously, so being dressed in shorts it was better not to be seen by anyone. He travelled at night, following the River Mulde to the south-west, until on the morning of 5 July the sun started to shine again. As soon as his clothes were dry he walked into the town of Zwickau and stole a bicycle. He was still only fifty miles from Colditz, but now he looked like a German cyclist on tour. Eventually he reached Switzerland and freedom, nearly 400 miles away.

  “If I succeed, I would be grateful if you would arrange for my personal possessions to be sent to the following address…. May God help me!” That message was on a label tied to a suitcase Pierre had left in his cell and which contained the few things that he treasured. With them was a piece of sausage, heavily peppered to put off the dogs who would certainly be taken to sniff his parcel and then sent on his heels. The Kommandant of the camp complied with the request, and some months later a box arrived for Pierre which contained the few souvenirs of his stay in Colditz. He was deeply grateful for this gesture from those he refers to as “True Soldiers.”

  Born in 1912, Lebrun’s childhood was dominated by the Great War—for years afterwards it seemed the only topic of conversation. So, although his family had little military tradition, he joined the cavalry. Armored tanks had replaced many horses at the Saumur Cavalry School, from which he passed out in 1936, but horsemanship was the ruling passion of every young officer. Pierre was the youngest of his class, yet he outshone his brother aspirants in almost every sport he indulged in and he loved many forms: from polo to tennis, from dressage to Alpinism, from horse trials to swimming. He was a natural sportsman and Saumur in those days was made for such men. In fact, Saumur had altered very little from the gilded days before the First World War. From 1935 until the outbreak of the Second War, Pierre’s reputation as a polo player and a showjumper grew to international proportions. His life became a continual grand tour of polo tournaments and concours hippiques. He was poised to compete in the Olympic horse trials of 1940 with his own personally trained horse. This was an outstanding achievement for a young career Army officer. In fact, Pierre admits that when war was declared he was more concerned at first with the dashing of all his personal hopes and ambitions than with the fears and tragedy of France once more at war.

  His independent nature had already led him in peacetime to opt for any individual operation that came his way. As soon as war was declared he volunteered for and organized independent missions which he himself named the “Corps Francs.” These were small bodies of troops, self-contained and sent forward into enemy areas as probes with various tasks to perform from pure reconnaissance to active sabotage or silencing of enemy positions. In fact he was originating the “commandos.” He was also making sure for himself that he had an independent role to play, fighting his own war, unhampered by the irksome and ponderous inefficiency of commands emanating from above him. He thus evaded the possible consequences of what might have been branded as indiscipline.

  Within weeks of the German attack on France in May 1940, Lebrun had won the Croix de Guerre and the Légion d’Honneur. On 14 June—the day the Germans entered Paris—he received orders to hold Châtel sur Moselle to the bitter end, a sacrificial mission to stop the Germans crossing the Moselle. He was in the extraordinary situation now of facing the Germans attacking from the west while he had the Maginot Line behind him to the east. There was little liaison a
nd scant information after a month of fighting. He knew the war was going badly, but little did he know how badly. He thought perhaps the French were fighting another battle like that of the Marne. He did not even know that Paris had already fallen. He knew nothing of Dunkirk. He did not know that an armistice was demanded on 17 June. He had his orders so he fought on. On 22 June he finally decided to surrender. France officially capitulated on that day. His ammunition was finished. He had lost half of his men. The German commander, in fact, in accepting his surrender, accorded him and his survivors full military honors.

  Pierre was taken for the night to a church in the village of Maurville not far from Châtel where, the next day, he found himself in dire trouble. One day accorded military honors—the next in a field with the other French officers facing four German machine-guns, about to be shot. The reason: during the night a German sentry had had his throat cut. Moreover his ears had been cut off. This was enough to convince the Germans that an African soldier was responsible (a unit of North African French black troops had fought with Pierre). Pierre and his brother officers were deemed responsible for the correct behavior of their troops and of course for any dereliction thereof. Summary justice and retribution for the murder was demanded.

  One of the younger French officers, Lieutenant Mehu, was standing beside Pierre when a German command car drove into the field; out stepped several German officers to supervise the execution. Suddenly, Mehu exclaimed, “Je connais bien cet officier là!” Hurriedly he told Lebrun that the officer he had recognized had been his opposite number in Berlin when he was in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, some time before the outbreak of war. Mehu broke ranks in front of the machine-guns, approached the German officer and saluted. There was immediate recognition on a friendly note, and the execution was called off.