Colditz (43 page)

I assumed that many of my comrades were still imprisoned there. I did not know that the French contingent had been moved to Lübeck. Also I knew of the
Prominenten
, not only the British but a few French as well. I was convinced that they, if not every POW in Colditz, all known as
Deutschfeindlich
, would become hostages to be held as such or massacred in the last resort. I also saw that the war of movement was gaining impetus, that it was nearly over. Whatever I did had to be done quickly.

De Lattre listened to my plea and my reasoning and to my request for two squadrons of tanks with supplies and ammunition for a lightning thrust to Colditz. We had crossed the Rhine south of Strasbourg. I reckoned the distance to be covered was about 600 kilometres in a north-north-easterly direction. There was little German resistance behind the Rhine. Germany was beginning to crumble.

De Lattre approved Pierre's plan. He had, however, to alert the American divisional staffs on his left and take into account the position of the Russians advancing from the east, and this is where the plan was frustrated. Politics, as so often happens, made a hash of what was really a simple military situation and a well-planned expedition. The Russians were thought to be advancing fast. In fact they were not. The diplomatic situation that had evolved from the meeting of Russian and Allied leaders at Yalta in February made appeasement of the Russians a priority. De Lattre could not persuade his allies; neither could he take the responsibility of such an internationally crucial decision entirely upon his own shoulders. The plan had to be scrapped.

In retrospect, it is possible to say that during the first half of March there were no major German units in or near Colditz. The French striking force could have taken the Castle with ease. All the prisoners would have been released alive at least one month earlier than they actually were, and all the
Prominenten
would have been rescued long before they were seized and taken to Bavaria. Some terrible events might have occurred in Colditz during the five weeks before the Americans relieved the Castle. That fate was kind to the inmates
does not justify the caution or conceit of weak men who make timid decisions imagining them to be wise.

As it happened, and western intelligence must have known it, the Russians were hundreds of miles to the east of Colditz. It was not until March that 1,500 French POWs arrived in Colditz in the general German retreat before the Russian advance. It is justifiable to ask whether the forces in the west were not influenced by national pride when it came to deciding which Army was to provide the spearhead that should advance furthest and first towards the cast.

The prisoners of Colditz witnessed a very long and very heavy aerial bombardment to the north-east during the whole night of 13/14 February 1945. Dresden lies about thirty miles away to the north-east. What the POWs witnessed was the heaviest, most devastating and appalling air-raid of the whole war. To this day, the Germans hold that more people were killed here than at Hiroshima.

Eggers provides the German side of the story:

Between February 14th and 16th there were three very heavy air raids, two British raids in one night and an American raid by day, on Dresden—a city which up to this time had been untouched by bombing. The wife of the
Kommandant
, who was a refugee from Silesia, was at the time staying in the city with her baby in the house of our Paymaster. The Paymaster went off to help as best he could and was caught in the second raid and barely got to his home through the fire and destruction. He came back to Colditz and next morning a young paymaster of his staff went to Dresden with a lorry, got through, found the woman and the baby safe and brought them back to the castle.

My clerk asked for leave likewise to go to Dresden to help his family. When he got home he found the house burnt out and his family all dead, along with other unidentifiable bodies in the cellar. He told me that in the old market square in Dresden corpses had been piled up high and burnt with flamethrowers. The inner part of the city was completely destroyed, and to prevent the spread of disease it was barred off even to those who had property and relations there. Some of the approach streets were actually walled up. Many officers of the Army District Command No. 4 in Dresden were killed along with their families in these raids. People in the city were quite demoralized by these massive attacks, even to the point of openly mocking at officers in the street that they should still wear Hitler's uniform.

At Colditz the POWs took this raid as the final sign of victory in the war.

A ten percent cut in the bread ration took effect from 19 February. At 6 p.m. the SBO called a meeting of mess representatives. He said, “The thing is so bad as to be funny. 1,500 French will arrive on Friday; they are on foot from IVB, eighty miles away. All the British, including the Gaullistes and Czechs, will have to accommodate themselves in the
Kellerhaus
, officers on first three floors, orderlies on fourth floor, ex-Belgian quarters. No day/dining-place, have to live entirely in dormitories. A twelve percent cut in rations next week!”

The new French prisoners arrived in fact on the following Monday, the 26th, having marched for eight days from Elsterhorst. Padre Platt describes what he saw the next morning:

I went across the
Hof
to shave at 7.40a.m. Never saw such a sight. The more ingenious of the French had made themselves trolleys, hand barrows, trucks of every conceivable model [used for transporting their possessions from Elsterhorst]. One truck I saw was very ingeniously sprung on two tennis balls. There were three perambulators. Some of the trucks were as rude structures as one can imagine. Wheels in most cases were hand turned and tyred with tin. We had decided to jettison the kit we could not carry (in the event of a move) but many of these trolley manufacturers appear to have brought all they possessed…. Col. Schaefer has been in solitary confinement seven weeks yesterday.

Two exalted visitors, Colonel Baron von Beninghausen and Freiherr von Beschwitz, came to Colditz in March in attempts to persuade General Bór to order the Police Home Army to cease fighting against Germany and instead to fight against Russia alongside the Germans. They got nowhere with the implacable Pole. Less happy was the failure of the prisoners to extract from their visitors any assurances about the fate of the
Prominenten
.

On the 8th, immediately after the 8:00 a.m.
Appell
, the SBO warned Padre Platt to be on duty for the burial of an American at 8:15 a.m. the next day. He had no further particulars. The dead man was Corporal Tom Ray Caldwell. He had contracted double pneumonia on the march to Colditz from Gorlitz,
Stalag
VIIIA. A guard of German soldiers was present at the burial the next day.

On the 20th Platt writes:

Was called this afternoon to the
Kommandantur
to be interviewed by a German Foreign Office official. He was quite a friendly type, but he gave
no indication of the purposes of his visit. After interviewing the Chaplains he visited the S.B.O. and perhaps, though I have not heard, some of the French— General Flavigny refused to see him.

The following day:

General Flavigny was returned to Königstein today. He was not acceptable as S.F.O. to the Germans. His refusal to see the F.O. official sealed it. Surprisingly he arrived at Königstein safely.

Late in March 1945, the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) ordered the creation of an irregular force which was called the Special Allied Airborne Reconnaissance Force (SAARF). It consisted of about sixty men, British, French and Belgian and one Pole (Andy Kowerski-Kennedy), recruited from SOE and experienced as parachutists in enemy territories. Teams were set up and allocated to target POW camps all over Germany.

The unit was divided up into teams of three: an officer and an NCO and a signaler with an easily hidden transmitter set. At exactly the right moment the team would be dropped after dark near its allotted prison camp. Dressed in tattered uniforms they would lie up in the woods, spy out the land, then slip unobserved into POW working-parties and get inside the camp, to contact the Senior British Officer and open radio communications with advancing Allied troops; these would then drop arms and supplies and give air cover while the garrison was overpowered or the
Kommandant
bluffed until Allied troops arrived, in order to foil attempted evacuation to the dreaded “Redoubt”—Hitler's mountain retreat in the southern mountains of Bavaria.

Patrick Leigh Fermor and Henry Coombe-Tennant (Welsh Guards, who had already escaped from Germany) found themselves allotted to
Oflag
IVC, Colditz, each commanding a team. A third team was soon allotted to Colditz under an American. Studies and preparations were completed and they waited daily for the order to go.

Out of the blue Patrick heard that an old friend from the days of the Greek campaign and beyond had arrived back in England from, of all places, Colditz. This was Colonel Miles Reid MC, who had just been repatriated with the group which included Harry Elliot. Hurriedly he got permission to visit Miles.

Miles poured cold water on the whole idea and came, himself, a couple of days later to SAARF headquarters where he had a long private session with the Commandant, a brigadier nicknamed “Crasher,” who had earlier commanded
a division in the desert. Patrick Leigh Fermor writes, “They both emerged scowling” (from the session). Miles said, “He doesn't know what he's up to. I'll go to Churchill if necessary.”

As things turned out, it was too late for Miles to go to Churchill. The date was Friday, 13 April 1945. The Castle was relieved by the Americans on Monday the 16th.

Miles's suggestion was that “A special parachute operation should be launched designed not to fail” to relieve the POWs. Before he left Colditz he had been coached by Colonel Tod to stress to the War Office that any rescue operation planned would have to be absolutely “fail-safe.” Anything less would be disastrous. As any “fail-safe” plan would undoubtedly be very expensive indeed, Tod, though not in a position to judge or decide, nevertheless considered that such an operation would, if not should, get the “thumbs down.”

Hence when Miles was faced with the plan set out to him by Leigh Fermor, his reaction was understandable. The plan was in the “two men and a boy” category. It might succeed and be worthwhile for dozens of
Stalags
if not some
Oflags
, but it would not succeed at Colditz. The other side of the coin was that Tod had a plan which was maturing, with hopeful indications of a successful outcome. The plan's aim was to save the lives of all the POWs. Miles was aware of this.

The month of March in Colditz Castle passed as a month of incessant daily air-raid bombardment in the distant areas around with planes continuously passing overhead. The
Hof
seethed with crowding humanity through the daylight hours. Food was appallingly scarce—all were on a starvation diet and all lived in slum conditions. There were rumors of German revolts in various parts of the country. There were constant air-raid alarms. No sooner did the all-clear sound than another raid was warned. Still the railway line and main road in and out of Colditz had not been affected. In the chaotic conditions which prevailed in the Castle, reflecting the conditions in the whole of Germany, the Red Cross from Switzerland and Denmark continued their noble work, delivering food supplies. They performed wonders. Trucks of supplies looked like gutted charabancs, hooded over and painted white with large red crosses on the roofs, impossible to mistake from the air.

During the early days of April, the Castle was in turmoil. Large numbers of French officers arrived, bedded down on straw, then some departed. No sooner had they departed than other French officers arrived, some in trucks, some on foot with tons of hand cart luggage. More of them left.

The distribution of Red Cross food started a major rumpus between the British and the French. Colonel German, British Parcels Officer, was motivated to make a written report on the affair for the record. He dictated it to Padre Platt, as recorder of the
Oflag
. Colonel German reported:

On the 3rd of April British and French Parcels Officers were informed of a consignment of parcels having arrived and were taken into the outer courtyard to check the same, and found a large Swiss lorry (the consignment was from Lübeck, not Geneva, as at first supposed), already unloading.

A civilian, one of the drivers, standing by, replying to a question, said: “Here are 960 parcels for
Oflag
IVC.” This released the spring in the French parcels officer, who with tongue, pencil and many diagrams began to explain the whereabouts of 6,012 French POW officers, members of IVD (the two camps have been administered separately though located together in Colditz). In the midst of all this, Monsieur Albert Cockatrix who was in charge of the convoy arrived. He had ten lorries, he said, each holding 960 parcels and driven by British POWs. M. Cockatrix was completely unaware that
Oflag
IVC also accommodated members of
Oflag
IVD. He had received instructions from Berlin that same morning to issue one parcel each to any P.O.W. he came across. (This did not deter him from leaving 9,600 parcels for approximately 6,500 prisoners—the combined strength of IVC and IVD.) We maintained that in view of the fact that we had received no direct consignment of parcels since April 1944, and that the S.B.O. received several letters from the Swiss Red Cross stating that various consignments were on the way to IVC, we were entitled to one load, i.e. 960, and the fact that IVD officers were being lodged in the
Schloss
did not materially effect the position. M. Cockatrix showed neither inclination or disposition to give a ruling. The French Parcels Officer remained adamant, hence an impasse was reached.

After hours of interminable wrangling, the solution was reached: one and a half parcels per prisoner. Padre Platt, discussing the affair, concludes: