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Hole and bedsheet rope beneath
the theater's stage.
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Escaping Colditz
14: January 6, 1942
On this night, four officers, operating in pairs, slipped
through a specially cut hole in the British theater floor, dropped into a
unoccupied room, and walked out into a corridor that led over the main gate of
the prisoners' yard and into an attic over the German guardroom. Dressed as
German officers, first one pair and then the other descended into and walked
out of the temporarily unoccupied guardroom, strolled under the archway into
the German courtyard, and exited the main gate. Fearful of being stopped at the
final gate beyond the moat, they turned east out of the main gate and, under
cover of darkness, clambered over the unguarded wall along the park road.
Though the Germans captured one pair, they did not get the other: Dutch Lieut.
Tony Luteyn reached Switzerland with his partner, English Lieut. Airey Neave,
the first Brit to flee successfully.
Previous escape |
Next escape |
See the map
- First escape
April 12, 1941
- Straw mattresses
May 8, 1941
- Locked cells
Mid-May 1941
- Canteen tunnel
May 1941
- German woman
June 1941
- Air-raid shelter
June 1941
- Hacksaw
June 1941
- Over the wall
July 2, 1941
- Air shaft
July 28, 1941
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- Lavatory
July 31, 1941
- Manhole
Late summer, 1941
- Dummies
December 1941
- German officers
December 1941
- Main gate
January 6, 1942
- Town dump
March 1942
- Wooden crate
September 7, 1942
- Mussolini's office
September 9, 1942
- Headquarters building
October 15, 1942
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- Willi the electrician
December 1942
- "Maddest attempt"
May 11, 1943
- Franz Josef
September 2, 1943
- Cellar house
January 19, 1944
- Rubbish heap
May 2, 1944
- Greatest escaper
September 25, 1944
- Glider
April 1945
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Escaping Colditz |
The Jailor's Story |
Great Escapes |
The Colditz Glider
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