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Nazi Prison Escape

Bruce's box
Bruce's box
Escaping Colditz
16: September 7, 1942

Deciding that the prisoners, particularly the British, had too many personal belongings, they ordered them to box the possessions up in three-cubic-foot Red Cross wooden crates, then carry them up to a third-floor storeroom at the castle's south end. The next day, a guard noticed a rope of bedsheets tied together hanging out the storeroom window. In the room, guards found one of the crates opened, with a note scribbled on top: "I don't like the air in Colditz. Auf wiedersehen. Ex-PW Flying Officer Bruce." The diminutive Englishman Dominic Bruce was caught a week later.

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  1. First escape
    April 12, 1941


  2. Straw mattresses
    May 8, 1941


  3. Locked cells
    Mid-May 1941


  4. Canteen tunnel
    May 1941


  5. German woman
    June 1941


  6. Air-raid shelter
    June 1941


  7. Hacksaw
    June 1941


  8. Over the wall
    July 2, 1941


  9. Air shaft
    July 28, 1941


  1. Lavatory
    July 31, 1941


  2. Manhole
    Late summer, 1941


  3. Dummies
    December 1941


  4. German officers
    December 1941


  5. Main gate
    January 6, 1942


  6. Town dump
    March 1942


  7. Wooden crate
    September 7, 1942


  8. Mussolini's office
    September 9, 1942


  9. Headquarters building
    October 15, 1942


  1. Willi the electrician
    December 1942


  2. "Maddest attempt"
    May 11, 1943


  3. Franz Josef
    September 2, 1943


  4. Cellar house
    January 19, 1944


  5. Rubbish heap
    May 2, 1944


  6. Greatest escaper
    September 25, 1944


  7. Glider
    April 1945



Escaping Colditz | The Jailor's Story | Great Escapes | The Colditz Glider
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