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Nazi Prison Escape

Fake pass
Michael Sinclair's fake pass for his escape with Jack Best (see #22).
Escaping Colditz
24: September 25, 1944

Reinhold Eggers, Colditz head of security, deemed him "the greatest escaper." He was Michael Sinclair, and he had made seven previous escape attempts from Colditz and elsewhere (see #21 and #22). This warm fall day, without anyone knowing his plans, Sinclair suddenly leapt over the fence while on the exercise walk in the park. Perhaps he thought he could get through the main wall 150 yards downhill, where a stream flowed beneath it, but a grid covered the opening. Sentries shot him dead, and the Germans buried him in Colditz's military cemetery with full honors.

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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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