NOVA Online | Nazi Prison Escape | Escaping Colditz 25

The glider in the attic

Escaping Colditz
25: April 1945

The greatest escape that never happened was ready to take flight—literally—when Allied troops occupied the castle a few weeks before the end of the war. Behind a dummy wall high in an attic above the chapel, British prisoners had spent months secretly cobbling together a glider. They built it in sections from wooden shutters, mattress covers, and mud fashioned out of attic dust. A German discovered the dummy wall at one point but was silenced with a bribe of 500 cigarettes. After the war, locals broke up the glider. As is chronicled in the NOVA program "Nazi Prison Escape," a replica of the glider recently built by ex-Colditz POWs flew successfully, proving that the inmates' most extraordinary escape vehicle ever may very well have worked, if only given the chance. (Try your hand at flying a virtual replica of The Colditz Glider.)

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