This page is dedicated to Lt. Col. Tod for his cool headedness and skill in delivering the castle to the liberators.

The extract is taken from Pat Reid’s ‘Latter Days’. An account of life at the Castle, constructed in conjunction with former POWs, concerning the period of time since he departed in 1942. A thoroughly enjoyable read recomended to all.

“Back in the Castle: Friday, the thirteenth of April an unlucky day for the Prominente, brought good news to Colditz through the secret wireless receiver. Hodge’s spearhead, south of Leipzig, was advancing again afer a slight check during the day of the twelfth. The Americans were twenty miles away at dawn and, by the evening, they were in the Colidtz area, invisible but there, nevertheless. Shells fell in the town as the dusk approached and, in the distance, machine gun-fire could be heard. Desultory firing continued through the night.

The next morning, Saturday the fourteenth, at dawn, the battle for Colditz began. The Allied Air Forces had possession of the sky. An American reconnaissance plane zoomed overhead. A few shells followed, dropping into various parts of the town. The artillery were ranging.

Colonel Tod was called again to the Kommandantur, where Prawitt faced him.

“You are to move the British out of the Castle towards the east under guard. I have orders from Dresden.”

This was Tod’s chance. Twenty-four hours had just made the difference. The S.S. had their hands full. To-day, they were under attack fighting a battle, and they could not possibly deal with three hundred British prisoners not to mention a thousand Frenchmen. They could not even spare the time to come into the camp and shoot them all. Tod seized the opportunity.

“The British refuse to move,” he said. “You will have to turn them out with the bayonet ad the British will fight. This is not mutiny. It is self-defence. You are sending them out to their death. Tell Dresden we shall not move.”

Tod was recalling another occasion, a long time ago, when the Commandant had shown he was less fearful of his superiors when they were a long way off. Those nearby were heavily engaged which came to the same thing.

The Kommandant weakened.

“I shall ‘phone my Headquarters,” he said, sitting down at his desk and picking up the army field telephone. He spoke to a couple of exchanges in turn, using German code names. Then he was speaking to the General. He reported the position at Colditz, leading up to his interview with Tod, saying,… “and the British refuse to move.”

There was an explosion from the other end. A guttural German voice was yelling blue murder at the Commandant who held the receiver far away from his ear. Gradually the rasping died down. Oberst Prawitt was at last showing signs of courage. With remarkable calm he addressed his senior:

“I cannot move the prisoners without shooting them and they will then resist. Their Commander will disclaim mutiny on grounds of self-defence. Will you take the responsibility if I use my weapons and prisoners are killed?”

“No!” came the answer, shouted down the telephone.

“Neither will I!” said he Commandant and banged down he receiver…

Even the few marker shells dropped into Colditz by the American artillery were having a suprisingly salutary effect on the conduct of affairs within the Castle walls.

The prisoners did not move.

Heavy shelling started in the afternoon and buildings were soon on fire in many quarters. The noise of gunfire increased to a crescendo. To the onlookers in the Castle, no orderly plan appeared to be unfolding. There was only destruction, smoke, flames and noise, the tearing scrunch of shells , the whine of splinters, the acrid smell of burnt explosive and chaos.

Half a dozen shells landed in the Castle, splintering glass everywhere and leaving ragged holes in the roof. Nobody was seriously hurt. Duggie Bader was knocked of his tin legs. The prisoners were ordered to the ground floor.

The Kommandantur fared worse and a dozen shells tore large gaps in the building, wounding several Germans. Nevertheless the general shelling appeared to be avoiding the Castle.

In the early afternoon, Colonel Tod had another session with Oberst Prawitt. The Commandant, judging by his appearance, had probably received information, though he did not say so, that the S.S. would not retreat into the Castle and make a stand in it. His face showed immense relief. He was wreathed in smiles and almost fawning on Tod as he told him that he would surrender to him the inside of the Castle on certain conditions: the S.S. were still in the town, and so sign must be given to them that the Castle had been surrendered; no national or other coloured flags to be in evidence; no white flags of surrender to be visible at the windows; appearances to be kept up by leaving the sentries at their posts around the exterior; a guarantee to be given by the S.B.O. that he, Oberst Prawitt, would not be handed over to the Russians.

Tod refused to give any guarantees. He thought for a moment, realising the value and importance of access to the armoury in case of need. He decided to take a risk. He compromised on one point, making a counter proposal. If the interior of the whole Castle were handed over to him, including he armoury, if and when he so desired so that he could move his officers freely within the Kommandantur area, he would instruct them not to show signs of surrender outside the Castle. He added that he would see the Commandant was treated with justice, that was as far as he could go. Tod was becoming master of the situation. He would move his officers about and would obtain arms if he wanted them though already he felt the danger from the S.S. receding. He ran the risk that the Americans might take it into their heads to blow up the Castle not knowing who was inside. He would like to have put out flags. He used his judgment. The shells, he considered, which had entered the Castle were “off target”. The Americans were now puring high explosive into the town. He was sure that they were avoiding the Castle and for no other reason than that they knew there were prisoners inside. Finally, Tod considered it wiser to keep his men within the inner courtyard, unless the situation deteriorated. If the S.S. decided to move into the Castle he was to be informed in time. The Commandant was not treacherous. He himself with a small staff would keep their eye on developments from the Kommandtur.

The Commandant accepted the terms with some alacrity. As Colonel Tod walked back to the prisoners’ courtyard to assemble his staff officers, the first American tanks were spotted on the horizon through Keith Milne’s telescopes.

All through the night of the fourteenth to the fifteenth the battle for Colditz continued. There was an electric power cut in the whole district, and the slave gang was hard put to it, to keep the wireless receiver in action. The searchlights went out. Instead, a pale moon suffused the Castle with ghostly luminosity. Its belfries, battresses and towering walls stood out grimly against the skyline. Unearthly lights and shadows flickered across its surface, cast up from the flames and the smoke in the valley. Like an evil witch, it hovered over the steaming cauldron of the town applying fuel to the fire underneath as the bright flashes of exploding shells sent dark clouds into the air and new fires licked around the bowl.

Nobody slept much during the night. The moon cast a grey light into the dormitories and the very air seemed feverish. Men tossed and turned, straw palliases rustled interminably. Explosions shook the buildings and air blast whoofed through the wide open windows, tinkling the panes of glass. The rasp of machine-guns increased as the moonlight faded giving place to a dawn that streaked layers of grey and gold across the sky from the east. The rattle of muskets drew nearer. American light bombers droned overhead and dropped their shattering loads on the railway lines and the roads.

Sunday, the fifteenth of April, saw the culmination of the attack. The weather was fine and the sun shone in a translucent spring sky. American shellfire was heavy all through the morning, yet the Castle was not hit. It was now obviously being carefully preserved. The town was being reduced to a mass of burning timber, rubble and twisted steel.

One of the five French Generals who had recently arrived, General de Boisse, of the French 62nd Division, chose this morning to have his portrait painted in pastelles by the camp artist, John Watton. A jagged white chalk streak on the picture, underneath the General’s chin, which he would not allow to be removed, records to this day, the moment when the Germans tried to blow up Colditz bridge.

It was their last despairing effort to delay the Americans before retreating with their tanks, a beaten enemy, towards the south-east.

The blown bridge did not collapse. Piers were damaged but the roadway held, and the Americans were not stopped. By eleven o’clock in the morning their tanks were seen in the village. One after the other, with long intervals between, they trundled carefully into the main street, splaying out fanwise into secondary roads and lanes as they reached them. Moving warily in front and around the tanks could be seen the mine removal squads and the infantry. The latter, covered by the tanks, advanced from house to house amongst the ruins, breaking in the front doors where they remained standing, and disappearing inside. From the windows, white sheets would appear, one after the other, in token of surrender.

Underneath the walls of the Castle, a tank rounded a street corner, lying in the gutter, not fifty yards away, a fairhaired Hitler Youth, of scarcely fifteen years, opened up on it with a machine-gun. A woman, probably his mother, screamed at him from an upper window in the house nearby. Another machine-gun crackled angrily and the boy rolled over. American G.I.s appeared from behind the tank and began taking over the houses, one by one, on either side of the street.

Half an hour later, the gate into the prisoners’ courtyard opened, and an American soldier stepped into the spring sunshine in the middle of the yard. A tall, broad-chested G.I.with an open, weatherbeaten countenance, his belt and straps festooned with ammunition clips and grenades, a sub-machine gun in his hand, he stood and, looking upwards, slowly turned around. His gaze toured the full circle of the steep roofs above him, the massive walls, the barred windows and, finally the cobbles at his feet.

There were many officers in the courtyard at the time. For fully a minute they watched him, incredulously. Some were walking around the yard. They stopped and stared at him blankly. Some were chatting in groups. They ceased talking and looked, quizzically in his direction. A few, unperturbed by the march of events, were sitting on benches, reading. The sudden silence made them raise their heads. They stared wth mouths agape at the strange intruder standing in the sunlight. Faces at the windows remained motionless like was masks without expression.

Dick Howe saw the G.I. enter. A brainstorm momentarily paralysed the normal currents of his mind. His memory played tricks upon him, and switched, suddenly, to a scene which floated past his inward eye. He saw himself standing on a dusty road outside Calais in 1940, unarmed and a prisoner. A German soldier was passing and he shouted, “Fur Sie das Krieg ist geendet. Wir fahren gegen England, Sie gehen nach Deutschland.” Now the irony of the words struck him. “For you the war is over.” That was five years ago. And the German? He was probably dead long ago.

An officer, standing near the gate, advanced with outstretched hand and shook the hand extended by the American, who grinned at him and said cheerfully, “Any doughboys here?” The spell was broken.

Suddenly, a mob was rushing towards him shouting and cheering and struggling madly to reach him, to make sure that he was alive, to touch him and from the touch to know again the miracle of living, to be men in their own right, freed from bondage, outcast no more, liberated by their Allies and their friends, their faith in God’s mercy justified, their patience rewarded, the nobility of mankind vindicated, justice at last accomplished and tyranny once more overcome.

Men wept, unable to restrain themselves. It was not enough that the body was free once more to roam the earth. Feelings, pent up and dammed behind the mounting walls of five successive torturing, introverted years, had to erupt.

They welled up like gushing springs, they overflowed, they burst their banks, they tumbled unhindered and uncontrolled. Frenchmen with tears down their faces kissed each other on both cheeks - the salute of brothers. They kissed the G.I., they kissed everyone within range. The storm of emotion burst. The merciful rain descended. The grey clouds drifted from the horizon of the mind, borne on fresh salt and mositure-laden breezes across the unchained oceans of memory from the far off shores of love. Home and country beckoned, loved ones were waiting. Wives and sweethearts, mothers, fathers, and children never seen, were calling across the gulf of the absent years.”