Colditz (14 page)

There is a long story behind this map. After the Dutch capitulation, Larive had found himself in the naval barracks at Amsterdam, where officially the Dutchmen were prisoners of war, though they were free to move where and when they liked. When the time came on 15 July 1940 to sign the Declaration, Larive refused, and was joined by only one of his colleagues from the barracks, Lieutenant Steinmetz. They were taken to
Oflag
VIA in Soest. From Soest Larive escaped. He reached the Swiss frontier near Singen, where he was trapped, and taken to the area headquarters of the Gestapo. He was escorted into a room. Behind a desk was a big, bull-like man in a dressing-gown. In the corner a young man was typing. Larive told them he was an officer of the Merchant Navy, called into active service last year in the Far East. He was now on his way back to the Far East.

The “bull” quite believed his story and became rather friendly in the end. He told Larive that he had been chief cook in a Dutch hotel a few years before the war. Larive described the last part of his journey. The “bull” remarked that the only clever thing Larive had done was getting off the train at Singen—all the rest was damned stupid.

“Why?” asked Larive.

“You must have known that Singen was the last station where anyone could get on or off the train without showing an identity card.”

“No, that was just a guess.”

“Having managed to get that far it was stupid to take a train instead of walking across the border,” he said.

“Well, the reason is that I didn't know how to get through the defense line.”

“Defense line!” the “bull” exploded. “Defense line against whom? Surely not against those damned Swiss? What a crazy idea. There are no defenses at all; we haven't got a single man to guard the border! You could have walked straight across.”

From a drawer he produced a staff map and Larive had to point out the route he had taken.

“You fool,” he said. “Look.” He indicated the spot where Larive had unknowingly walked past a part of the Swiss border jutting into Germany, at a distance of only about 300 yards. He asked Larive whether he remembered a certain house at the edge of a wood and the road leading past that house into the wood—the
sharp bend further down? Well, a quarter of a mile beyond that bend Larive should have turned left off the main road and followed a path. After a few hundred yards, he would have been in Switzerland—just as easily as that.

Larive asked him for some more information on various points. Naturally he would not manage to escape for the second time and besides, the war would be over by Christmas; it was not worth the risk of being shot for such a short term of imprisonment. Larive asked questions about everything which would be of any interest to an escaper, and he learned a lot.

Within a year, five of his friends as well as himself escaped into Switzerland, making use of this information, and crossing the border as indicated by the “bull.”

In November 1940, Larive was moved to
Oflag
VIIIC in Juliusburg, near Breslau. The new camp was small and rather peculiar. It consisted of part of a nunnery-cum-orphanage and was called Amalienstift. Two-thirds of the main building had been requisitioned for a POW camp, while the remaining part was still occupied by nuns and orphans. There were about 450 Belgian prisoners and four Dutch officers, the latter having been sent there direct from Holland. Among them were Trebels and van der Veen, and it was from Juliusburg that they made their escape, crossing safely into Switzerland by means of Larive's information about Singen.

Also at
Oflag
VIIIC was van den Heuvel. The Germans soon realized that he was the leading personality in the escape organization and they tried to get rid of him. A sentry was posted in his cell with orders to shoot him at his first suspicious move—so van den Heuvel remained most of the time in his bunk. When the Germans could not eliminate him this way, they withdrew the sentry from the cell and tried another way.

Van den Heuvel took his daily exercise by walking up and down along the barbed-wire fence. Their intention was to take him out for his airing during a meal hour when the other prisoners would be inside the building. The sentry accompanying him outside would remain out of the way and van den Heuvel would then be shot close to the wire from one of the machine-gun towers, allegedly trying to escape. One of the
Oflag
censors, however, a German who had lived most of his life in Belgium and had often passed the Dutch useful information in return for chocolate, coffee and other items, warned them in time against the plot. The next day several Dutchmen remained outside the building, unobtrusively reading newspapers and chatting on the steps. Half an hour before van den Heuvel was due to be “aired,” the guards in the machine-gun towers were relieved by soldiers who were recognized as Nazis, belonging to the SS, although it was not the usual time for guard-changing. Van den Heuvel had been warned.
He stayed close to the wall. It was a disappointed security officer who saw van den Heuvel stroll into his cell again afterwards.

Machiel van den Heuvel was born in 1900 in Haarlenmonermeer in the Netherlands. He must have spent some of his youth in the Netherlands East Indies for at the age of twenty-two he attended the military school in the Netherlands East Indies, only returning in 1924, posted to the Royal Military Academy at Brede in Holland. From 1939 to 1940 he was chief of staff of a Dutch Army unit with the rank of captain.

Towards the end of July 1941 the Dutch were given two days notice of a move. Their destination was Colditz.

Four days after the escape of Steinmetz and Larive, a Polish Lieutenant Kroner from Colditz escaped while hospitalized at Königswartha on 20 August. Much later it was known through the underground that he had reached Poland successfully. Gall-bladder trouble seemed to be the easiest of all diseases to fake. Kroner was having terrible pains that summer, it seemed. The
Tierarzt
was suspicious but finally conceded that the symptoms were genuine. His fury at the escape of two previous “patients,” Lieutenants Just and Bednarski, in April, had died down by August. Kroner's condition gradually improved at Königswartha. So did his escape preparations and, in due course, he changed his blue-and-white hospital garb for civilian clothes and disappeared under the comparatively unguarded wire all round the hospital.

Padre Platt reported at this time symptoms of a different kind at the
Schützenhaus
.

Fifty-four Yugoslavian officers and troops are quartered at the
Schützenhaus
, the building in which the baronial militia of the
Schloss
were housed in the days of ancient splendour. (This is also where the Polish orderlies live.) The news of their arrival here, about a fortnight ago, reached us by underground; but today an open intimation of their presence came by way of a letter to the Colonel. It was from the Yugoslavian senior officer, Oberstleutnant Serg M. Altuhov, asking if the British officers could relieve their necessity in the matter of food. For four months—the letter said—they have existed solely on German rations and are in greatly reduced physical condition.

A mess meeting was called, and after Major Cleeve—acting for the Colonel—had read the letter, he said that the Colonel thought a gift of twenty parcels out of the fifty we have in the store would be welcome.
Someone moved thirty, and finally the whole fifty were unanimously voted to them. A further vote called for gifts of cigarettes and tobacco and any such private stores as could be spared….

There is one fly in the ointment which has greatly agitated several members of our mess, viz. that the
Schützenhaus
is reported to be a center of collaboration. The French officers here have this information. There are no British at the
Schützenhaus
and, before the Yugos came, it was solely a French camp.

Seven new orderlies arrived last night from a camp in Sudetenland. They say they have been working eleven hours a day in the coal mines. They have eaten us out of house and harbour this morning and almost as thoroughly denuded our wardrobes. Three of them were entirely without underclothes and socks.

Late Summer 1941

O
N 28 AUGUST, LIEUTENANT
Airey Neave tried out his German uniform on the Germans. He was to pose as a
Gefreiter
(corporal). After many experiments in dyeing he had achieved an approximation to the field-gray color of the German uniform; a pair of RAF trousers, and a uniform tunic altered by a Polish tailor, were transformed in this way. Barter obtained a pair of jackboots from a Polish orderly. German insignia were manufactured out of painted cardboard. A bayonet and scabbard were carved for him out of wood by Lieutenant R. T. R. “Scarlet” O'Hara. This was hung from a cardboard “leather” belt with a tinfoil buckle. For a cap he had to use a modified ski-cap suitably dyed. This disguise was to be used in twilight—anything brighter would expose it for what it was.

There remained the question of maps, a compass and money. He traced in Indian ink the neighborhood of the Swiss frontier from a map made available and hid it carefully in a crevice in a wooden partition of the lavatory. A Dutch officer made him a rough identity card for a foreign worker in Germany. He still had a small compass, now sewn into the lining of his converted tunic.

Kenneth Lockwood handed him a cigar-shaped container about two and a half inches long, containing money. He explained that, to avoid its capture, if Airey did not get out of the camp, he must carry it in the container inside his rectum. If the container and money were not found, he was to return them to him. Airey's experiments with the container caused some hilarity.

He attended evening
Appell
on the 28th with a British Army greatcoat over his
Gefreiter
uniform. After the order to dismiss, a colleague removed his coat
and he smartly pulled his German cap on. He then marched towards the main door. There he spoke nervously to a German
Unteroffizier
(NCO): “I have a message to the
Kommandant
from Hauptmann Priem.” The German took from him the brass disc which acted as a pass (obtained by bribery from an elderly house painter) and let him through.

He headed for the bicycle racks, planning to cycle to freedom. Before he got there, there were yells and after a chase he found himself surrounded by shouting Germans, most of them pointing rifles at him. The
Unteroffizier
himself screamed at him: “This is an insult to the German Army. You will be shot!” Then officers with revolvers drawn came running out of the
Kommandantur
until Neave was surrounded by at least thirty excited men. Eventually the
Kommandant
himself emerged. “What impertinence,” he said in lofty tones. “Take him away to the cells.”

Next morning a soldier brought him ersatz coffee in his cell. He told Airey that he was to be court-martialed and shot. At 10 a.m. an under-officer came and ordered him to the
Kommandant
's quarters where he stood awkwardly in a long, panelled gallery, closely examined by all the officers of the camp. Their reactions ranged from ridicule to extreme anger as they surveyed his pathetic uniform. The
Kommandant
appeared. He was polite but mocking.

“Stand to attention and salute German fashion,” he said. Airey saluted. “A German soldier wouldn't salute like that. Do it again!” German officers around him laughed obsequiously. The
Kommandant
smiled in superior fashion and returned to his office in silence.

From time to time police officers from Colditz and soldiers were brought in to inspect him. There was a chorus of “
Heil Hitler!
” as they stamped down the gallery. At length the tension relaxed and turned to comic relief. A photographer from the town arrived. Slowly he assembled a large Victorian camera on a tripod at the end of the gallery, and photographed him from different angles. Airey stood there, humiliated. He felt he had reduced escaping to a farce, a music-hall turn. It seemed hours before the comedy was over. Then his German uniform was taken away to be placed in the
Kommandant
's escape museum and he was conducted back to the British quarters. There were no more threats of shooting for wearing an enemy uniform. He would do time in the cells when there was room in the town jail.

That evening Hauptmann Priem made an announcement to the assembled prisoners, which was translated into many languages: “Gefreiter Neave is to be sent to the Russian front.” The roar of laughter which greeted this sally was friendly but it was not music to his ears.

By way of inquest on this failed escape, Eggers states in his diary that the number of the missing disc, no. 26, had been posted up in the guardhouse. The under-officer at the door looked at the number on the German
Gefreiter
's disc and raised the alarm. Perhaps I, as escape officer, should have had the foresight to arrange that a digit on the disc was suitably altered before Airey used it.

Sunday, 31 August, was the birthday of the Queen of the Netherlands. The Dutch officers were keen to hold a celebration service. When making arrangements for it earlier in the week, Padre Platt found himself responsible for prayers in Afrikaans (he had worked for two years in South Africa just before the war). He composed a special prayer and submitted it, in accordance with the requirements of camp orders, to be
Geprüft
(censored). It was returned with all the references to the Royal Household deleted. Earlier, an order forbidding Padre Hobling to conduct British camp worship had been issued. This was because he had recited a prayer for the Queen of the Netherlands including a supplication that her enemies should be driven from her lands. Padre Heard had then been appointed Church of England chaplain for
Oflag
IVC. The singing of the national anthem in chapel was now also expressly forbidden.