Colditz (46 page)

The Polish
Prominenten
were released in the same convoy. It is interesting to note that Colonel Tod's last cheering words to the
Prominenten
before they left Colditz were not said without avail. The Swiss Minister to Germany was on their trail and caught up with them at Laufen on April 25th.

Romilly and Tieleman managed to reach Munich in three days, after some adventures. On one occasion, they were held for questioning at a police station, but their papers, prepared by Vandy, were found to be in order. The officer in charge received an urgent telephone message while they were standing in his office, concerning the escape of important prisoners from Tittmoning. He hurried them out of the office immediately, saying he had an urgent assignment, and politely wished them a pleasant journey.

In Munich, the two men lived as Germans, quietly and inconspicuously in a cheap hotel, awaiting the American advance. They reported themselves to the
American Army Headquarters as soon as the latter entered the city during the last week of April. Romilly was back in England by 2 May.

General Berger cropped up again. George, Viscount Lascelles, now the Earl of Harewood KG, received through the post in the autumn of 1945 a packet containing photostat copies of documents. In his book
The Tongs and the Bones
Lord Harewood wrote:

The documents and a letter came from a German lawyer asking me to testify that Obergruppenführer Berger, the German General who had liberated us, had indeed done what he claimed. He too was now ill and in prison, and I was asked to pass on the evidence and get support from my fellow
Prominenten
, Dawyck Haig, John Elphinstone, Charlie Hopetoun, and the rest. It was easy (and truthful) to write what we were asked to write, and my only regret is that I did not have one of the supporting documents photographed before passing it on.

It contained all our names, under the German instruction: “The following Allied POWs are not to be allowed to fall into enemy hands.”

What amounted to our death warrant was dated March 1945 and was signed by Hitler.

Vandy had not completed his duty as a soldier and an ally. Not satisfied with having delayed for five days the execution of Himmler's orders, perhaps saving the lives of the
Prominenten
thereby, he risked his life by leaving the camp in the dead of night as soon as the Americans had entered Tittmoning, and contrary to American Army orders. There was a severe curfew in operation. Anyone out in the streets was liable to be shot on sight. He appeared at American Headquarters where he reported the transfer of the
Prominenten
, including John Winant, and was able, moreover, through his own German sources of information to give details as to the route they had taken into the Tyrol from Laufen.

April 1945

M
EANWHILE IN COLDITZ
, events were approaching the climax. During Saturday, 14 April, the gunfire from the west slowly moved towards the Castle. The German commanding officer of a depleted infantry regiment (SS) in the town had visited the
Kommandant
on about the 12th. He might be ordered to defend the town and in particular the bridge. He demanded to know what resources there were in the Castle.

The
Kommandant
gave him the figures: 200 men between the ages of fifty and sixty-five, armed partly with German and partly with French rifles, with fifteen rounds of ammunition per head, also ten machine-guns of four different makes and calibers, with 3,000 rounds each. In addition a few hand-grenades.

They discussed the pros and cons of defense. The
Kommandant
set out to persuade the German commander that it would be better to leave the Castle garrison with its arms and ammunition to control the 1,500-odd POWs, who might otherwise break out and create mayhem, if and when an Allied attack might begin on the town.

The commander agreed. He insisted, however, that no white flags were to be raised on the Castle, otherwise he would shoot the place up. Still in search of reinforcements he turned to the
Partei Kreisleiter
, who mustered his
Volkssturm
battalion (people's militia). This had enough rifles for barely one in ten, plus a few bazookas. The
Kreisleiter
set up a barricade for the defense of the town out of a few carts and rolls of barbed wire at the far end of the Mulde bridge, an echo from Napoleonic days.

In March, April and May 1813, Colditz was last the scene of battle. Then the bridge over the River Mulde was the center-piece of the struggle and its survival or destruction was always in doubt, for if the French did not destroy it the Germans might, depending on the ebb and flow of the battle. The Castle had always appeared to stand aloof. The battlements were not manned then by cannon nor were they now manned by any armament bigger than machine-guns—which were pointed inwards! The fact that Colditz was not fortified, then as now, is probably explained by the comparative shallowness of the Mulde at points up- or down-stream, which meant that it could be forded—no doubt with difficulty. Command of the bridge might therefore be said to be important rather than vital.

During the morning of the 14th,
Generalkommando
, Glauchau, late
Generalkommando
, Dresden, phoned through the code letters “ZR” to the
Kommandantur
. This meant “
Zerstörung—Räumung
” (“destroy—evacuate”).

Eggers explains the implications:

All papers were to be burnt, all stores to be distributed or destroyed, our warning systems to be broken up, and so on. Furthermore, we were to evacuate the camp of all prisoners and move off “to the east” using such transport as we still had at our own disposal, namely, one antique motor vehicle, barely working, and two horse-drawn carts.

Eggers, Major Howe (German) and Hauptmann Strauss of the guard company, who had accompanied the two bus-loads of
Prominenten
to Königstein, managed to get back to Colditz by train late on Saturday night. Eggers handed to Colonel Tod the letter which had been demanded, certifying that the
Prominenten
had arrived there safely.

Kommandant
Prawitt informed Colonel Tod of his orders to move the POWs eastward. Tod flatly refused to move, saying that armed force would have to be used and there would be casualties. He was backed to the hilt in his refusal by General Daine for the French and by Colonel Duke for the Americans.

The
Kommandant
managed to get back to
Generalkommando
at Glauchau by field telephone. There was a long, heated conversation in which the upshot was: who would take the responsibility if there were casualties? Prawitt knew his Colditz prisoners and Colonel Tad well enough to appreciate Tad's refusal was no idle gesture. The OKW still would not accept responsibility.

There were at least two meetings during the day. Each time the OKW's obstinacy weakened until at last Tod got his way. The Castle would be surrendered
at discretion to the advancing Americans. A few marker shells had already been dropped into the town. The OKW insisted that the SBO should take responsibility if there were any casualties as he had refused to move his men. Tod agreed.

Having disposed of the OKW, Tod lost no time in persuading Prawitt it was time to hand over the keys of the Castle. He stressed that both the garrison and the POWs stood to risk far more from the SS in the town than from the Americans advancing. So the keys to the armory and ammunition stores were handed over. All sentries were to remain at their posts and change guard as if normal routine continued. No white flags were to be flown from the Castle until further notice. There was a ticklish situation here. If the Americans shelled the Castle, not knowing who was inside, and while the SS were still in control of the town, the latter if they saw white flags or Allied flags exposed would almost certainly storm into the Castle, precipitating a bloody battle. Prawitt ordered his guards on no account to shoot POWs or American advancing troops.

A surrender document was prepared and signed by the Germans and then by the SBO and Brigadier Davies and Colonel Duke. In exchange for acceptance of responsibility by the Germans for any harm that might come to the
Prominenten
and also for an investigation of the shooting into the British quarters in 1943, the German staff were to be given a safe conduct, i.e. into Allied hands as opposed to being handed over to the Russians.

Colonel Schaefer, Peter Tunstall and others in solitary were immediately released.

By Saturday evening, German guards controlling the
Schützenhaus
melted away of their own accord, thereby freeing some 500 French officers who took the place over, but did not venture outside. The SS were in control of the town and still guarding a little-known concentration camp full of Hungarian Jews, formerly slave labor, in the Cina works.

Eggers says the Castle garrison had no contact with this camp.

Sunday morning, 15 April, grew into a beautiful day. Spring blossom was on the fruit trees in the orchards and the meadows were resplendently green with new spring grass.

Reports of the passage of events during the day vary. Three diaries are available: Eggers' German diary; the diary of an Australian officer, Ralph Holroyd; and Padre Platt's diary. This last diary virtually ceases by Saturday the 14th. Colonel Duke has published his account, but it is dated 1969. I wrote my account in 1952 from reports of British POWs who were there. Colonel Leo W. H. Shaughnessy, commander of the task force of the 9th US Armored Division that took Colditz wrote an account for Eggers' book
Colditz Recaptured
in 1972.
Likewise Hauptmann Hans Püpcke wrote his account for Eggers' book. Thus there are seven differing accounts of the battle!

The battle lasted throughout Sunday and Monday morning. On Sunday morning, Thunderbolt planes appeared, unmolested by anti-aircraft fire. They machine-gunned the railway station, situated to the west just across the River Mulde, below the Castle. They also strafed German artillery, a battery of 88s, which was concealed in the woods and higher terrain of the
Tiergarten
to the cast of the Castle. A large home-made Union Jack had been spread out in the POW courtyard, soon followed by a French Tricolor, and lastly by a Polish flag, which was unfurled and spread out to much saluting and heel-clicking. Someone thought better of this idea later in the day. The flags were replaced by three large letters “POW,” made out of bedsheets, presumably the blue and white checkered bedsacks.

There was an ominous, expectant hush in the mid-morning. Tommy Catlow, Royal Navy, noted that it felt like being in the eye of a typhoon just before it burst. A more down-to-earth comment was to the effect that the American boys must have retired for their mid-day spam lunch whilst the German side had retired for their sauerkraut. The only active German defense in the morning had been from the concealed guns in the
Tiergarten
area, firing over the Castle at unseen targets to the west, where American artillery and tanks must have been hidden in the forest of Colditz, beyond and above the village called Hohnbach, in the valley quite close to Colditz. From shortly after noon, American howitzer shells had been falling consistently in the town. Several of them hit the Castle. One German was killed; Bader was knocked off his tin legs; and gaping holes appeared in the walls; POWs were ordered to the ground-floor rooms by the SBO. The village of Hohnbach and the forest with a big expanse of open ground in front were plainly visible from the western windows of the Castle, which were naturally crammed with excited, enthusiastic POWs, until the shelling sent most of them down to the lower windows.

Five or six American Sherman tanks appeared out of the forest, maneuvering. They opened fire on the defenders in machine-gun nests, evidently in Hohnbach, and set fire to the village and then disappeared into the Hohnbach valley. Shelling, apparently from the German 88s—though there were no direct hits—may have persuaded the tanks to seek the valley. Shelling of the town continued, with exchanges from the German guns. Thus the Castle found itself in the middle of the opposing batteries. Several more reckless POWs watched from vantage points on the roofs until shell splinters from both directions sent them scurrying below.

A “signals” room had been set up in the German
Kommandantur
of the Castle. What type of wireless communication existed, whether German (both ways) or British (receiving only), is not clear. However, Holroyd reports that at 2:45 p.m., Colditz was given ten minutes to surrender. The German reply was a defiant “We fight to the last.”

At this juncture the Germans (the Home Guard) made an effort to blow up the Colditz bridge. The explosive was reputedly old, and there was not enough of it. When the smoke and debris from the blast subsided, only half the roadway had gone. The bridge was still passable. A dozen SS troopers armed with bazookas clambered down the river bank and tried, unsuccessfully, to finish the job. The POWs had a dress-circle view of the failed operation. Their boos and jeers could be distinctly heard by the SS. Apparently they were too busy otherwise to react by spraying the Castle windows with submachine-gun fire. The town brickworks and a small factory were destroyed.

Evening approached and darkness descended but the battle did not diminish. In fact the American advance was being carried out under cover of darkness from a crossing of the Mulde by a railway bridge at a village called Lastau, over a steep rocky valley formed by the river further south. The Americans were “turning” Colditz. During the night their tanks and mechanized infantry attacked a German strongpoint based on a claypit by the road from Lastau to Colditz. Machine-gun fire with tracers, rifle fire and grenade bursts continued through most of the night.

A large kaolin factory near this strongpoint went up in flames, setting the sky aglow. The Americans continued their tank and infantry advance towards the
Tiergarten
side of Colditz. By dawn of the 16th—Monday—the Germans had retired from the claypit, retreating north-eastwards. All firing stopped except for the American heavy battery shelling the town. One heavy shell landed and exploded at the foot of the Castle wall.