Prisoners of the Castle - by Ben MacIntyre

Discussion in 'Books, Films, TV, Radio' started by Ramiles, Nov 7, 2022.

  1. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    BBC Radio 4 - Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle by Ben MacIntyre

    Book of the Week. Colditz is synonymous with daring escapes by stiff-upper-lipped British POWs. Samuel West reads the incredible true story of the most infamous prison in history.

    BBC Radio 4 - Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle by Ben MacIntyre - Next on


    From 14th November 2022 - BBC Radio 4 - Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle by Ben MacIntyre, 1: 'A sight to make the bravest quail'

    1: 'A sight to make the bravest quail'
    Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle by Ben MacIntyre
    Episode 1 of 10
    Samuel West reads Ben MacIntyre's incredible true story of the most infamous prison in history.
    Colditz has become synonymous with daring escapes by stiff upper-lipped British soldiers, in a cat-and-mouse game against their ruthless but foolish German captors. But this is only part of the story. Here Ben MacIntyre reveals the real story of Colditz - one not only of bravery, ingenuity and resilience, but also of snobbery, racism, homosexuality, bullying, treachery, insanity and farce.
    Today: November 1940: as the first British officers arrive at the forbidding Colditz Castle, they realise escape will be a formidable task...
    Writer: Ben MacIntyre is the bestselling author of Agent Sonya, SAS: Rogue Heroes, The Spy and the Traitor, Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat and A Spy Among Friends.
    Reader: Samuel West is an acclaimed stage, film and theatre actor and director.
    Producer: Justine Willett
    Abridger: Richard Hamilton
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2022
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  2. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    Prisoners of the Castle

    Prisoners of the Castle: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison
    Ben Macintyre
    Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group, 25 Oct 2022 - History


    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “entertaining yet objective and often-moving account” (The Wall Street Journal) of one of history’s most notorious prisons—and the remarkable cast of POWs who tried relentlessly to escape their captors, from the author of The Spy and the Traitor
    In this gripping narrative, Ben Macintyre tackles one of the most famous prison stories in history and makes it utterly his own. During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners. For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend.
    But as Macintyre shows, the story of Colditz was about much more than escape. Its population represented a society in miniature, full of heroes and traitors, class conflicts and secret alliances, and the full range of human joy and despair. In Macintyre’s telling, Colditz’s most famous names—like the indomitable Pat Reid—share glory with lesser known but equally remarkable characters like Indian doctor Birendranath Mazumdar whose ill treatment, hunger strike, and eventual escape read like fiction; Florimond Duke, America’s oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent; and Christopher Clayton Hutton, the brilliant inventor employed by British intelligence to manufacture covert escape aids for POWs.
    Prisoners of the Castle traces the war’s arc from within Colditz’s stone walls, where the stakes rose as Hitler’s war machine faltered and the men feared that liberation would not come soon enough to spare them a grisly fate at the hands of the Nazis. Bringing together the wartime intrigue of his acclaimed Operation Mincemeat and keen psychological portraits of his bestselling true-life spy stories, Macintyre has breathed new life into one of the greatest war stories ever told.
     
  3. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    So many new stories from different angles by modern authors, it makes one wonder what Shakespeare actually wrote.
    What was the Real Mac Beth really like even worse, King Alfred of Wessex, in view of the Two Emperors coins.

    History it seems, is not only written in the eyes of the Victors
    but in the eyes of the publishers and scriptwriters over each generation.
    A good story can last a thousand years.
    Look at Homers Odyssey/Helen of Troy.
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2022
  4. trentaleng

    trentaleng New Member

    It's for sure worth reading
     
  5. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    Errmmmm well, yes? Although it will seem more charitable if we say "in the eyes of the historians of each generation". The way even the First or Second World War has been understood has changed over time.

    Although with the popular subjects sometimes it does just seem to be a repeat of the same stuff by someone else.
     
  6. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    Saw the whole Colditz thing in black & white on the telly years and years ago. Must look to see if it's on YT.
    Similarly, "This is your life" was full of wartime heroes.
    "War in the Air was Great". As was a series presented by Brian Horrocks about Montgomery.
    I watched these from under a table next door, in the 1950's.
    Then came World at War.
    Who needs book when you have the good old Beeb.

    So now we await a "Peaky Blinders" treatment of Colditz to raise public interest.

    Looking forward to it now, the music and repetitive signature sounds will add to the atmosphere.
    Wonder what they will use.
    Will everyone begin walking round dressed like the Commandant or the Escapers.
    Peaky Blinders caps are still in vogue.
     
    Chris C likes this.
  7. Wg Cdr Luddite

    Wg Cdr Luddite Well-Known Member

    I was wearing mine decades before Peaky Blinders. The buggers copied my style.
     
  8. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    A working class hero is something to be.......

     
  9. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    Problem with The Story of Colditz on YT
     
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2022
  10. davidbfpo

    davidbfpo Patron Patron

    I caught part of the broadcast last week. I had not heard of the presence of Batmen, for the officers, being there too and being forbidden from attempting to escape. my interest are elsewhere, so not pursued - including whether a thread here refers.
     
  11. davidbfpo

    davidbfpo Patron Patron

    Reminder about this R4 series landed earlier. Checking the web link I see it is only available for eight more days. The BBC precis states:
    Link: Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle by Ben MacIntyre - 5: 'I have given my word' - BBC Sounds

    A series of tweets by an Indian Army historian popped up on Twitter by @GheeBowman on the three, if not more Indian Army POWs there and some did escape.

    The book has an excellent, detailed two page review in The Spectator, 17/9/2022; which ends with:
    ,
     
  12. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

     
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