Colditz cover art

Colditz

Prisoners of the Castle

 Preview
Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Colditz

By: Ben Macintyre
Narrated by: Ben Macintyre
Try Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $26.99

Buy Now for $26.99

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

In a forbidding Gothic castle on a hilltop in the heart of Nazi Germany, an unlikely band of British officers spent the Second World War plotting daring escapes from their German captors. Or so the story of Colditz has gone, unchallenged for 70 years. But that tale contains only part of the truth.

The astonishing inside story, revealed for the first time by bestselling historian Ben Macintyre, is a tale of the indomitable human spirit, but also one of class conflict, homosexuality, espionage, insanity and farce. Through an astonishing range of material, Macintyre reveals a remarkable cast of characters, wider than previously seen and hitherto hidden from history, taking in prisoners and captors who were living cheek-by-jowl in a thrilling game of cat and mouse.

From the elitist members of the Colditz Bullingdon Club to America's oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent, the soldier-prisoners of Colditz were courageous and resilient as well as vulnerable and fearful -- and astonishingly imaginative in their desperate escape attempts. Deeply researched and full of incredible human stories, this is the definitive book on Colditz.

© Ben MacIntyre 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

 Europe Germany Military War

Critic Reviews

A fine feat of storytelling . . . will surely become the last word on the subject (Patrick Bishop)
Like watching a black-and-white photograph being colourised . . . rich in humour and quirky detail . . . another compelling narrative (Clare Mulley)
Nuanced and gripping . . . told with sensitivity and insight, with an eye for telling detail (Gerard DeGroot)
Fascinating
Every Ben Macintyre book is a treat (Jane Thynne)
Entertaining yet objective and often moving
Macintyre's genius has long been to excavate the nuance, subtlety and ambiguity beneath the myths he explores . . . remarkable (Matthew D'Ancona)
Another fine history . . . His unerring eye for the telling detail that can illuminate a greater story is apparent in Colditz (Ronan McGreevy)
Macintyre so seamlessly fuses so many different accounts that their compilation creates something more profound than a simple escape yarn: a biography of the prison itself and the world detainees built there (Andrea Pitzer)
Macintyre recreates the daring escape stories with punchy flair . . . a lively page-turner (NJ McGarrigle)
All stars
Most relevant
I liked this book very much. I remember the TV series and I use to play the Colditz board game repeatedly many years ago but it was great to hear the true story of the place and time. The altruism of the tv series is certainly lacking and even though it surprised me I should have expected it really. The British military is, or at least at the time, very class oriented and the true nature of Colditz's inmates comes through as boorish in may respects.

The narration was good and kept me listening throughout and it was well paced and written.

A Great Listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A fascinating story of the men and the castle, loved the narration by the author, a wonderful read

Loved it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Wow – the amount of research and study that went into this book is astounding. I enjoyed it so much – never a waning moment. Narration by the author gives you the nuance that mightn’t easily be achieved by other narrators.

Brilliantly researched!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I generally don’t like war stories but this one had a great pace and i particularly enjoyed hearing the voices of the lower class who didn’t have their version of the war documented due to their illiteracy (or the system stopping them).

Privileged prisoners

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I've read just about every book on WW2 escapes, including "The Colditz Story" and Airey Neave's "They have their exits". Ben MacIntyre has once again delivered a meticulously researched and beautifully told story which adds a lot of new material, and importantly includes the German side of the story. Highly recommended.

Excellent!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.