Colditz

  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 atta
cked 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.

  Hauptmann Püpcke reported to the Kommandant that the POWs possessed national flags, and that the SBO had suggested, was it not the moment to hoist them? The Kommandant, seeing that German resistance appeared to be crumbling, agreed. Probably the greater fear at this moment was that of fire. An incendiary shell entering the POW quarters, on a steep trajectory, could have set the whole Castle alight.

  So the Union Jack was hoisted above the Kellerhaus—the British quarters—and the French flag above the Saalhaus, with tremendous cheering from the POWs. The American heavy battery ceased fire soon after this.

  As the morning advanced, American tanks and troops began infiltrating the town, both from the Lastau direction on the near side of the river, and from across the Colditz bridge. The German battery retreated eastwards to avoid being surrounded. Colonel Tod placed armed British officers on guard inside the Castle gates.

  The British, according to Holroyd, were regaled at regular intervals by radio news bulletins. The British radio must have been working. Dick Howe and Micky Burn were sending out bulletins to the prisoners about the American attack on Colditz as relayed by the BBC from American advance troops with radio transmitters. Thus the POWs were informed about both sides of the battle. Water and electricity had been cut off for some time, so that the radio electricity supply was provided by the “slave gang on the big wheel” (see my book The Latter Days).

  Mortar fire was turning the town into burning rubble. Two Panzerfäuste (bazookas) were firing at short range on the bridge, trying to hold up the Americans. Then the welcome sound of infantry small arms and machine-gun fire was heard from the Tiergarten side. The Americans were closing in.

  Tiles and shell fragments littered the prison courtyard.

  By evening the town was surrounded, but the enemy had not surrendered.

  Colonel Leo Shaughnessy’s account of the battle is a clear-cut military report in concise and modest terms. The other reports all come from onlookers. Shaughnessy (from Carolina) was at the point of the spear, determining the battle.

  He commanded the 3rd Battalion, the 273rd Infantry, in the 69th Infantry Division, under General Emil F. Reinhardt, part of the 1st US Army. His battalion had crossed the Rhine south of the Remagen bridge by boat, shortly after its capture by the 9th Armored Division on 7 March. Early in April they crossed the Fulda River, north of Kassel. Then his battalion was attached to Combat Command “R,” 9th Armored Division, commanded by Colonel Charlie Wesner. A task force was organized by attaching armored infantry, artillery and engineers. The task force was completely mounted on wheels or tanks.

  There were several divisions operating abreast, each with five or six such task forces operating ahead, clearing the countryside of pockets of resistance, uncovering refugee groups and Allied POW camps.

  Shaughnessy’s task force took him on a line between Leipzig and Dresden. They lost a dozen men at Altengroitzsch, then reached the River Mulde at Wilderheim on 14 April. They were attacking Hohnbach on Sunday the 15th, when Shaughnessy received orders from Colonel Wesner to concentrate on Colditz, there to relieve “a large number of prisoners-of-war.” He adds, “Further information indicated there were V.I.P.s among them.” This was not, however, the main object or mission of the force. The force was part of the drive on Leipzig. Its primary role was to provide right-flank security for the troops attacking Leipzig.

  Shaughnessy found himself by the observation post on the west bank of the river when the early artillery rounds were being zeroed in on the most prominent point on the other side. “This was,” he writes, “one of the towers of a large and imposing Castle.” Soon after several rounds had hit the Castle, “we observed three Allied red, white and blue flags appear at the upper windows of one of the buildings. This was the signal we needed to know that the Castle was where the prisoners of war were being held.”

  Lieutenant Kenny Dobson was the artillery officer in charge of the battery which first spotted the Allied flags, just as he was about to bombard the Castle with high explosive followed by incendiaries.

  Shaughnessy lost three first-rate platoon sergeants already recommended for battlefield promotion, and a number of wounded casualties before he had cleared the west bank of the river up to and around the road bridge by midnight of the 15th.

  During that night what remained of the SS garrison departed eastwards, presumably fighting some kind of rearguard action—the cause of the small-arms and machine-gun fire from the Tiergarten area.

  Soon after dawn American sections could be seen from the Castle proceeding under tank protection along the main street and down sideroads—entering houses as white flags went up. Terrified Germans came out with their hands up. One German, crossing the bridge, apparently did not stop when ordered and was shot instantly.

  At about 10 a.m. on the 16th an infantry section (reconnaissance) of four men, advancing warily uphill, arrived at the gate of the Castle, which was immediately opened to them by the British guards, who had been placed there by the SBO. Their leader, Private First Class Alan H. Murphy (Bronze Star Medal) of New York State was the first American to enter Colditz. The other three were: Privates First Class Walter V. Burrows, 60th of Pennsylvania, Robert B. Miller, 60th of Pennsylvania, and Francis A. Griegnas, junior of New Jersey.

  In the outer courtyard, all the German officers were paraded and disarmed. Eggers, being an English speaker, represented the German staff. He produced a complete list of POWs held, handing it over to Private Murphy. All the German officers remained on parade while Private Burrows escorted Eggers down the hill to report to his commander, Captain Hotchkiss.

  The streets were empty. Here and there an American guarded an important place. On crossing the bridge Eggers saw the poor attempt that had been made to blow it up. On the far side lay three dead men of the Volkssturm, one of them only about seventeen years old, lying behind a primitive shelter of barrows and barbed wire. “Even a hundred years ago this would not have stopped anyone,” Eggers thought.

  What made them die like this? As we walked I saw what lay in store for our women as one was being dragged along by an American soldier who also had a whisky bottle clutched in his hand; she cried to me, “Help, help.” [Eggers’ implication that the woman was about to be raped is uncorroborated.] We went into the last house in Colditz town where I saw the Captain in charge of the unit. He was satisfied that no prisoner was injured and told me to return and order everyone to stay there until a staff officer arrived to take the formal surrender. I went back with the Sergeant [sic]. People now began to leave their houses, one man came up to the Sergeant and told him where the Nazi Kreisleiter lived. The Sergeant told him to go back indoors as he didn’t like this type of informer. He told me to inform all the people we saw that it was forbidden to leave their houses. So I returned to the castle.

  Colonel Tod had only allowed a few officers to leave the inner courtyard during the Sunday and Monday morning on specific duties or as guards. Now he with other senior officers awaited the arrival of an American officer to take over the Castle.

  In the meantime Private Murphy continued up the causeway and ordered the gate sentry (still with his rifle but no ammunition) to open up. As the gate opened, he walked through on the cobbles into a small patch of sunshine. His gaze wandered around the roof tops and high walls with the rows of barred windows and then down again to the yard, where a large number of officers were aimlessly walking around or standing in groups talking. S
lowly their eyes turned towards the gate and slowly too they began to appreciate that this was no apparition standing before them. It was a real-live, heavily armed American GI. In the next instant all hell broke loose. Private Murphy was swamped by a milling onslaught of cheering, laughing, sobbing, shouting men.

  Epilogue

  After Colditz

  IN APRIL 1949 I ARRIVED in Paris after a three-year stint in Ankara as a First Secretary at the British Embassy. I joined the diplomatic staff of the Organization for European Economic Co-operation—the OEEC centered in Paris.

  One day, in the summer of 1950, during a polo tournament in the Bois de Boulogne, on the scoreboard recording the competing teams and the chukkas, I saw the name of P. Mairesse Lebrun. During an interval in play, I went to the players’ changing rooms and asked for the whereabouts of Pierre.

  He was seated, having removed his boots, and immediately recognized me. He rose and advanced to greet me, walking with the aid of a stick. It was nine years since his departure from Colditz in July 1941. I had to find out what had happened to him.

  When Pierre crossed the Pyrenees in December 1942, he fell into the hands of the Spanish guards, was imprisoned in a lice-ridden and overcrowded prison in Pamplona and after a week transferred to a holding camp for illicit fugitives from France at Miranda, then after a period to Lerida with other officers of the regular French Army.