Ex-Inmate Returns To WW2 Prisoner Of War Camp (1992 Colditz Documentary) | Forces TV
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- čas přidán 17. 01. 2018
- In this documentary, the late Captain Kenneth Lockwood MBE - one of the famous inmates of Colditz - travels back to the scene of his incarceration with some serving personnel. It is a portrait of the small town in Eastern Germany, which was struggling to get rid of its wartime PoW camp reputation in the immediate aftermath of German reunification.
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Been there a few times and it is now nicely refurbished in many places. There are three small hotels/ guest house . The castle now has a super youth hostel with bunk beds and a breakfast room, which is fine. We stopped there as a coach party and it was a tremendous experience. Out of the back gate is a lovely Inn, where we had a fantastic evening meal.
Was there this year .It's been nicely done up .Very nice job .Did the full tour .18 euros and worth every penny .Nice surrounding countryside .Good experience.
Visited the area in a camper during 1989 just after the wall fell, and while it was still 'the East'. Came across the sign to Colditz at 0300 hrs - much more atmosphere about the place, then.
As others have also mentioned, there is a now a lovely Deutsche Jugendherberge, youth hostel, in the castle.
I was quite amused as a Brit to be kicked out of Colditz Castle after a couple of days because the Landesjugendorchester (the Saxony Youth Orchestra) took it over for rehearsals before going on a European Tour. When I jokingly complained to a group of them that they were the cause of me having to leave, a beautiful young girl said they had a spare bunk in her room that I could have. I replied that I very much doubted that would be authorised. I was a guy in my sixties at the time.
There's a good public tour of the castle, with emphasis on the WWII period, showing secret tunnels, the famous glider and a museum.
Although the railway station was still in use in 1999, when I went back in 2013, it was closed and all the track lifted. I stayed at the Waldhaus to the west of the town and I was told that Douglas Bader and other inmates had been allowed to visit it. I learned from the internet that the brewery closed in 1996.
I visited in 2018. The culmination of a life long obsession. Excellent museum, still needs a bit of development.
In 1990 or 91 I made my first visit there. My great luck was to be shown around by Steffen Hempel alone, so I could ask him (auf Deutsch) all the questions I had without boring other people. Having seen The Colditz Story film and read Pat Reid’s books as a schoolboy (1954?), this was a memorable trip. I got there by train - no longer possible.
Great that the castle did eventually get renovated, fascinating to see it still functioning as an asylum but awful to see the town in such poverty when it could be an absolute goldmine for tourism, Colditz suffers more from its remoteness than anything else, my dream is to visit and I'm sure many others do too but I don't drive and from what I gather it'll take a plane, then a train, then a bus, then a cab, I know there's organised tours but I'd rather go see in my own time rather than be led around, one day I'll get there tho
If you go and see it you will enjoy every minute. It's a youth hostel now .The rooms are massive and modern .The food is good and you can walk through the big doors and eat on the terrace .Great time .
I just read the book, prisoners of the Castle, when I was in USA army, I was stationed Erlangen Germany, only about 100 miles from the Colditz, Castle. THe Book is a good read
Very interesting.
In a way , they are lucky. The period of time that the castle is famous for is still there, just neglected. Anywhere in the west they would have totally erased it and used that space for all it was worth.
Yes, it would have become apartments for fat cats, and a tacky tourist attraction.
I have a very large ww2 german item including drake sword from all German ww2 arm services along with a nights cross with oak leaves from an ss general with paperwork I would like to donate them to that museum along with a lot of metals also I have an ss elite dagger, my uncle, louis leiberg brought back after the war
I stationed about two hours away and drove there about (Mar/Apr 90) before this video. One of the nurses took me through the entire Castle to all the spots that were off limits to these visitors. She then told me where the museum was located. She was nice to me but she she yelled at the patients the whole time. The conditions were horrible. I don't know what they have for a museum now but the imagination and expertise of those prisoners was unbelievable. The condition of the town was horrible much worse than in this video and it's too bad people who now praise Communism can't see the reality of life under it.
I never heard of the floodlighting to prevent bombing.
I find it VERY unlikely.
One brighly lit area in Germany
would be very useful to RAF navigators,
should they be heading in that direction!
/
1st read the Pat Reid book when I was in 6th grade, 1977.
Lol now i bet that would throw parents knickers in a twist lol
Just a lot of babble. I was hoping to see more from the returning veteran.
I think the down fall of communism was entirely the effort of the narrator