Colditz was the last stop for the intractable prisoners-of- war in the Second World War. It was to this impregnable fortress that the Germans sent all those prisoners who persisted in escaping from other camps, such as Stalag Luft III.
Once within the walls of Colditz, the Germans considered that escape was impossible. However, during the four-year period that the castle was used as a prison, over 300 men escaped, with 31 managing to complete the hazardous journey home through Germany. It was a truly international escape academy, with prisoners from 10 different countries. The prisoners made skeleton keys, forged German passes, drew up maps and created all manner of tools and machinery out of whatever they had to hand. The inventiveness of the escape artists knew no bounds: they tried everything from tunnelling, to hiding in rubbish sacks, disguising themselves as German officers, and leaping acrobatically from the castle walls. ( )

Let us see, when you have a group of proven escape artists, and you don't want them escaping any more, what do you do?

Oh, you send them all to the one supposedly secure facility so they can all combine their talents and come up with even more impressive methods and escapes.

Pretty much that is a lot of what happened at Colditz, it seems. An excellent look at the ingenuity of some prisoners of the Germans. ( )