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The Colditz Hostages by Alexander Michael, Giles Romilly (Hardcover, 2018)

Naval and Military Press (10073)

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The authors recount their varied experiences in captivity. Alexander was taken in August 1942 when engaged in a raid behind the German lines in North Africa. Romilly managed to escape soon after the removal from Colditz with the assistance of a Dutch officer.

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Giles Romilly and Michael Alexander were amongst a select group of prisoners of war who were segregated from the other prisoners and were labelled the Prominente. The authors recount their varied experiences in captivity. Romilly, a journalist covering the Norway Campaign, was captured at Narvik in April 1940\. Alexander was taken in August 1942 when engaged in a raid behind the German lines in North Africa. In due course, because of their family connections to people of influence, both of them ended up in an isolation area of Colditz Castle, where they were joined by several more, including Earl Haig, the son of the C-in-C of the BEF, the commander of the Polish Army in the Warsaw Uprising and, the last to arrive, the son of the US Ambassador to London. In April 1945, in the face of the advancing American armies and on Himmler's instructions, the Prominente were removed from the Castle. In due course they became split up. Romilly managed to escape soon after the removal from Colditz with the assistance of a Dutch officer. The remainder survived to be liberated, despite Hitler's order for them to be executed. The book is beautifully written. Romilly, in particular, shows himself to be an excellent observer: of the character of his fellow prisoners both before and during his time as a Prominente; and of the last, chaotic days of the Third Reich. His description of the scenes he witnessed in the newly liberated Dachau Camp, soon after his arrival in the allied lines, remain extraordinarily powerful. AUTHORS: Giles Romilly (1917 - 1967) was a journalist who was a war correspondent during both the Spanish Civil War and in the Second World War. It was whilst covering the Norwegian Campaign that he was captured by the Germans in Narvik in 1940\. He became the first of Hitler's Prominente prisoners at Colditz - he was a nephew of Winston Churchill through his wife Clementine. During the transfer of the Prominente from Colditz, in the face of the advancing allies, he managed to escape with the aid of a Dutch officer. He died in California in 1967. Michael Alexander (1920 - 2004) was captured whilst operating with a commando unit behind the German lines in front of El Alamein. He convinced the Germans that he was closely related to General Alexander; and so was sent to join the Prominente at Colditz Castle. He was amongst a group of these men who Hitler ordered to be executed, amongst the last of the instructions to emerge from his bunker in Berlin and his own death. Eventually, he was handed over to American troops in Innsbruck. After the war he enjoyed a mixed career as a writer, an adventurer and a restaurateur.