 Colditz Castle today. |
The Bad Boys camp...
I grew up with tales of Colditz - the imposing Saxon castle used as a top-security Prisoner-of-War (PoW) camp for persistent escapers & VIP prisoners. I eagerly read the books by Pat Reid, Airey Neave and Reinhold Eggers published soon after the war, watched the 1955 film The Colditz Story, played the Escape from Colditz board game of 1973 and stayed up late for the TV series Colditz of 1972-74. Locked away in East Germany for decades, it was if the castle was myth not reality, existing only in books and wartime photographs. I first visited in 1992 soon after the Wall came down and found myself the only tourist in a sleepy Saxon town utterly unaware of the fame of its castle. Revisiting in 2016, it had changed very little and was as sleepy as ever. Though had the glider been launched today it would have landed on the new Lidl.
Getting to Colditz
Step 1, take a train to Leipzig
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From the UK: Travel from the UK to Leipzig Hbf as explained here. You can travel by train from London to Leipzig in a day, from as little as €59. In fact, you can book through from London St Pancras to Leipziger Str., Colditz, although the fare you see won't include the Grossbothen-Colditz bus which you simply pay to the driver on the bus as explained below. You can use bahn.de's stopover feature to incorporate a stopover of up to 48 hours in Leipzig.
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From other European cities: Using int.bahn.de you can buy a ticket from any German city or from cities in neighbouring countries such as Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels or Prague to Leipziger Str., Colditz, although the fare you see won't include the Grossbothen-Colditz bus which you simply pay to the driver on the bus as explained below. Use the stopover feature to incorporate a stopover of up to 48 hours in Leipzig if you like.
Step 2, Leipzig to Colditz by train+bus
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Use the German Railways website int.bahn.de to find train times from Leipzig Hbf to Leipziger Str., Colditz.
You'll find an hourly service on weekdays, every 2 hours at weekends, with 1 change from a modern air-conditioned regional train to a bus at Grossbothen. At the time I write this, trains leave Leipzig at xx:06 minutes past each hour (past the even-numbered hour at weekends), change at Grossbothen for the bus, taking 1 hour 18 minutes from Leipzig Hbf to Colditz.
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The one-way fare covering both the train & bus is around €8.60.
This is a Leipzig area local tariff, the one-way fare is called MDV Einzelfahrkarte. As it's a local authority tariff, int.bahn.de will show it, but it's only sold in the DB app or from ticket machines at the station. Or you can buy separate tickets, around €7.10 for the train and around €2 for the bus.
No reservation necessary or possible for regional trains, just buy at the station or in the DB app and hop on the next train. Have some loose change handy to pay the driver on board the bus if you choose to pay separately. You can also check train & bus fares using the journey planner at www.mdv.de (in German).
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Grossbothen station is unstaffed and now rather down-at-heel, just get off the train and walk 7 minutes along the long poorly-maintained gravel approach road to the junction with the main road, look to your right underneath the railway bridge and you'll see the bus stop. The stop for buses in the Colditz direction is on the far side of the road. When you get there, the bus will be along in 15 minutes! It's Bus 619.
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This isn't the only possible route from Leipzig to Colditz - there are other options with a change from train to bus at Grimma or Bad Lausick, but the one via Grossbothen is easy and the one I'd suggest. It follows the old railway route from Leipzig to Colditz as far as Grossbothen where the now-closed railway to Colditz used to diverge. In fact, there are direct buses from Leipzig to Colditz if you know where to find them and don't mind sitting on a bus for over an hour, but sadly the little local train from Leipzig to Colditz which I used in 1992 ceased in the late 1990s when the railway to Colditz was closed. Use this link to bahn.de to see other possible routes.
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Colditz Sportsplatz is the bus stop after Colditz Leipziger Strasse and it's arguably nearer the town square, but I suggest getting off at Colditz Leipziger Strasse where the bus first enters Colditz town, for the experience: Across the fence from the bus stop you'll see the weed-strewn platforms of Colditz' derelict railway station, and it's a short 5-10 minutes walk into town the way an arriving PoW would have marched, from Colditz railway station down across the bridge over the River Mulde to the town's main square and up to the castle.
Route map
Day trip from Berlin or Dresden?
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It's possible to visit Colditz as a day trip from Berlin or Dresden. In this case, simply buy a ticket from Berlin, Dresden or any German city to Leipziger Str., Colditz from as little as €19 each way using int.bahn.de and print out your own ticket. Berlin to Colditz takes 2h57 in total, centre to centre, via Leipzig & Grossbothen as explained below.
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Bahn.de will show you the whole timetable from Berlin or your chosen city to Colditz, but the fares you see will be marked partial fare as they only cover the trains to Grossbothen. They do not include the Grossbothen-Colditz bus. But this is no big deal, you just pay the bus driver when you board the bus at Grossbothen - it's only a couple of euros.
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You can include a stopover in Leipzig for up to 48 hours in Leipzig in one or both directions and still get the cheap fare, simply by using bahn.de's stopover feature.
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Consider staying in Colditz town at least for one night. That is less rushed and it's a great place to stay - the castle illuminated at night makes a great photo! See suggested places to stay including in Colditz Castle itself.
The journey to Colditz in pictures
Visiting the castle: Opening times & tours
The castle is open all year round. For castle tours and museum opening times see www.colditz-erleben.com and look for the English section at lower left. You can usually wander freely into the castle's outer & inner courtyards any time except at night, but Colditz museum has defined opening hours and if you want to see inside the castle you'll need a tour.
Outer (German) courtyard
The photos below show the outer (German) courtyard. The photo below left is taken from the 3rd floor of the castle youth hostel, looking down with the main gateway out of the castle visible to the left of the tree. The photo below right is the reverse view, looking up at the block which houses the youth hostel - this was the German Kommandantur (administrative offices) during the war.
Inner (prisoners) courtyard
The castle museum
Colditz has a PoW escape museum, located inside the castle between the inner & outer courtyards - in fact, you enter the museum through the doorway Airey Neave walked out of on his escape in 1942, see the photo below. For opening times see www.schloss-colditz.com. It's a remarkable collection: You'll find digging equipment, rope ladders, and fake German rifles and uniforms made by prisoners, like the officer's cap below right. Most of the exhibits were originally in one small room dedicated to PoW escapes located in the Colditz town museum which I visited in 1992.
Colditz at night
The castle was usually floodlit at night during the war, except during air raids. It's illuminated beautifully at night today.
Great escapes in pictures
Airey Neave's escape, January 1942
Lt Airey Neave was the first British officer to escape from Colditz, escaping on 5 January 1942 with Dutch officer Tony Luteyn. The prisoners created a concealed hatchway from underneath the stage in the prisoners' theatre through the ceiling of a disused corridor. The photo below left is taken from inside the inner (prisoners) courtyard, and shows the blanked-off windows behind the theatre stage on the 3rd floor.
The disused corridor ran over the prisoners courtyard gate to the attics of a building used as German officers' quarters, shown in the photo below right which is taken from outside the gate to the prisoners courtyard. Dressed in fake German officer's uniforms, Neave and Luteyn descended the stairs from the attic and walked out of that green door. Which incidentally is now the entrance to the castle museum. In 1992, two bushy trees stood either side of that door, almost concealing it and much of the building, which was in a poor state at the time.
Pat Reid's escape, July 1942
On the night of 14 October 1942, Captain Pat Reid, Major Ronnie Littledale, Lt Cdr Bill Stevens and Flt Lt Howard Wardle sawed through window bars in the prisoners' kitchens overlooking the outer (German) courtyard - marked by the larger arrow in the photo below left. They climbed down onto the roof of the German kitchens, a single-storey building demolished since my first visit in 1992 - the grey rectangle on the wall below the arrow shows where this was. They made for the workshop door on the far side of the courtyard, marked by the smaller arrow. They expected to find it unlocked. It wasn't. They crept along that wall until they came to a cellar in the corner used for storing potatoes, marked in the photo below right.
The group spent several days hiding in the potato store before climbing out into the moat through a small air vent, visible at the end of the potato store in the photo above right. The vent is tiny - I wouldn't fit - and they stripped naked to wriggle out, facing backwards. Splitting into two pairs and disguised as Flemish workmen, all four made it to Switzerland.
The French tunnel
In 1941, nine French officers organised the largest tunnelling operation every attempted at Colditz. Starting at the top of the clock tower - the last place the Germans would look for a tunnel - they descended 8.6m to a cellar through the space where the clock's weights and chains would have been. From this cellar (pictured below left) they tunnelled under the floor of the chapel, cutting away sections of huge joist to get through. On the far side of the chapel they dug down again (pictured, below right) and out. The tunnel broke through on the tiergarten side of the castle, but it was discovered before it could be used. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_escape_Oflag_IV-C#The_French_tunnel.
The tiergarten escapes: Leray April 1941, Mairesse Lebrun July 1941
Behind the castle is the tiergarten or 'deer park', a large park area surrounded by a tall stone wall, beyond which are the local woods & countryside. Prisoners were marched down to an exercise area, roughly where the green grass is in the photo above. A wire fence topped with barbed wire ran out from the stone wall at right angles, roughly where the arrow is (and where I'm standing to take the photo below right), fencing off a defined exercise area from the rest of the tiergarten. These are 2016 photos - see below for 1992 photos & the strange case of the missing brackets.
Pierre Mairesse Lebrun escaped on 2 July 1941, the action all taking place in the area pictured above. A French cavalry officer and amateur gymnast, he leapt over the wire fence with help from Lt Pierre Odry cupping his hands as a step and catapulting him over. The guards were initially taken by surprise, but as they recovered and started shooting Mairesse Lebrun climbed the un-rendered stone wall somewhere to the left of the arrow above, and escaped through the woods, still in his sports gear. He successfully reached Switzerland and then Vichy France. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Mairesse-Lebrun.
Incidentally, shortly before this successful escape, Mairesse Lebrun made an unsuccessful attempt. He was recaptured at Grossbothen station when he tried to buy a ticket with an out-of-date 100 mark note. Remember that when you alight at Grossbothen's now-boarded-up railway station!
Alain Leray's escape, 11 April 1941. French officer - later general - Alain Leray was the first prisoner to escape from Colditz. As prisoners were marched back from the exercise area, Leray hid in a doorway at the base of the building known as the terraced house, marked with the arrow in the photo above left. The headcount back at the castle was fixed, and after a while Leray was able to nip back to the exercise area and get over the wall and away. He successfully reached Switzerland.
The case of the missing brackets
When I first visited in 1992, the wall was in disrepair and a section had fallen down. I reversed the procedure usually followed by my countrymen and broke into Colditz - well, I nipped over the broken wall into the tiergarten from the woods outside. On the inside of the wall I could see two rusty brackets where the wartime wire fence attached to the stone wall, shown by the arrow in the photo below left. To the right of the brackets, inside the exercise area, the wall was rendered to make the wall harder to climb. To the left of the brackets, outside the exercise area, it was un-rendered. 24 years later in 2016, the wall has been repaired and there is no sign of the brackets or the difference in rendering. Pierre Mairesse Lebrun probably climbed the very stretch of wall shown in the photo below left, to the left of the white arrow.
The Colditz glider
In 1944-45, British pilots Jack Best and Bill Goldfinch spent over 18 months designing and building a glider behind a false wall in the attic marked in the photo below. The plan was to break through the wall at the end of the attic and use counterweights to catapult it along a runway built on the ridge of the roof in front. However, the glider was never used. In 1945, waiting for liberation became a much safer option than attempting to escape. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_escape_Oflag_IV-C#The_.22Colditz_Cock.22_glider
Staying in Colditz in the castle itself
Stay in Colditz for a night if you can, rather than do a day trip - you get a better feel for the place, and the castle looks wonderful lit up at night! You can stay in the castle itself, in an excellent upmarket youth hostel which occupies several floors in what was the German offices in the outer courtyard (Kommandantur) during the war. The hostel has both shared rooms and private 2 & 4-bed rooms each with a small but perfectly-formed and spotlessly clean en suite toilet & shower. You might even breakfast where the Camp Commandant's office once was, as his office was on the ground floor where the canteen now is. Prices are very inexpensive, even in a twin room with en suite. If you're not a Youth Hostel Association member, no matter, they can easily sort you out with temporary membership at reception when you get there for a few extra euros per night. You need to book, as the hostel is popular in the summer - their website is www.jugendherberge.de/jugendherbergen/colditz-schloss and you can book online (please let me know if that link stops working). I heartily recommend staying here, even if you wouldn't normally consider a youth hostel.
If the castle youth hostel is full or doesn't suit, the only other hotel in the Colditz town is the Pension Zur Alten Stadtmauer, website www.colditztravel.com. This is just off the main square.
In Leipzig, try the Steigenberger Grand Hotel Handelshof, a superb hotel ideally located 10 minute walk from Leipzig Hauptbahnhof, 1 minute walk from Leipzig's main square and town hall. It would command twice the price if it were located in London, Paris or Amsterdam!
