Prisoners of the Castle, Ben Macintyre
Prisoners of the Castle, Ben Macintyre
List: $25.00 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.50

Prisoners of the Castle
An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison

Bestseller

Author: Ben Macintyre

Narrator: Ben Macintyre

Unabridged: 13 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/13/2022


Synopsis

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “entertaining [and] often-moving account” (The Wall Street Journal) of the remarkable POWs whose relentlessly creative attempts to escape a notorious Nazi prison embodied the spirit of resistance against fascism, from the author of The Spy and the Traitor

“Macintyre has a knack for finding the most fascinating story lines in history.”—David Grann, author of The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon

In this gripping narrative, Ben Macintyre tackles one of the most famous prison stories in history and makes it utterly his own. During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners. For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend.

But as Macintyre shows, the story of Colditz was about much more than escape. Its population represented a society in miniature, full of heroes and traitors, class conflicts and secret alliances, and the full range of human joy and despair. In Macintyre’s telling, Colditz’s most famous names—like the indomitable Pat Reid—share glory with lesser known but equally remarkable characters like Indian doctor Birendranath Mazumdar whose ill treatment, hunger strike, and eventual escape read like fiction; Florimond Duke, America’s oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent; and Christopher Clayton Hutton, the brilliant inventor employed by British intelligence to manufacture covert escape aids for POWs.

Prisoners of the Castle traces the war’s arc from within Colditz’s stone walls, where the stakes rose as Hitler’s war machine faltered and the men feared that liberation would not come soon enough to spare them a grisly fate at the hands of the Nazis. Bringing together the wartime intrigue of his acclaimed Operation Mincemeat and keen psychological portraits of his bestselling true-life spy stories, Macintyre has breathed new life into one of the greatest war stories ever told.

About The Author

Ben Macintyre is a writer-at-large for The Times (U.K.) and the bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor, A Spy Among Friends, Double Cross, Operation Mincemeat, Agent Zigzag, and Rogue Heroes, among other books. Macintyre has also written and presented BBC documentaries of his work.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lisa on November 27, 2022

I knew about this prisoner of war camp from having read and reread and loved Reach for the Sky, a book about Douglas Bader. He not surprisingly makes an appearance in this book and not a flattering one. There is an entire chapter about him and he’s also included in some of the rest of the narrative.......more

Goodreads review by Chris Lee (away) on November 17, 2023

We first meet the POWs of Colditz as they try their hand at an escape attempt they have been cooking up for several months. The false German uniform had been made, the travel passes had been created, and photographic passports had been produced by clever means. All that was left to do was complete t......more

Goodreads review by Boudewijn on May 11, 2024

Survival and escape from the Nazi fortress prison I don't know if non-fiction thriller is a legitimate genre but if it is, Ben MacIntyre would be the Stephen King of it. In this book MacIntyre takes on the iconic nazi-castle of Colditz, where high ranking Allied prisoners or prisoners that tried repe......more

Goodreads review by Stephen on November 23, 2022

Interesting new book looking at the history of Colditz when it was home to various different POW's during WW2 and the characters involved some well known others not so. learnt some new things about the castle which didn't know beforehand......more


Quotes

Praise for Prisoners of the Castle

“Macintyre so seamlessly fuses so many different accounts that their compilation creates something more profound than a simple escape yarn.”The Washington Post

“In retelling the story of Colditz, [Macintyre] makes it his own. [An] entertaining yet objectiveand often-moving account.”The Wall Street Journal
 
“Not since Ian Fleming and John le Carré has a spy writer so captivated readers.”The Hollywood Reporter

“Macintyre details the famous escapes, but, just as importantly, gives a vivid picture of everyday life in what became Germany’s most elite prison. Set aside a few hours for this book, since once you start reading, you will not stop until the last page.”AirMail

“Riveting . . . This is another engrossing tale of WWII intrigue from a master of the genre.”Publishers Weekly

“A mixture of derring-do and a vivid, warts-and-all portrayal of the iconic castle.”Kirkus Reviews
 


Praise for Ben Macintyre


“John le Carré’s nonfiction counterpart.”The New York Times

“Macintyre has a knack for finding the most fascinating story lines in history.”—David Grann

“One of the most gifted espionage writers around.”—Annie Jacobsen

“Macintyre is a supremely gifted storyteller. . . . His books are absurdly entertaining.”The Boston Globe