The Colditz Hostages: Hitlers VIP Pawns

Romilly Giles

ISBN 10: 1526735717 / ISBN 13: 9781526735713

Published by Pen and Sword Military, 2018

About this Item

VG condition book with dust jacket. DJ is clean, has fresh colours and has little wear to edges. Book has clean and bright contents.

Seller Inventory # 9999-9996041221

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Colditz Hostages: Hitlers VIP Pawns
• Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1526735717
• ISBN 13: 9781526735713
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

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.The book received a warm reception from the critics at the time of its first publication in 1954 and was singled out for high praise by, amongst others, Airey Neave MP, assassinated by the INLA in 1979, himself a prisoner and the first successful British escaper from Colditz.

About the Author

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.