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Prisoners of the Castle: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison Audiobook
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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.
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"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
Quotes
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“[An] entertaining yet objective and often-moving account.”
— Wall Street Journal -
“A propulsive, almost cinematic read. A bit Great Escape and a dash of Prisoner of Alcatraz.”
— Barnes&Noble.com -
“Macintyre details the famous escapes but, just as importantly, gives a vivid picture of everyday life in what became Germany’s most elite prison…Once you start reading, you will not stop until the last page.”
— Air Mail -
Macintyre so seamlessly fuses so many different accounts that their compilation creates something more profound than a simple escape yarn.”―The Washington Post
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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 -
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 -
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
Awards
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A New York Times bestseller
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A Barnes & Noble bestseller
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About Ben Macintyre
Ben Macintyre is a writer-at-large for The Times (London) and the bestselling author of several acclaimed books, including A Spy among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal, winner of Spear’s Book Award and named a best book of the year by the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post, and others. He has also written and presented BBC documentaries of his work.