Attempts to escape Oflag IV-C

Prisoners made numerous attempts to escape from Oflag IV-C, one of the most famous German Army prisoner-of-war camps for officers in World War II. Between 30–36 (German/Allied figures) men succeeded in their attempts. The camp was in Colditz Castle, perched on a cliff overlooking the town of Colditz in Saxony.

The German Army made Colditz a Sonderlager (high-security prison camp), the only one of its type within Germany. Field Marshal Hermann Göring even declared Colditz "escape-proof." Yet despite this audacious claim, there were multiple escapes by British, Canadian, French, Polish, Dutch, and Belgian inmates. Despite some misapprehensions to the contrary, Colditz Castle was not used as a prisoner of war camp in World War I.

Prisoners contrived a number of methods to escape. They duplicated keys to doors, made copies of maps, forged Ausweise (identity papers), and manufactured their own tools. MI9, a department of the British War Office which specialized in escape equipment, communicated with the prisoners in code and smuggled to them new escape aids disguised in care packages from family or from non-existent charities, although they never tampered with Red Cross care packages for fear it would force the Germans to stop their delivery to all camps. The Germans became skilled at intercepting packages containing contraband material.

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