Colditz (25 page)

Bednarski had arrived back from Cracow in May. An eye-witness of Bednarski's “drumming out” after a Polish court-martial in Colditz relates that on a certain day (probably 5 July) all the Polish officers were told by their adjutant, Captain Lados, to assemble in the largest room of the Polish quarters. The roll was taken. Colonel Kowalczewski, the Senior Polish Officer at that time, entered. Everyone stood at attention. Ladas reported all present.

Kowalczewski ordered Bednarski to step forward. He then pronounced him a spy and a traitor, unfit to wear a Polish soldier's uniform or insignia—and called upon Lieutenant Kępa to remove the insignia from his uniform. Kępa then ceremoniously, but also with force, tore the epaulets from his tunic. Bednarski was ordered to leave the room. Colonel Kowalczewski had to restrain some officers from beating the traitor up. It is not confirmed, but likely, that the Senior Polish Officer asked the Senior British Officer to accompany him and that they went to the
Kommandant
, informed him of the trial and conviction and demanded Bednarski's removal the next day, on the ground that the SPO would no longer accept responsibility for his life. Bednarski would certainly have been hanged or killed if he had remained in the Castle. A Pole who was at the trial reports that it was a legally constituted court-martial. Bednarski was to be thrown out of a high window to simulate an accident.

From the trial itself it appears that Bednarski had been suborned by the Germans long before he went to Cracow. In the prison camp of Murnau he had been ordered by the Germans to simulate an escape so that he could be legitimately sent to Colditz. He was not a Polish officer and had not been in the Polish Army. The Poles attributed several failed escapes to his “informing”: in particular, the attempted escape or prospecting for an escape by four Polish officers on 24 April 1941. The four officers had already made sorties into the courtyard late
at night. On this night, one of them was indisposed and remained in bed. That night the Germans surprised and caught them, and asked, “Only three? Where is the fourth?” This was just another piece of circumstantial evidence at the time, but it kept the Poles on the scent of a spy.

On the occasion of the escape of some Polish officers from the hospital at Elsterhorst, a Polish captain, Aleksander Ligęza, was a genuine sick case—in fact the only one. Remaining behind, he managed to steal from the hospital office a report by Bednarski to the German
Abwehr
officer, pleading that it was not his fault that they had escaped, because he had reported the preparations for the escape to the
Abwehr
officer, who had done nothing about it in time to prevent it.

On 21 July, Priem took the unprecedented step of announcing on
Appell
that Bednarski had disclosed no POW secrets to the German staff.

After the war, Colonel Mozdyniewicz met Bednarski one day in a city street in Poland. He immediately informed the public prosecutor. Bednarski committed suicide.

Summer and Early Autumn 1942

A
T THE END OF JULY
Oberst Schmidt, the
Kommandant
, retired at the ripe age of seventy. His soldiers considered him a great soldier, austere, harsh but just. Although a Saxon he was a soldier of the old Prussian school. Punctual always, and at his office by 8 a.m., he inspected his staff daily and the POW camp more often than any other
Kommandant
. He was anti-Hitler before the war. He was intolerant of any officer who behaved in any way unbefitting his rank, and reduced one officer to the ranks for dishonesty. He never gave the Hitler salute. But he was known to have said: “The NSDAP [the Nazi Party] has given the German officer a status he did not have even in the reign of the Kaiser, so our loyalty is assured.”

During the 20 June courtyard riot, the
Kreisleiter
had demanded that Schmidt give the order to open fire on the mob. Schmidt had replied, “Before I give orders like that I shall make sure from a legal expert that such an order is lawful.”

His appeal to the Senior Officers of the different nationalities to maintain military discipline fell on rather stony ground. In his eyes only the Dutch and the Poles lived up to this. Eggers has written that “eventually the OKW was compelled to put an end to the mutinous situation by partially dissolving the Camp in 1943.”

He retired to Dresden but had to move after the terrible air-raid in 1945. He was arrested by the Russian OGPU and imprisoned in no less than six different prison camps. He was never tried by the Russians and died in a hospital in Riga—Russian-controlled Estonia—in 1946 or 1947.

The new
Kommandant
, Oberst Edgar Glaesche, was very much a new broom. He was born in 1899. He was of medium height, with a slight squint
in one eye, much less imposing than Schmidt. He insisted on great thoroughness in all work, down to the last detail, and gave frequent pep-talks. It was an officer's duty, he said, to set an example to the men. Correct application of the Geneva Convention and all its rules as regards the treatment of prisoners of war was insisted on. Prisoners must be made to behave themselves correspondingly. He required “watchfulness, circumspection, presence of mind, calm, and persistence” on the job. He would set an example. But he would not frequent the prisoners' yard overmuch. He must seem to be what he was—the symbol of ultimate authority!

One idea that Glaesche put into practice was calling special parades at any time of the night. It was asking for trouble. It started the “
Appell
war.” One night (29/30 July) there was a
Strafappell
(punishment
Appell
) for the French, who duly paraded. A general
Appell
called for 1 a.m. had just concluded, and the Goons had been greatly upset by its disruption. This took the form of loud animal and bird calls, a cockerel here, a cow there, mixed with wailing sirens and the sound of falling bombs. Far from stopping after the summoning of the
Strafappell
, the uproar grew noisier and noisier as the British, Polish and Dutch yelled from their windows. It was absolute pandemonium. The entire guard was called into the
Hof
and lined up facing the windows. Then the duty officer ordered them to take aim. A moment later a volley of shots rang out, smashing through the windows of the various quarters. Vandy earned ten days' “solitary” for storming down in his pajamas to protest about the use of firearms on unarmed men.

Eggers explains the shooting in this way:

One of the guards, more weary than the rest at that time of night, did not hold the muzzle of his rifle high enough. In fact he let it droop so far that it was aimed at the head of a French officer standing close in front of him.

“
Höher
,” bawled the Frenchman (“Higher”).

His accent was wide of the mark, and so a guard down the line thought he heard the order “
Feuer
” (“Fire”).

He let go. They all did.

An inquiry was held at which the
Kommandant
presided and the story about the mistaken order to fire was given out as the official explanation. The
Kommandant
added that another midnight
Appell
would be called that night and, if a demonstration took place, midnight
Appells
would continue. Colonel Stayner then asked British officers to desist from vocal exercise at
Strafappell
that night.

The
Appell
was not called. Some thought wiser counsels had prevailed and that the clause in Article 47 of the Geneva Convention, “collective penalties for individual acts are also prohibited,” would be observed. But at evening
Appell
Priem announced an
Appell
for 1 a.m. No sound of any kind greeted the announcement. Padre Platt wrote:

The bell rang at 12.30a.m. and at a few minutes to one we (all nationalities) trickled down the staircase in stony silence. Priem counted the five companies and his usual dismissal, “
Danke, mein Herren
,” echoed hollowly on the huge walls. With soundless tread we glided back to quarters in a silence as solemn as a funeral.

After this good behavior, Colonel Stayner expected the end of the matter. He was disappointed. On Saturday night an
Appell
was called for 11 p.m. This was attended in stony silence. It was over in two minutes. No count was taken. This ended the “
Appell
war.” Stayner nevertheless drafted a letter to Switzerland, our Protecting Power under the Geneva Convention, setting out a complaint.

Lieutenant-Colonel David James Stayner of the Dorset Regiment was born in 1896 and he was familiarly known to the Colditz inmates as “Daddy” Stayner. White-haired, tall, erect and slim, his speech was always quiet and considered. He would give the impression of being a man of peace almost at any price. That does not do him justice because he was not a weak man—simply a man of experience—a diplomat. He had fought in the First World War from 1914, a Regular soldier, promoted to captain in August 1917, mentioned twice in dispatches, wounded. In 1919 he served with British forces in Russia.

The Germans had selected him to replace Guy German. From their point of view it was not a bad choice. He did have a calming influence but he certainly did not try to curb or reduce escaping activity. He approached the problem of Colditz rather more as the Dutch did. Comparing him with Guy German, he was the shaped, formed, molded officer of the regular Army, whereas Guy German was the natural, respected leader for any guerilla campaign. Both aspects of character added richness to the alloy forming in the crucible of Colditz.

The exact date of the discovery of a Polish-initiated tunnel under the paving stones in the ground-floor corridor of the
Saalhaus
is uncertain but its repercussions were serious. Eggers in his diary says it was “one day in August.” Padre Platt mentions the discovery, writing: “two Polish and one Belgian Officer were in cells … their tunnel was discovered on Sunday [i.e. 19 July].” Moreover, Priem's announcement about Bednarski on
Appell
on 21 July had included an express
denial that Bednarski had revealed this tunnel. The Poles were fully alive to Bednarski. It is not likely he gave the game away. Eggers' story, here summarized, is almost certainly true.

The special squad employed by Eggers to keep a constant watch on the movements of “Emil” spent much of its time “searching” as well. They were searching the
Saalhaus
corridor for “hides” and finding a likely paving stone, they lifted it and found a tunnel. There seemed no point in the tunnel. It led inside the Castle—not out. Only much later did the Germans realize that this tunnel was only the first of three tunnels all of which in their time headed for the main sewer under the POW courtyard.

The Poles unfortunately had hidden some valuable escape aids in the tunnel which were promptly removed for examination. Eggers gives this account:

It was used as a hiding place for various items, such as a homemade typewriter, some glasses with pieces of paper etc. The stuff was taken to Captain Lange and when he examined the pieces of paper he found that many different figures had been written. Captain Lange rightly assumed that this was some sort of code and after some trouble he managed to decipher the code and read on one of the pieces of paper, “If you escape, avoid the Central Station at Leipzig. Leave the train in time and take a tram to Wahren Station. There go back into the train.” Another read, “Phone Leipzig …” and gave the number. Other pieces were bills for tools delivered to the prisoners. Captain Lange checked the telephone number and found out the guilty person who had supplied the tools to the POWs. He was a soldier of the former Guard Company. We had often found new tools and now we knew who had supplied them. Later the Police searched his house at Leipzig and found more bills. His partner in crime was the Polish Lieutenant Niedenthal. The soldier was arrested at Mühlberg where he was then stationed and after being Courtmartialled he was shot at Torgau.

According to Eggers, the German soldier had been, prior to the war, an electrical-equipment tradesman and had had business connections with Niedenthal. The prices he charged in the form of coffee and cigarettes seemed to the Germans very small compared to the risk he was taking (but see
Chapter 15
).

Early in August some Russian POWs arrived in the Castle for delousing prior to going to work in the country. Their untoward appearance in the delousing shed near the
Saalhaus
corridor led to the discovery of two British officers, namely
myself and Rupert Barry, who had started a tunnel in one corner. The reader need hardly guess where the tunnel was to lead!

The German censors who also scrutinized all photos connected with Colditz Castle which were allowed to the POWs had overlooked one point. “Lange, the photographer, had presented a pre-war photo of the cobbled courtyard which could be purchased by the prisoners. Near the main archway, and the gates into the yard, a large manhole cover was plainly visible amongst the cobblestones. Now, and since before 1941, the manhole cover had disappeared. In other words it had been cobbled over. I, as a civil engineer and with my previous knowledge of the run of the drains from my canteen tunnel, knew precisely where the main drain led—namely out of the courtyard under the main gates. If I could get into this drain, big enough to take a man on his hands and knees, I would be able to get outside those courtyard gates.

However, I knew of the stout brick wall built across the drain just beyond the corner of the delousing shed. This decided the location of the new tunnel entrance in the delousing shed—only a matter of three or four yards from the drain and beyond the wall.

The Poles had evidently worked out this information too. They had not told Dick Howe, who had taken over from me as escape officer in the spring. From Eggers' statements, it appears that at first the Germans did not realize what the Polish tunnel was heading for. They certainly did not appreciate where the Lazaret tunnel (in which Airey Neave was at one time involved) was vaguely heading for. When however they found my tunnel entrance—it became clear what the POWs were after.