The greatest escape that never happened was ready to take
flight—literally—when Allied troops occupied the castle a few weeks
before the end of the war. Behind a dummy wall high in an attic above the
chapel, British prisoners had spent months secretly cobbling together a glider.
They built it in sections from wooden shutters, mattress covers, and mud
fashioned out of attic dust. A German discovered the dummy wall at one point
but was silenced with a bribe of 500 cigarettes. After the war, locals broke up
the glider. As is chronicled in the NOVA program "Nazi Prison Escape," a replica of
the glider recently built by ex-Colditz POWs flew successfully, proving that
the inmates' most extraordinary escape vehicle ever may very well have worked,
if only given the chance. (Try your hand at flying a virtual replica of The Colditz Glider.)
