NOVA Online | Nazi Prison Escape | Escaping Colditz 17

A German reenactment of the escape from Mussolini's office.

Escaping Colditz
17: September 9, 1942

On this morning, the Germans discovered six officers missing. It seems that some prisoners had snuck at night into the office of the German Sergeant-Major nicknamed Mussolini and, right behind his desk, had cut a hole through the back wall to a storeroom beyond. When the time was right, the six chosen escapers slipped through Mussolini's office and exited the storeroom disguised as two German officers and four Polish inmates. A real German officer opened the gate for them, and they were gone. Four were recaptured within a day, but two—British Flight-Lieut. William Fowler and Dutch Captain D.J. van Doorninck—reached Switzerland.

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