Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Fortress.

Prisons.

Towers.

The castles have witnessed our history for centuries.

In Europe, over 100,000 are still standing,

thousand years later.

Let's visit the most spectacular and most mysterious castles.

We will discover the secrets that are hidden behind their walls.

And we will relive their long-lasting legends.

Can a marvel like this cost a king his life?

June 13th, 1886.

In Lake Starnberg, Bavaria,

two bodies appear floating on the water.

One of them is the psychiatrist Bernhard von Gudden.

The other is patient King Ludvig II of Bavaria,

also known as the Mad King.

The official cause of death - suicide.

But was it really suicide?

Or a murder?

September 2020.

Every year, thousands of people turn this marvellous location

into Germany's most visited tourist attraction, Neuschwanstein Castle.

What is the mystery that links this huge castle and the two corpses

floating on a lake?

Ludvig II was the last king

of the small independent state of Bavaria.

He was an eccentric character obsessed with beauty

and a lover of art, and of some artists.

One of them was the composer and poet Richard Wagner, who became a friend.

For Ludvig, this friendship is a bit like a replacement of a father.

Wagner was older than him, and so he was looking for a father-figure

in this great composer whose work he admired, and he saw him

as a companion who he would recreate this medieval world with.

Ludvig II was captivated at the age of 16

when he attended one of Wagner's operas for the first time.

The opera was Lohengrin,

a fairytale forming part of the Swan trilogy.

And this may have been the case because a few years later,

he dedicated all his effort and the kingdom's money

to building Neuschwanstein, which means 'New Stone Swan'.

Neuschwanstein was billed specifically as a place

where he wanted Wagner to come.

He built this as a monument to Wagner's operas

and to their friendship.

And the tragedy is that Wagner never set foot in that castle.

Neuschwanstein is not music,

but many consider it a work of art.

Its composition of walls and towers seeks harmony

with the rivers and mountains that surround it.

Its construction adheres to the canons

of the Romantic current in architecture.

Perhaps this is why the building has no defensive installations,

but it does have 200 ornately decorated rooms.

Frescoes depicting prowess in war and Nibelung legends.

And royal halls fit for the role.

Although the golden throne was never actually installed.

The royal bedroom alone needed the work of 14 carpenters

for four years.

MAN: He wanted to be that prince who...

..slaying dragons and rescuing princesses, you know.

The circumstances of his life,

the times in which he lived in really didn't allow for that.

Ludvig II personally directed the decoration

and spared no expense.

He had abandoned his responsibilities to focus on his Romantic work.

Apparently, he wanted to go down in history as the creator

of an enormously transcendent work of art, with the kingdom's money.

He was an extremely wealthy nobleman,

but even that was too much.

He was so obsessed with the castle that the doctors diagnosed him

with schizophrenia.

He started borrowing money and that became a problem.

And so he was a parliamentary monarch.

He wasn't an absolute monarch who could just decide what to do.

He had to ask parliament for money.

So he asked them for a loan and they refused.

And as a matter of fact, they decided to declare him insane.

He was never seen by a doctor and the whole report

has this very dubious background to it.

A few days later, a group of men loyal to the Munich government

arrested him and took him to a stately home

on the shores of a lake

where he appeared drowned the following day.

Was it suicide as officially stated

or were their vested interests in killing him

and placing a successor on the throne?

But the fact to be believed that, they would tell people this,

shows you that immediately after his death,

people just couldn't accept that he drowned.

If he drowned,

it is quite likely that it was not accidental because he was

a very strong swimmer, had been since childhood.

So either it was a suicide or it was a murder or maybe a mix of both.

Ludvig II never saw his great work finished.

Although it was open to the public a few months later,

the design was so complicated that it took almost 20 years to finish.

Whether mad or a genius,

Ludvig II left this unique picture postcard as his legacy.

Neuschwanstein is Germany's most famous and recognised castle.

Nevertheless, the mystery surrounding the death

of the king of Bavaria lives on more than a century later.

That mystery will always remain.

And perhaps that's what Ludvig II would have wanted for himself.

One of the sayings attributed to him was that he wanted

to be the greatest enigma for himself and to others.

And that's how he has ended his life and remains today -

a great enigma to us all.

Authorisation has never been given to exhume the body to find out

the real cause of his death.

Mysteries surrounding magic footprints.

Legends of witches.

Secrets concealed in giant barrels.

Everything, absolutely everything comes together in Heidelberg,

one of the most venerated castles by the German people.

Whether because of its unusual red colour

or because it is a fine example of Romantic architecture,

Heidelberg is a monumental palace

that maintains its elegance,

despite a large part of it being in ruins.

It was built in 1214 and grew in size for 300 years

until a bolt of lightning destroyed the upper part of the building

for the first time.

Two centuries later, another bolt of lightning caused another fire,

leaving the palace practically burned to the ground.

Bad luck?

Dark forces?

(FAINT WHISPERING)

Spirits?

The name of the city, Heidelberg, there is a reference to the mountain

behind the modern city, the Heidelberg,

which was a sacred site to the Celts and people who lived in the area

in the centuries before the birth of Christ.

So there have been many archaeological discoveries made on that hill.

It was a place of great power to them.

And in fact, later on the hills around Heidelberg

in the time of the Nazis were used as so-called sacred sites

for their big rallies that they were going to have.

There's a place called the Thingstatte nearby,

which was a Nazi... parade ground/sacred site.

Its stones harbour 700 years of stories and legends.

Heidelberg was the capital of the Palatinate, a bustling city.

Farmers, merchants, knights -

the castle was a meeting point for everyone.

The entrance to the palace has a small door which opens up

an unanswered mystery.

What is this tiny door for?

Or who is it for?

The entrance has an iron doorknocker,

a ring typical of the period, but it has something strange.

An unusual cleft.

Legend has it that if anyone managed to bite through the metal knocker,

Heidelberg Palace would become their property.

Hundreds of powerful men tried it, breaking their teeth in the attempt.

But then a little old lady turned up and she said,

"Oh, I would like to have a go at that because I would really like to have the castle."

And they thought, well, how could she destroy this metal ring

with just her pure strength?

So they said, "Yeah, go ahead, try it."

And then she didn't try to tear it apart.

She bit into the metal and her teeth sank through the iron

as if it was butter,

because that was not an ordinary little old lady.

It was a witch.

Apparently she tried it with all her supernatural strength,

but only managed to make a cleft, a visible mark in the cast iron,

which has remained intact until today.

The story goes that her failed attempt so annoyed the sorceress

that she laid a curse on it as she left.

In the ensuing centuries, three fires and a war left Heidelberg

a castle in ruins.

On the castle's great terrace, a deep footprint on the floor

is the source of another mystery.

Whose footprint is this?

It is said that a handsome knight was trying to seduce a married lady

when they were caught in flagrante in a room whose balcony

overlooked this terrace.

The legend has it that the knight leapt from a height

of several metres.

And left this deep impression not only on the lady,

but also in the sandstone floor.

There's a legend that any man whose foot fits

into that footprint is just as great a lover as he was.

Another Heidelberg legend relates to this barrel of wine,

which has a capacity of 220,000 litres.

It is the world's largest barrel.

It was built to restore interest in the city,

which had lost its status as capital shortly before.

It is seven metres high, three metres wide

and eight and a half metres deep.

A stage was even built on top

so that an orchestra could play there.

And this is Perkeo, the court jester, and a dwarf.

Legend has it that he was capable of drinking the whole barrel

in a single gulp.

In fact, he only drank eight litres a day,

which gave him particular motivation to entertain in the court.

It is said that Perkeo had only ever drunk wine.

And at the age of 80, he tried water for the first time.

He died the very next day.

A death.

A mysterious footprint.

A curse.

We arrive at one of Germany's most emblematic castles,

Lichtenstein Castle.

Its imposing tower standing on a rocky escarpment

makes this castle quite a symbol,

defying the abyss overlooking the city of Honau.

The rock on which it stands forms part of its history

and of a little known legend about the disappearance

of three young people.

Lichtenstein was built in just two years at the end of the 1800s.

It was constructed on an old walled fortress

using the light coloured stone that makes it a singular castle.

One of Germany's most visited.

The architect of this spectacular work was Duke Wilhelm von Urach.

The nephew of the king, and quite a character.

And he was a real military expert.

He had ascended to the rank of general even,

and he was especially well versed in coordinating and fighting

with artillery, which was really seeing a lot of developments

in that time of the 19th century.

He himself developed some new methods for how to construct cannons

so that they wouldn't be as volatile when you fired them,

that it wouldn't be as dangerous to work with them,

that you could be more precise and more effective with them.

(CANNON BLAST, GLASS SHATTERS)

He made a number of contributions, such as reducing recoil in cannons,

as well as researching improvements in munition.

His passion for arms

took the form of an extensive collection that can be visited

on the first floor of the castle.

Together with a large collection of paintings.

The knights hall is practically an art gallery.

Hanging on one of its walls is the famous painting

of the Archer of Lichtenstein.

Everything seems to be in order, but when we look closely,

something catches our eye.

(GLASS SHATTERS)

Why is there a bullet hole in a large mirror?

Who was that bullet intended for?

(BULLET STRIKES MIRROR)

In 1945, the French came through this area.

They took the nearby town of Reutlingen.

Nobody can say for sure how it happened.

But knowing that there was quite a lot of fighting in this area,

it's not surprising that, you know, bullets might go flying

and hitting mirrors within the castle.

The Allied soldiers discovered a number of passageways

that could be used for escape in case of emergency or siege.

Two of them end a few metres beneath the gallery,

which gives access to the main door.

But there is a third gallery which emerges in a rocky area

beneath the entry bridge.

An opening in the rock partly concealed by the scrub.

During the Middle Ages, it was very important

to have an escape route.

If your castle was under siege

or you were about to be taken by enemy forces, having a tunnel

where you could send everybody out was a really good investment.

These tunnels could also be used as stores for food and supplies.

Lichtenstein's most secret legend, one which is little known,

has it that three young people disappeared through one

of these passageways after being discovered

stealing precious objects.

Some even say that the stolen booty was a royal crown.

According to the legend, the young people never reappeared in the town.

And were swallowed up by the Lichtenstein rock.

Discovering whether this is a legend or an unanswered secret

continue to be a mystery locked in the Lichtenstein tower

100 years later.

(SCRATCHY AUDIO RECORDING)

MAN: Help! Help, please, help!

(DISTANT GUNFIRE) Please, can't you hear me?

Can't you hear me out there?

(GUNFIRE)

This is a recording from 1952

from the Armed Forces network radio station

for American soldiers in Germany.

(LOUD EXPLOSION)

MAN: We have knocked over something here that...

Excuse me just one second.

It was the night of Halloween,

broadcasting live from the castle in Muhltal,

or to give it its other name,

the authentic and terrifying Castle Frankenstein.

(AMERICAN SOLDIER SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)

Help! Help, please, help!

What started off as a macabre joke ended up in panic,

the same panic that comes from knowing

how the legend of Frankenstein came about.

In 1818, the writer Mary Shelley

published Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus.

The story of Dr. Frankenstein and his creature is considered

the first science fiction horror novel.

Where did Shelley get her ideas from to write such a story?

(LIGHTNING CRACKS)

She travelled Europe, she famously spent a summer at Lake Geneva

where the weather was horrible,

and so they sat around telling ghost stories where she had the idea

for her great novel, Frankenstein.

As a 17-year-old,

Mary Shelley appears to have visited this castle...

..discovering the sinister work of a shady character...

..called Konrad Dippel.

RUICKBIE: He had the reputation as an alchemist,

but he was also something of a wild intellect in his day,

arguing on the religious controversies of the period,

even changing sides in the debates.

He was imprisoned for heresy for a period of seven years.

He was also accused, for example, of killing a man in a duel.

Another said that he robbed graves, he experimented on corpses

and had even made a pact with the devil.

Dippel returned to the castle as an expert alchemist.

He had created the colour known as Prussian Blue,

which brought him considerable income at the time.

This allowed him to return to devote himself obsessively

to experimenting with corpses.

His obsession? Bringing the dead back to life.

What Dippel had, in fact, discovered,

which was known as Dippel's oil,

was a tarry, smelly substance

formed from the destructive distillation

of bones and animal skins.

Its only real value is as an animal, an insect repellent.

He said that he had created an elixir of life which could

reanimate dead bodies.

(WOLF HOWLS)

It was said that Dippel had made a pact with the devil.

Fear began to take hold of the local inhabitants

until they discovered him dead in the basement of the castle,

surrounded by fragments of mutilated bodies and with signs

of having poisoned himself with one of his potions.

So Dippel was believed to have died...

(MAN SCREAMS IN AGONY) ..during experiments in his laboratory

and his body was found, foam at his mouth,

and in a terrible contorted state.

Perhaps he had tried his own oil in an attempt to live longer.

Several days later, his laboratory went up in flames.

(FIRE BURNS, LIGHTNING CRACKS)

Castle Frankenstein was already known through other legends

arising from the dark forest in which it nestles.

Ghosts of lovestruck maidens, dragons and the like,

but nothing comparable to visiting the castle at Christmas.

It is said that Dippel's ghost appears sitting on the chapel roof,

uttering heart rending cries to the monster.

(WOLF HOWLS)

This tough, sturdy castle is the longest in the world.

It is more than a kilometre long,

hence its appearance in the Guinness Book of Records.

It also has a thousand years of history, a treasure,

and a wealth of military secrets that we're going to discover.

It stands on the border with Austria and was built to withstand

the ferocious attacks of the Turkish and Swedish armies.

As its fame as an impregnable fortress grew,

so its defences continued to increase.

The way the council developed was the oldest part

was on the furthest end of this rocky spur.

And over the centuries they built it further and further out

until there were in total six distinctive parts,

each with its own courtyard, each with its own gate.

So this made it a very strong position to defend.

But without doubt, its best kept secret for its enemies

was something called Zwinger.

What was the Zwinger?

So the idea of a Zwinger is to control where your enemy can go

when they attack the castle,

Zwinger comes from the German word 'zwingen' - to force.

So you're trying to force the enemy into a small, confined space

that you control.

And then there it is a lot easier for you to fight them,

especially if you have the high ground.

You can throw things at them or you can shoot them

or your defenders can easily ward them off and kill them

when they are confined in this small space.

The defenders of the castle waited for the Zwinger to fill with enemies

and then bombarded them.

All those unaware of Burghausen's secret would die like flies

in the fortress's intricate labyrinth.

And what about the tower in the west on the other side of the river?

What is its secret?

Its name, Powder Tower, leaves no doubt about this.

This is where the arms and the gunpowder were stored.

To ensure the supply of munitions was not threatened during attacks,

a fortified walkway was built across the river to the castle.

There was also a secret passage hidden from the enemy's sight.

What was Burghausen guarding so jealously in its interior

that it needed such a system of defence?

An absolute treasure of gold and silver coins.

Which the Duke of Bavaria, known as Georg the Rich,

kept within its walls.

He had lots of very expensive fabrics, lots of expensive items

made of precious metals like silver goblets, gold plates.

His wedding with Hedwig, heir to the throne of Poland,

was so spectacular that it is still celebrated in the city today.

A lot of these things have been acquired in the context

of his wedding, which was one of the biggest celebrations of the time.

People came from all over Germany to attend the turn in minster there.

Burghausen continued to expand

until it became the longest castle in the world,

just over a kilometre of fortifications

that still send shivers down the spine today.

This medieval tower standing on a small island in the Rhine

conceals one of the most macabre stories in the area.

The Mouse Tower is an example of tragedy and blood

based in the reality of a dark and almost inhuman period of history.

The tale has been told since the 10th century

and has as its protagonist Archbishop Hatto II.

A cruel and tyrannical ruler, he oppressed the local peasants

and demanded tributes from ships sailing down the river,

threatening them with archers and crossbowmen

from the top of the tower.

But the archbishop's wickedness, it is said, could be diabolical.

(SINISTER LAUGHTER)

The year is 974.

The inhabitants of the surrounding villages

were dying of famine.

The most desperate resorted to eating cats and dogs.

(DOG YELPS)

Meanwhile, Hatto's grain store was full.

In the 10th century, to be precise, bishops wielded

an incredible amount of power.

They were basically feudal lords.

Hatto had a reputation for being incredibly cruel, nasty,

greedy to his peasants.

The peasants attempted a rebellion to gain access to the food,

but Hatto devised a cruel and macabre plan.

He told them to go to an empty barn

under the pretext of distributing cereals to all the families.

Once the barn was full,

the archbishop ordered the doors to be locked and set fire to it.

(PEOPLE SCREAMING) (SINISTER LAUGH)

(WOMAN SCREAMS)

The screams were heart-rending.

In a corn store and had it set on fire, and as they was screaming,

as they were burning to death,

he allegedly said to one of his entourage,

"Look how the mice are shrieking."

After the massacre, he returned to his castle,

but he was besieged by an army, and not just any army.

These were mice, thousands of mice.

The legend has it that the souls of the murdered peasants

turned into rodents in search of revenge.

The incredulous criminal took refuge in the tower.

He thought the rodents would not be able to follow him

across the river.

Then at night, they came out of the woodwork again

and he heard their little feet tapping and he felt the little teeth

nipping at him, and he couldn't run anymore.

He was trapped in the tower and there the mice ate him

while he was still alive.

(MICE SQUEAK)

(HATTO SCREAMS)

Documentary sources confirm the existence of the Archbishop of Mainz,

a man named Hatto.

It is said that his cruelty was remembered for decades in Saxony.

Did he really die devoured by the rodents?

Were they the souls of the murdered peasants?

Only this pretty little tower still standing

in the middle of the river knows the truth.

Reichenstein Castle on the banks of the Rhine.

Built in the 11th century, Reichenstein was inhabited

by a family line of knights, apparently not the most honourable,

who devoted their time to robbing the possessions

of passing travellers and imposing the payment of tributes.

The head of the last family generation

was Dietrich von Hohenfels.

They were what in German we call raup ritter - marauding knights.

People who had certain rights and privileges but who abused them.

STUCHBERY: These guys had castles on the river.

What they would do is they would have something,

a chain across the river,

or they'd have a tower on the river, or they'd have something that meant

that boats going down the river had to stop,

had to basically pull over and pay a fee,

whether that be money or a part of its cargo,

before they were allowed to go on.

Tired of the pillaging, King Rudolf I of Habsburg

besieged Reichenstein for four long years

after various unsuccessful attacks.

According to the legend, Dietrich decided to surrender

in the knowledge that they would cut off his head.

But he imposed a prior condition - that his nine sons be pardoned.

And thus begins the best known and most bloody legend

of the headless ghost of Reichenstein.

The king agreed to his request, but imposed an impossible condition.

He would only show mercy if, once decapitated,

Dietrich was able to move his nine sons from one point to another,

crossing a line traced on the ground.

The executioner's axe came down on the robber's neck.

And then Dietrich's decapitated body stood up.

And taking his nine sons, one by one, managed to move them

to the other side of the line.

The legend then has it that Rudolf was furious

and ordered that Dietrich's nine sons be hanged near St Clements Chapel

where their souls lie addressed.

Dietrich von Hohenfels,

the Robber Knight, found no peace and remains a tortured soul.

Eight centuries later, a museum and a hotel now stand

within the walls of Reichenstein.

But the headless ghost of the Robber Knight, who tried to save his sons,

can still apparently be seen wandering the battlements,

staring at the chapel.

Imposing.

And shrouded in the most epic legend from Germanic mythology.

We are in Drachenburg Castle...

..whose stones are steeped in the story of Siegfried,

the great Nordic hero, a legend bathed in blood and death.

The mountain is called Drachenfels, which means dragon's rock.

This is the starting point for the story of Siegfried,

the legendary hero who managed to slay the dragon

and bathe in its blood.

The well-known legend has it

that this blood made Siegfried invincible,

but was this really the case?

What he does not realise, though, is that a leaf from a linden tree

falls right between his shoulders.

So there's one spot that the dragon's blood does not touch.

So there's one spot on his body that is vulnerable.

And that weakness led to his death...

..when he was run through with a lance just at that point.

At the foot of the mountain, the Nibelungenhalle pays homage

to this legend which inspired Wagner's great musical work,

The Ring of the Nibelung.

(THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG PLAYS)

It is said that it was here in this exact spot

where the dragon died, where everything happened - Drachenfels.

Can a medieval story impregnate the walls of a 19th century castle?

Many centuries after Siegfried and the dragon,

someone decided to lay the castle's first stones.

It was in 1882 and it was given the name of Drachenburg,

the Dragon's Castle, to keep the legend alive and well.

Drachenburg is one of these castles that was built in the 19th century.

It's not a medieval construction, but it's built to sort of reflect

a German history that really didn't exist.

It's kind of a very, very colourful, very stylised,

very chivalrous view of the past.

This imposing construction was built in just two years.

Who would want to build a monument like this,

heavily influenced by the legend?

That man was Stephan von Sarter, a baron, banker and millionaire.

Son of an innkeeper, he made his fortune

exchanging and lending money,

but primarily by financing the Suez Canal.

RUICKBIE: But that wasn't enough for him.

He also wanted to establish his own castle like any true knight,

and so he devised a plan to build Drachenburg.

Von Sarter never lived there.

He devoted time and money to it,

but he only used it to receive visits.

What made him take this decision?

Baron von Sarter appeared to be a great success.

He had been made a baron,

he had built his own castle, but then tragedy struck.

He had intended to move into his castle with his childhood sweetheart.

But during the building process, she had died

and the broken-hearted baron did not move into the castle.

Three deaths.

A legend.

And a number of curious secrets enclosed

within the walls of Drachenburg.

One of the most beautiful constructions of this type

we can find.

A peculiar castle, without a doubt.

The state of Saxony is home to the imposing Kriebstein Castle.

Its craggy outline overlooking the river and its strong walls

conceal stories of war and interminable sieges.

Kriebstein projects a powerful image

that clashes with the female protagonist of its main legend,

a legend that relates how a woman's intelligence

defeated a powerful army and made its king a laughingstock.

Kriebstein Castle was built before 1400.

And just a few years later, the knight Dietrich von Staupitz

and his men conquered the castle.

The surprise assault offended the sovereign prince,

Frederick the Belligerent.

Several months of siege left the fortress's inhabitants without food.

And some of them could resist no longer.

Kriebstein is a very strong castle,

but nobody can withstand a siege forever.

And so the ladies of the castle pleaded with him to allow them

to escape, carrying only their most precious possessions.

Frederick, although belligerent, was not entirely heartless.

So he allowed them to leave,

expecting them to come out carrying boxes of jewellery

and other such items.

He could not believe his eyes.

The women were not carrying their jewels.

They were carrying on their backs what they considered

to be their most precious belongings.

None other than their husbands.

The prince was so impressed with the ladies' deception

that he spared von Staupitz's life.

Kriebstein, however, has revealed a much more recent secret.

1986 saw the discovery of a hidden chamber containing treasure.

Various precious possessions hidden there

by Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff, a German army officer.

In the closing...the closing years of World War II, in 1944,

the Graf von Lehndorff, who had ownership of the castle,

moved a lot of his valuable objects.

We're talking paintings, statues, very, very valuable books

that tell us a lot about the past, and brought them to the castle.

With the German army now in full retreat,

von Lehndorff formed part of the group

that made an unsuccessful attempt on Hitler's life in July 1944.

He was arrested the following day, and although he escaped twice,

he was hanged six weeks later.

Very few places have as many secrets as Colditz Castle in Saxony,

very close to Leipzig.

This medieval fortress dating from the 11th century has witnessed

many moments of human desperation.

(SCREAMING)

Its enormous walls, some of them seven metres thick,

stifled the cries of psychiatric patients for 100 years.

(ANGUISHED SCREAMING)

And struck fear into anyone held prisoner in its cells.

At that time, legends began to develop.

In this case, legends that were completely true.

In the 19th century, Colditz was an insane asylum

for rich people and nobles.

In the 1930s, the Nazis used the castle,

which had been converted into a prison in the First World War,

to imprison communists, homosexuals and Jews.

People were basically imprisoned in asylums, as they were called,

and Colditz is no exception.

It was a castle, it was a fortified structure, and it was repurposed

because it had thick walls, it had defences,

it was difficult to get in,

but it was also very easy to make it difficult to get out.

With that experience in mind, in the Second World War,

Hitler's command decided to send

the most escape-prone Allied officers there.

From 1940 onwards, Polish, French, English and Dutch officers,

most of whom had already made escape attempts, began to arrive.

(HITLER SPEAKING)

It is said that to control so many potential escapees,

there were more German soldiers than prisoners.

What they didn't take into account was that these men were determined

to fight with their finest weapon - their intelligence.

It really was where you sent the worst of the worst of the worst

of POWs - the prisoners of war who just couldn't sit still,

who really couldn't bear to be anywhere.

Didn't matter whether you threatened them with executing them

if they escaped,

didn't matter if, you know, what kind of reprisals they promised.

There were those who still were desperate to try to escape.

The first man to escape from Colditz was the British officer, Peter Allan.

He hid in a mattress that the Germans were taking out

to be replaced.

Obviously, if you've got a castle that's made out of stone,

it's a lot harder to tunnel out of a castle

than it is out of a normal prisoner of war camp.

So people had to come up with other ideas as to...

..as to how to escape.

The first successful escape was perpetrated by the French lieutenant,

Alain Le Ray, who hid in a garden shed,

taking advantage of the fact that the Germans were distracted

by a football match.

He managed to reach Switzerland.

However, the most impressive feat, without doubt,

was the work of engineering performed by the prisoners

who dug several tunnels underneath Colditz.

The most extraordinary of them was the one dug by French officers

over a period of months.

The tunnel was 44 metres long and eight metres deep.

Passing underneath several rooms in the castle.

It had electric light, which was also used for sending signals

if any Nazi officer approached.

The Germans discovered it when it was just nine metres

short of freedom.

Although ingenious, this was not the most spectacular escape attempt.

Jack Best and Bill Goldfinch, RAF pilots, managed to build a glider.

Over time, they were able to put together a glider

that would be able to fit, I think, two or three men,

but this glider would...

The plan was that they were going to use it during an air raid

and they were going to sort of basically run off the top of

one of the roofs and glide across the valley.

However, the war ended before they had a chance to try it out.

In five years, the prisoners had managed 30 successful escapes.

Many years after the end of the war,

hidden galleries and secret compartments are still appearing

from this time in Colditz.

A castle-cum-prison which was defeated from inside

by the yearning for freedom.

Captions by Red Bee Media (c) SBS Australia 2021