Skip content
Celebrate indie bookstores with our limited-time sale! Shop the sale
Colditz by Ben Macintyre
  Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
IBD balloon logo

Shop the sale

In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!

Shop now

Colditz

Prisoners of the Castle
Due to publisher restrictions, this audiobook is unavailable for purchase in your selected country.
Narrator Ben Macintyre

This audiobook uses AI narration.

We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.

Learn more
Length 13 hours 25 minutes
Language English
  Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

Brought to you by Penguin.

In a forbidding Gothic castle on a hilltop in the heart of Nazi Germany, an unlikely band of British officers spent the Second World War plotting daring escapes from their German captors. Or so the story of Colditz has gone, unchallenged for 70 years. But that tale contains only part of the truth.

The astonishing inside story, revealed for the first time by bestselling historian Ben Macintyre, is a tale of the indomitable human spirit, but also one of class conflict, homosexuality, espionage, insanity and farce. Through an astonishing range of material, Macintyre reveals a remarkable cast of characters, wider than previously seen and hitherto hidden from history, taking in prisoners and captors who were living cheek-by-jowl in a thrilling game of cat and mouse.

From the elitist members of the Colditz Bullingdon Club to America's oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent, the soldier-prisoners of Colditz were courageous and resilient as well as vulnerable and fearful -- and astonishingly imaginative in their desperate escape attempts. Deeply researched and full of incredible human stories, this is the definitive book on Colditz.

© Ben MacIntyre 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Ben Macintyre (Author, Reader)
Ben Macintyre is the multimillion-copy bestselling author of books including Colditz, Agent Sonya, SAS: Rogue Heroes, The Spy and the Traitor, Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat and A Spy Among Friends. He is a columnist and Associate Editor at The Times, and has worked as the newspaper's correspondent in New York, Paris and Washington. Several of his books have been made into films and television series, including Operation Mincemeat, A Spy Among Friends and SAS: Rogue Heroes.

Ben Macintyre (Author, Reader)
Ben Macintyre is the multimillion-copy bestselling author of books including Colditz, Agent Sonya, SAS: Rogue Heroes, The Spy and the Traitor, Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat and A Spy Among Friends. He is a columnist and Associate Editor at The Times, and has worked as the newspaper's correspondent in New York, Paris and Washington. Several of his books have been made into films and television series, including Operation Mincemeat, A Spy Among Friends and SAS: Rogue Heroes.

IBD balloon logo

Shop the sale

In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!

Shop now

Reviews

A fine feat of storytelling . . . will surely become the last word on the subject Like watching a black-and-white photograph being colourised . . . rich in humour and quirky detail . . . another compelling narrative Nuanced and gripping . . . told with sensitivity and insight, with an eye for telling detail Fascinating Entertaining yet objective and often moving Macintyre's genius has long been to excavate the nuance, subtlety and ambiguity beneath the myths he explores . . . remarkable Another fine history . . . His unerring eye for the telling detail that can illuminate a greater story is apparent in Colditz Every Ben Macintyre book is a treat Macintyre so seamlessly fuses so many different accounts that their compilation creates something more profound than a simple escape yarn: a biography of the prison itself and the world detainees built there Macintyre recreates the daring escape stories with punchy flair . . . a lively page-turner My book of the year . . . a masterful history of Colditz. It's absurdly readable (and at times just absurd) as well as being informative, hilarious and deeply moving Expand reviews
Celebrate indie bookstores with our limited-time sale! Shop the sale