Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 16, 2005

Colditz Castle is a castle in the town of Colditz near Leipzig, Dresden, and Chemnitz in the state of Saxony in Germany. Used as a workhouse for the indigent and a mental institution for over 100 years, it became notorious as a prisoner-of-war camp for "incorrigible" Allied officers who had repeatedly escaped from other camps, as well as for deutschfeindlich ("anti-Germans") during World War II. The Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) made Colditz a Sonderlager (high-security prison), the only one of its type within Germany. Hermann Göring even declared Colditz "escape-proof." This was in part because of its lack of escapes during its term as prison camp in World War I, but mostly due to it being the only German prisoner-of-war camp with more guards than prisoners. Yet despite this audacious claim, there were multiple escapes by British, French, Polish, Dutch, and Belgian inmates. (more...)

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