Ben Macintyre could pass for one more Madrid. Or almost. The only thing that betrays the journalist from ‘The Times’ is his inseparable John Lennon-style glasses and, when he opens his lips, an academy professor’s English. Otherwise, he seems like a normal guy. “He is the key to every good spy, going unnoticed,” he explains to ABC. He speaks with the wisdom that comes from growing up in the heat of secret agents in hats and trench coats. He himself was able to become a member of the MI6, the British secret service abroad. «A man called ‘Major Halliday’ tried to recruit me, a false name, but I refused. Better, because I don’t know how to keep secrets.
That is why all his books have something of that double game so typical of spies. Latest, ‘The prisoners of Colditz’ (Critical), it was not going to be less. «I grew up with the most mythologized idea of this German prison for allied officers. They put it into my head that all the prisoners were brave and honorable soldiers who longed to escape », he explains. But not. The reality, sad at times, is that there was everything inside; from heroes, to “human beings who were a real piece of garbage.” The key is that, at the end of World War II, many survivors put on the mask of the perfect officer; And wow if they deceived the old continent.
Who better to snatch that mask from them than a shadow master like Macintyre. The most ironic thing is that, for this, he has used more than two thousand hours of recordings of Colditz guards and survivors that the ‘Imperial War Museum‘ had hidden in his files. Wiretapping, the perfect weapon of the secret services. «They are unprecedented; They were made in the eighties, when they already felt free to talk about everything. So they really opened up,” he admits.
Myths and more myths
But, since courteous does not take away courage, Macintyre also delves into the most canonical history. According to him, this castle already guarded a Saxon hill raised 45 meters above the Mulde River during the Middle Ages. Although it was seven centuries later when he rose to fame thanks to the Nazi regime. Before the war, Hitler transformed it first into a mental hospital, then into a testing ground for his selective killings and, finally, into a high-security prison; a sort of Nazi Alcatraz on the rocks. Captain Pat Reid, tenant of privilege, defined it as a prison “beautiful, serene, majestic, and yet threatening enough to make us feel devastated.”
Image of Colditz Castle
Hollywood, a myth factory, drank from the most cinematographic facet of the castle; the prison in which more escape attempts occurred. And, although he ignored many others, he did not lie. Macintyre is not shy about confirming it and listing the plans that have caught his attention the most. The one in the tunnel’The Subway‘ still shudders him: «He was the best of all. An extraordinary piece of engineering. The French dug a 152-meter-long corridor under the prison with wire and bedposts. They were discovered shortly before finishing it. Although he does not want to detract from the rest of the inmates. “Each group did its own: the Poles, the Dutch… A real war between nations was created to do the best”, she completes her.
New Vision
But the tiger is never as fierce as they paint it. Despite the fact that the Nazi regime sold the old continent that Colditz was impregnable, or a “super prison for problematic prisoners”, as Macintyre defines it, the reality is that the mousetrap had a thousand and one escape routes. “The commanding officer confessed that there was no worse place to build a prison. It was ten centuries old, many tunnels built to update the drainage systems, hidden corners… It was a perfect place to look for escape routes ». This is the first of the many myths he rails against; And what if there is, “like making a book”, according to the author wielding sarcasm.
At this point, he puts aside his facet as a spy to fly the banner of a good journalist. What has surprised him the most is that, within Colditz, the prisoners themselves had a very marked caste system: «There were the aristocrats –dukes and relatives of great personalities–, the middle class –academy officials– and personal servants. of all of them”. And the escape attempts from the castle, those that have been sold to us time and time again by cinema and television, were the heritage of the first two groups. “He Leaks Committee, as it was called, did not allow the lower strata to leave. They were prohibited from it », she completes.
The author, during the interview
The clearest example of this caste system has first and last names: Douglas Bader, a ‘Royal Air Force’ pilot who lost both legs in a plane crash before the war and who is considered a hero in Great Britain . “His passage of him through Colditz shows us that he was a shitty human being.” Macintyre’s words echo through the room; behind them some laughter is heard. Far from backing down, she reaffirms herself. «He was a monster, arrogant, selfish, unpleasant to everyone he considered inferior…». And he puts the data first. «When they offered freedom to the subordinate who helped him in prison, Bader prevented him from leaving. He had to stay two more years there ». That, he reminds himself, doesn’t come out in the popular board game he grew up with.
In exchange, his work partly excuses the German army, the ‘Wehrmacht‘. The testimonies have revealed that, while the fearsome and ideologized SS did not set foot in the prison, the maxims established in the Geneva Conventions were respected and there were hardly any executions. Another slap on the wrist for supporters of the black legend. In fact, Macintyre structures the essay with the testimonies of Reinhold Eggers, Colditz security chief: “He was an Anglophile who never joined the Nazi Party. It is true that, having worked as a school teacher, he scolded the prisoners a lot, but executions horrified him and he did not commit any barbarity ».
intimate side
Although if he is proud of anything it is to have revealed the most personal side of the prisoners. His day to day, his personal relationships and his most hidden intimacies. Modest, or so it seems, the journalist outlines a smile when he gives a nun’s pinch to all the supposed experts that preceded him: «None of the 72 books that have been written on the subject explains that there were homosexual relations between the allied officers. Love stories that they hid until their old age to avoid ridicule. After hours of work, Macintyre has heard the testimony of many of them: “Your heart breaks because you know they are telling it for the first time.”
All this parades through the pages of the essay, but also various spy stories. “Maybe you doubted? They could not be missing in one of my works », he adds. We ask him for one that has caught his attention and he gives a thousand examples. He plays tune. “Which one do you like the most?” He stops, almost as if choosing between Mum and Dad: “In the next town over a group of officers were collecting data from the prison to send to Britain. His work was key.” Although at the speed of lightning complete that “others hid maps in library books.” She can’t decide.
The last question strays a bit from the straight story. “Many prisoners were looking to escape from there… Is Ben Macintyre escaping from something?” Silence in response, but the interviewee quickly recovers: “He had never thought of it!”. The spymaster declares that, today, he sees himself as a free and lucky man, although he admits that he has gone through moments where he has felt trapped. «I have been married several times, you can get an idea…». He brings out a mischievous smile again; he has decided to say goodbye with a touch of English humor. He already warned: he doesn’t know how to keep secrets.