Reinhold Eggers

Captain Reinhold Eggers was Oflag IV-C security officer from November 1940 until April 1945, promoted to chief of security in 1944. The Nova television program "Nazi Prison Escape" was based on his books about Colditz. He spent 10 years in prisons in Russia following the war, and was released in 1955.

prewar years

Reinhold Eggers was a reserve officer during World War I and a high school teacher during the 1920s and '30s. During these years he promoted international relations and visited England and France with his students. In 1933 he was reported to the Nazis who accused him of being a left-winger and a pacifist. He was consequently only allowed to teach at elementary school. In 1939 he was recalled to the army as a reserve lieutenant. Because of his language skills he was sent to Oflag IV-A Hohnstein as a translator. The POWs at Hohnstein were mostly French officers including 28 generals and an additional seven Dutch and 27 Polish generals. Eggers felt his experiences at this camp were a very poor preparation for his time at Colditz. POWs and guards treated each other with respect and there were no real problems or friction.

Colditz

On 22 November 1940, Eggers received his orders to report at Kriegsgefangenenoffizierssonderlager IV-C, Colditz. He started as LO3 (Lager offizier 3 or duty officer) and was faced with rebellious, anti-German POWs from Poland, France and the UK, who took every opportunity to harass their captors. Later these were joined by Belgian, Dutch and American officers. Eggers tended to treat his opponents as difficult schoolboys and always tried to retain his calm and dignity even when provoked to the utmost. On one occasion his cap was stolen by a POW (to be measured and copied for an escape). He calmly waited for a guard to get a new one before he left the building. British and Dutch officers agreed that Eggers always treated them correctly. Lieutenant Damiaen J. van Doorninck, a former Dutch POW, wrote in his foreword for Eggers book that: This man was our opponent, but nevertheless he earned our respect by his correct attitude, self-control and total lack of rancour despite all harassment we gave him.

External sources

• Colditz: The German Story Translated and edited by Howard Gee. New York: Norton, 1961.
• Escape From Colditz: 16 First-Hand Accounts Compiled by Reinhold Eggers. Edited by John Watton. London: Robert Hale, 1973.

External links

• Nazi Prison Escape - PBS Episode