An unlikely band of British officers spent the Second World War plotting daring escapes from their German captors in a forbidding Gothic castle on a hilltop in the heart of Nazi Germany. For the past 70 years, the Colditz story has gone unchallenged. But that story only tells half the story. The incredible inside story, revealed for the first time in this new book by bestselling historian Ben Macintyre, is one of snobbery, class conflict, homosexuality, bullying, espionage, boredom, insanity, and farce. With unprecedented access to material, Macintyre reveals a remarkable cast of characters of various nationalities who were previously unknown to history, with captors and prisoners living side by side for years.