As for Bader his extraordinary courage and skill are not undermined despite the discovery, for those who did not previously know, of what an arrogant and unpleasant man he was when not in the cockpit of a fighter plane. Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it's more like having a well-read friend than a subscription to a literary review.

In 1046, Henry III of the Holy Roman Empire gave the burghers of Colditz permission to build the first documented settlement at the site.One escape scheme even included a glider, the Colditz Cock, that was built and kept in a remote portion of the castle's attic during the winter of 1944–45. Remarkables REMARKABLES Intriguing, stunning, or otherwise remarkable books These include fine editions, foreign publications exceptional for their interest or production, special editions and some first-rate books from very small publishers. There were hidden radios constructed to keep up to date with the world outside – here the French were especially effective and one of their radios was not discovered until after the war – and a local intelligence network was built to collect and send intelligence via coded letters.

Mrs Woolf, wife of the manager, is a very celebrated author and, in her own way, more important than Galsworthy. Between 1914 and 1918, the castle was home to both psychiatric and tuberculosis patients, 912 of whom died of malnutrition. Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle (Viking Books) by Ben Macintyre is out now and really gets behind the story and some of POW’s who were held at the castle. In a 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.will surely become the last word on the subject’ Telegraph_____________________________FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SAS: ROGUE HEROESColditz Castle: a forbidding Gothic tower on a hill in Nazi Germany.