The greatest escape that never happened was ready to take flight—literally—when Allied troops occupied the castle a few weeks before the end of Second World War in 1945. Behind a dummy wall high in an attic above the chapel, British prisoners had spent months secretly cobbling together a glider. They built it in sections from wooden shutters, mattress covers, and mud fashioned out of attic dust.

A German discovered the dummy wall at one point but was silenced with a bribe of 500 cigarettes. After the war, locals broke up the glider. As is chronicled in the NOVA programme “Nazi Prison Escape,” a replica of the glider recently built by ex-Colditz POWs flew successfully, proving that the inmates’ most extraordinary escape vehicle ever may very well have worked, if only given the chance.

Colditz Castle was a forbidding medieval edifice near Leipzig, Germany, was supposed to be the Nazis’ most escape-proof prison. Incorrigible Allied officers who had repeatedly escaped from other camps were sent to Colditz, the only German POW camp with more guards than prisoners. Yet English, French, Polish, Dutch, and other inmates managed to sneak out in surprising numbers.

Escaping from the castle was only the beginning, however, and while at least 130 got out during the course of the war, only 30 got clean away.