page_title: Oflag IV-C
section_title: "Prominente" and notable inmates
hierarchical_section_title: Oflag IV-C / "Prominente" and notable inmates
caption_attribution_description: en:Oflag IV-C Prominente outside the Hungerberg Hotel on en:May 5, en:1945, shortly after their release. Left to Right: John Alexander Elphinstone, en:Max de Hamel, en:Michael Alexander, unknown, George Lascelles, and en:John Winant Jr.
context_page_description: Oflag IV-C, often referred to by its location at Colditz Castle, overlooking Colditz, Saxony, was one of the most noted German Army prisoner-of-war camps for captured enemy officers during World War II; Oflag is a shortening of Offizierslager, meaning "officers camp".
context_section_description: Among the more notable inmates were British fighter ace Douglas Bader; Pat Reid, the man who brought Colditz to public attention with his post war books; Airey Neave, the first British officer to escape from Colditz and later a British Member of Parliament; New Zealand Army Captain Charles Upham, the only combat soldier ever to receive the Victoria Cross twice; and Sir David Stirling, founder of the wartime Special Air Service.
  There were also prisoners called Prominente (German for 'celebrities'), relatives of Allied VIPs. The first one was Giles Romilly, a civilian journalist who was captured in Narvik, Norway who was also a nephew of Winston Churchill's wife Clementine Churchill. Adolf Hitler himself specified that Romilly was to be treated with the utmost care and that:
  The Kommandant and Security Officer answer for Romilly's security with their heads.
  His security is to be assured by any and every exceptional measure you care to take.
  When the end of the war approached, the number of Prominente increased. Eventually there were Lord Lascelles and John Elphinstone, nephews of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth; Captain The Lord Haig, son of World War I Field Marshal Douglas Haig; Lord Hopetoun, son of Lord Linlithgow, the Viceroy of India; Lieutenant John Winant Jr., son of John Gilbert Winant, US ambassador to Britain; Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, commander of Armia Krajowa and the Warsaw Uprising; and five other Polish generals. British Commando Michael Alexander claimed to be a nephew of field marshal Harold Alexander in order to escape execution, but was merely a distant cousin.
  Micky Burn, another well-known inmate of Colditz, was a British commando captured at Saint-Nazaire. Burn had been a journalist like Romilly before the war, working for The Times. Burn had briefly been an admirer of the Nazi Party and in 1936 had met Adolf Hitler, who signed his copy of Mein Kampf. After war broke out Burn shifted politically to Marxism and gave lectures to prisoners at Colditz, but due to his pre-war interest in Nazi philosophy he was widely regarded with distrust and scorn.
  John Arundell, 16th Baron Arundell of Wardour (1907–1944) was an aristocrat held at Colditz who, despite his pedigree, was not awarded Prominente status. Arundell made a habit of exercising in the winter snow; he contracted tuberculosis and died in Chester Military Hospital.
  Another officer, not listed as among the Prominente but who became famous after the end of the war, was French military chaplain and Catholic priest Yves Congar, who was captured as a POW and later sent there after repeated attempts to escape. He became a noted theologian and was made cardinal in 1994, at age 90.
  At 1:30 a.m. on 13 April 1945, while the final battles of the war approached the area, the Prominente were moved under guard and the cover of darkness. The Allies and prisoners became especially concerned that the Prominente might be used as hostages, bargaining chips and human shields, or that the SS might try to kill them out of spite; they prepared for resistance and, if possible, to take over the castle. The Germans moved all the Prominente out of the castle, over the protestations of the other prisoners. When U.S. troops reached the area, the prisoners persuaded the leader of their guards, Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger, to surrender in secret in order to save him from the revenge of the SS. With his aid they reached American lines a couple of weeks later. He would later receive a lessened sentence after his hearing in 1949 because of his actions regarding the Prominente.
caption: Members of the Prominente, under a U.S. guard, outside the Hungerberg Hotel on May 5, 1945, shortly after their release. L to R: John Elphinstone, Max de Hamel, Michael Alexander, unknown, George Lascelles, and John Winant Jr.[1]
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