The Prison Hotel

The idea of turning old prisons into hotels is not a new one, and one of the best examples is the Malmaison in Oxford, England, but now I read that Brits are now captivated by a new tourist “hotel” — the notorious World War Two prison Colditz. So I can see the advertising campaign already, “Come to a place that others tried so dam hard to leave, some even died trying, and pay us for the privilege”.

Guests pay £20 a night to stay in the Nazi castle where Allied officers such as legless RAF hero Douglas Bader were held. The guards’ living quarters and offices have been spruced up and 161 beds installed for visitors. Meals are served in the canteen used by wartime staff. Guests get a three-hour tour of tunnels and hidden rooms used by PoWs in ingenious escape attempts.

Colditz, in southern Germany, housed troublesome British officers who had already made repeated breakout bids from prison camps. Birmingham-based battlefield tour specialists the War Research Society have won the right to offer the “prisoner experience”. Official Alex Bulloch said: “The accommodation is spartan but the idea is to give people an idea of what it was like to be there as a PoW.

 “Colditz is the trip of a lifetime for anyone interested in this aspect of the war. To stay under the same roof as the Allied officers is incredible.” More than 30 prisoners escaped from Colditz before US troops came to the rescue in 1945. But I guess it does have a real historical story behind it and a hotel is a sensible use for such a beautiful building, but making money from such a history would not be my idea.