NEWS
My new book "Escape From Germany: The Greatest POW break-out of the First World War", published on 9 June 2011 (hardback, Doubleday, price £16.99) describes "The First Great Escape" aquarter of a century before the one immortalised by Steve McQueen in the film of that name.Holzminden POW camp was claimed to be “utterly impregnable” - the most closely guarded and escape-proof prison in Germany. It was also the most brutal - nicknamed “Hellminden” by its unfortunate inmates - a punishment camp for 700 “dangerous cases” and “inveterate escapers”, ruled by a notorious commandant, surrounded by steel palisades and barbed wire fences, and patrolled by vicious attack dogs and armed guards with orders to shoot to kill. The commandant even issued a mocking challenge to the inmates: “If you think you can get out - try.” Many of the POWs took him at his word. They picked locks, forged documents, made fake uniforms and disguises; one even impersonated the camp commandant himself. But every attempt failed and only led to a strengthening of the defences until every means of escape through or over the wire had been blocked.
Undaunted, a group of prisoners then spent nine months using knives, spoons and other primitive implements to dig a tunnel over 150ft long, under the walls, the wire and the farmland beyond. On the night of 23rd July 1918, twenty-nine of them achieved the impossible and broke out of Holzminden. In both the number of men who broke out and the number who completed successful “home runs” to freedom across the Dutch border, it was the greatest mass escape of the First World War. It's available in bookstores in the UK, or via Amazon or other online retailers, or direct from me, signed and inscribed if you wish. See the "Books" page for details of all my available titles.
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My last book - Monk Eastman: The Gangster Who Became a War Hero is available in the United States (published by Alfred A Knopf), but I'm afraid there is still no news as yet of when a UK and Commonwealth edition will be appearing. If you want a copy and don't live in North America, for the moment the only options will be to order it direct from me, the publisher, a website or a US retailer. To view a webcast of my talk on Monk Eastman at the Pritzker Military Library, Chicago in October 2010 go to:http://www.pritzkermilitarylibrary.org/events/2010/10-14-neil-hanson.jsp
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I’m still at work on "The Great British Novel" which has been even longer in gestation than the average pregnant elephant, but I hope that it will eventually arrive - like the baby elephant - accompanied by much trumpeting. Like most of my recent non-fiction, it has its origins in a true incident from the Great War, but this time it is the starting point for what I hope proves to be a gripping and moving fictional narrative, with a love story wound through it. I’m very excited about it and if my publisher shares my enthusiasm, it should also see the light of day soon…*
Lastly an apology: I'm sorry, but I just don't do Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Linked-in or anything else, other than email. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that I feel that keeping such things updated would be a constant drain on my time - and lead to a considerable increase in my already dangerously high levels of displacement activity! So what time I do have is probably better spent on writing new books rather than tweeting about old ones. Hope you agree, hope you understand, and apologies to those whose lives will now be blighted by never knowing which brand of breakfast cereal I prefer...