Interactive history: New opening of Colditz Castle

Unrenovated, but now a digital experience: Colditz Castle near Leipzig has reopened after six months and will offer an interactive new exhibition from Wednesday. Visitors can use a special tablet, the "HistoPad", to gain new insights into the history of the once magnificent hunting lodge, as announced by Staatliche Schlösser, Burgen und Gärten Sachsen gGmbH (SBG) on Tuesday.

After being closed for six months for renovation work, the historic building is now opening its doors for the season between April and November. Several areas are open to guests for the first time. Around half a million euros have been invested in the new tour.

SBG Managing Director Christian Striefler said: "Colditz Castle was a prisoner of war camp, a mental hospital and also a hospital. The moving stories from these chapters are now being brought back to life with augmented reality." In the unrenovated rooms, visitors can experience the dark history of the castle's use using 3D animations, high-resolution photos and more than 300 exhibits.

During the Second World War, the castle was a prisoner of war camp for high-ranking officers of the Western Allies. Among the prominent prisoners were the nephews of Winston Churchill and the then British King George VI. Numerous escape attempts by the prisoners are still considered legendary, especially in Great Britain, and are known through a TV series and the book "The Colditz Story".

After the liberation in 1945, the castle then served as an internment camp for expropriated and displaced landowners and their families. A hospital was housed in the buildings from 1946. In GDR times, the first visits by former prisoners of war took place.

With the "HistoPad", visitors not only follow people and their history through the castle, but can also attempt an escape themselves: at an experience station, they can test whether they would have succeeded in escaping from Colditz Castle with the glider built by the prisoners of war themselves, the "Colditz Glider". The only reminders of its original use as a hunting lodge are a few elaborately painted coffered ceilings.