Hitler ordered my father’s death – but an SS general spared his life

When he was captured by the Nazis in 1944, George Lascelles – the eldest nephew of King George VI – became one of Colditz Castle’s most important prisoners.

1944 年，乔治六世国王的长侄乔治·拉塞尔 (George Lascelles) 被纳粹俘虏，成为科尔迪茨城堡最重要的囚犯之一。

David Lascelles tells the remarkable story behind his father’s time in captivity, and why, decades later, he decided to track down a pistol belonging to the man who let his father walk free

大卫·拉塞尔斯讲述了他父亲被囚禁期间的非凡故事，以及为什么几十年后他决定追查一把属于让他父亲重获自由的人的手枪

It was April 1945.

那是 1945 年 4 月。

As the Second World War entered its final stages, my father, First Lieutenant George Lascelles of the Grenadier Guards, was imprisoned in Oflag IV-C, Colditz Castle .

当第二次世界大战进入最后阶段时，我的父亲，近卫掷弹兵乔治·拉塞尔中尉，被监禁在科尔迪茨城堡的 Oflag IV-C 中。

The prisoners there called it a straflager – a punishment camp – much to the irritation of their German captors, who insisted it was just an ordinary PoW camp but with better security.

那里的囚犯称其为“straflager”——惩罚营——这让德国俘虏非常恼火，他们坚称这只是一个普通的战俘营，但安全性更好。

It was where they sent particularly troublesome prisoners, the habitual escapers and those considered to be deutschfeindlich , hostile to German ways.

他们把特别麻烦的囚犯、习惯性越狱者和那些被认为是德意志人、对德国人怀有敌意的人送到了那里。

My father, just 22 years old, didn’t see himself as any of those.

我的父亲当时才 22 岁，他并不认为自己属于这些人。

He had been a prisoner for less than a year and had never tried to escape.

他被囚禁还不到一年，从未试图越狱。

What he was, though, was well connected.

然而，他的身份却有着密切的联系。

His maternal uncle was King George VI , and he was one of a small group of young British officers being held together in Colditz, all of them related to members of the establishment: the son of the Viceroy of India, the nephew of Clementine Churchill , and so on.

他的舅舅是乔治六世国王，他是被关押在科尔迪茨的一小群年轻英国军官之一，他们都与该机构的成员有关系：印度总督的儿子、克莱门汀·丘吉尔的侄子等等。

The Germans called them the ‘Prominente’.

德国人称他们为“Prominente”。

They were hostages, kept together for who knows what purpose when the war ended: perhaps as bargaining chips for captured high-ranking Nazis, or as human shields in Hitler ’s rumoured last redoubt in the mountains of southern Germany.

他们是人质，战争结束后，谁知道他们被关在一起的目的是什么：也许是作为被俘虏的纳粹高层的讨价还价的筹码，或者是传闻中希特勒在德国南部山区的最后一个堡垒中的人盾。

For the other prisoners in Colditz, the sound of the Allied guns was the sound of approaching freedom.

对于科尔迪兹的其他囚犯来说，盟军的枪声就是自由临近的声音。

For the Prominente, it signalled the moment of maximum danger.

对于Prominente来说，这标志着最危险的时刻。

Sure enough, just a couple of days before the Americans liberated Colditz, they were roused from their beds in the middle of the night, loaded onto a bus and driven south, destination unknown.

果然，就在美国人解放科尔迪兹的前几天，他们在半夜被从床上叫起来，装上一辆公共汽车，向南行驶，目的地未知。

The Prominente were on the road for more than two weeks.

Prominente 号已在路上行驶了两个多星期。

It was a time of fear and uncertainty.

那是一个充满恐惧和不确定性的时期。

They never knew where they were going to be the next day or whether that day might be their last.

他们永远不知道第二天会去哪里，也不知道这一天是否是他们的最后一天。

After being transported to another medieval castle prison in the town of Tittmoning, they encountered a Dutch officer who had a plan that might buy them a little time – time, they hoped, for the approaching Allied armies to arrive.

在被转移到蒂特莫宁镇的另一座中世纪城堡监狱后，他们遇到了一名荷兰军官，他有一个计划可以为他们赢得一点时间——他们希望有时间，让逼近的盟军到达。

A small chamber had been excavated in the thick castle walls, in which five of the men could hide.

在厚厚的城堡墙壁上挖出了一个小房间，里面可以藏五个人。

A sixth, Giles Romilly, would escape with one of the Dutch prisoners in a pre-arranged plan.

第六个人贾尔斯·罗米利（Giles Romilly）将按照预先安排的计划与一名荷兰囚犯一起越狱。

Hopefully the Germans would think they had all escaped.

希望德国人会认为他们都逃脱了。

It almost worked.

几乎成功了。

It was four days before they were discovered, and Romilly and his Dutch companion made it all the way to Munich, arriving there a matter of days before the Americans liberated the city.

四天后他们被发现，罗米利和他的荷兰同伴一路到达慕尼黑，在美国人解放这座城市的几天前到达那里。

The Prominente were watched even more closely after this, with their guards now Waffen-SS rather than regular soldiers.

此后，杰出人物受到了更加密切的监视，他们的警卫现在是武装党卫军，而不是普通士兵。

So when they were moved to a run-down camp just outside the alpine town of Markt Pongau, they thought it was a concentration camp and that this was to be their end.

因此，当他们被转移到高山小镇 Markt Pongau 外的一个破旧营地时，他们认为这是一个集中营，这就是他们的结局。

After a couple of days at the new site, they received an unexpected visitor: Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger, the SS general recently appointed as Germany’s head of prisoner-of-war affairs.

在新地点呆了几天后，他们迎来了一位意想不到的访客：上级大队长戈特洛布·伯杰（Gottlob Berger），最近被任命为德国战俘事务负责人的党卫军将军。

He showed them a letter from Hitler.

他给他们看了一封希特勒的信。

It contained a list of their names, ranks and PoW numbers, with a short note attached: “On no account must the listed prisoners be allowed to fall into Allied hands.” It was their death warrant.

它包含了他们的姓名、军衔和战俘编号的清单，并附有一条简短的注释：“无论如何都不能允许所列囚犯落入盟军手中。”这是他们的死刑令。

Berger had other ideas, however.

然而，伯杰还有其他想法。

The order was pointless and certainly illegal, he told them, and he – for the first time in his long military career – was not going to obey it.

他告诉他们，这个命令毫无意义，而且肯定是非法的，而且他——在他漫长的军事生涯中第一次——不会遵守这个命令。

Instead, he was going to arrange their safe passage to the Allied front line, only a few hours’ drive away.

相反，他要安排他们安全前往盟军前线，距离这里只有几个小时的车程。

“I ask for nothing in return,” he added, “except that you remember this moment when the war is over.” And he presented the most senior member of the group, John Elphinstone, with a gift: an ornamental pistol in a red leather case.

“我不求任何回报，”他补充道，“除了让你记住战争结束的这一刻。”他还向该组织中最资深的成员约翰·埃尔芬斯通赠送了一份礼物：一把装在红色皮箱里的装饰性手枪。

“This is,” he said, “of my goodwill the proof.”

“这是，”他说，“我的善意的证明。”

Years later, Michael Alexander – one of the other Prominente and the cousin of a senior British general – described the moment in vivid detail:

多年后，迈克尔·亚历山大（Michael Alexander）——另一位杰出人士之一，也是一位英国高级将军的表弟——生动详细地描述了这一时刻：

“In the box, resplendent on a couch of red velvet, lay an enormous automatic pistol about the same size as a Colt .45.

“盒子里，在红色天鹅绒沙发上闪闪发光，放着一把巨大的自动手枪，尺寸与柯尔特 0.45 差不多。

This splendidly flashy weapon was inlaid with ivory and enamel; its squat barrel was elaborately chased with golden oak-leaves in high relief.

这件华丽华丽的武器镶嵌着象牙和珐琅。它的矮胖桶上刻有高浮雕的金色橡树叶。

On the butt was the enamelled monogram of the SS and a small plate with Berger’s signature.”

枪托上有党卫军的珐琅字母组合和一个带有伯杰签名的小盘子。”

Within days, the Prominente were home.

几天之内，普罗名特就回家了。

Berger, on the other hand, was arrested, interrogated and tried as a war criminal at Nuremberg.

另一方面，伯杰在纽伦堡作为战犯被捕、审讯和审判。

He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and his lawyer asked Elphinstone to write to the appeals court on behalf of the Prominente, explaining what Berger had done for them.

他被判处 25 年监禁，他的律师要求埃尔芬斯通代表 Prominente 写信给上诉法院，解释伯杰为他们所做的一切。

This affidavit was an important factor in Berger’s sentence being heavily reduced.

这份宣誓书是伯杰大幅减刑的一个重要因素。

Twenty-five years became 10 and, with further time off for good behaviour, he was released by the end of 1951.

25 岁变成了 10 岁，由于表现良好，他还获得了进一步的刑罚，他于 1951 年底被释放。

Berger then settled in the small town of Gerstetten in southwest Germany, where his wife, two children and two grandchildren were living.

伯杰随后定居在德国西南部的格斯特滕小镇，他的妻子、两个孩子和两个孙子住在那里。

He died there in 1975, still connected to many figures on the far right and still bitter at his treatment by the Allies.

1975 年他在那里去世，当时他仍然与许多极右翼人物有联系，并且仍然对盟军对待他的方式感到痛苦。

He said he regretted ever having trusted his long-time boss, Heinrich Himmler.

他说他后悔曾经信任他的长期老板海因里希·希姆莱。

But why had he decided to spare the lives of my father and his fellow Prominente?

但他为什么决定饶恕我父亲和他的杰出同胞的生命呢？

Remorse?

悔恨？

A belated onset of compassion?

迟来的同情心？

Or simply self-interest?

或者只是为了一己私利？

The Prominente returned to their old lives, or at least a version of them.

杰出人士又回到了他们以前的生活，或者至少是他们的一个版本。

My father was the youngest of the group, still at school when the war began, and just 22 when he returned to England.

我父亲是这群人中最年轻的，战争开始时还在上学，回到英国时才 22 岁。

The next six years – 1945–51, when Berger was in prison – were perhaps the most tumultuous of his life.

接下来的六年——1945-51 年，伯杰入狱——也许是他一生中最动荡的时期。

After leaving the army, he served as an aide to the governor general of Canada before graduating from Cambridge and getting a job in the business about which he was most passionate – music, especially opera.

退伍后，他担任加拿大总督的助手，然后从剑桥毕业，并在他最热衷的行业找到了一份工作——音乐，尤其是歌剧。

His father died in 1947, and he inherited the family title, becoming the 7th Earl of Harewood.

1947年，他的父亲去世，他继承了家族头衔，成为第七代哈伍德伯爵。

By the end of 1949 he was married, and his first child was born in 1950.

1949年底，他结婚了，并于1950年生下了第一个孩子。

That’s me.

那就是我。

The return home was not so straightforward for all the other Prominente.

对于所有其他杰出人物来说，回家并不是那么容易。

Some of the men almost certainly suffered from what would now be called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), though the condition wasn’t recognised then.

几乎可以肯定，其中一些人患有现在所谓的创伤后应激障碍（PTSD），尽管当时并未意识到这种情况。

“Pull yourself together and get on with it,” they would have been told.

他们会被告知“振作起来，继续努力”。

Dawyck Haig, for example, son of Field Marshal Douglas Haig , the commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force during the First World War , wrote in his memoirs that he had “a sort of breakdown”.

例如，第一次世界大战期间英国远征军总司令道格拉斯·黑格元帅的儿子道维克·黑格在回忆录中写道，他“有点崩溃”。

Giles Romilly, who had escaped from Tittmoning, was also haunted by his wartime experiences.

从蒂特莫宁逃出来的吉尔斯·罗米利也被他的战时经历所困扰。

“My five years of absence were like a deep shaft,” he wrote.

“我缺席的五年就像一个深井，”他写道。

“I at the bottom, able to see the free people overhead, not able to make them see or hear me.” He died of an overdose of barbiturates in California in 1967.

“我在底部，能够看到头顶上的自由人，但无法让他们看到或听到我。” 1967 年，他因服用过量巴比妥类药物在加利福尼亚州去世。

Michael Alexander, meanwhile, led a colourful postwar life in London, entertaining fellow members of what became known as the Chelsea Set in his flat in Eaton Square and at his restaurant just off the King’s Road.

与此同时，迈克尔·亚历山大 (Michael Alexander) 战后在伦敦过着丰富多彩的生活，他在伊顿广场 (Eaton Square) 的公寓和国王路 (King’s Road) 附近的餐厅招待了后来被称为切尔西乐队 (Chelsea Set) 的其他成员。

Years later, I met several other descendants of the Prominente.

多年后，我遇到了其他几位普罗名特的后裔。

There was one question that I asked each of them: did they know what had become of Berger’s pistol?

我问了他们每个人一个问题：他们知道伯杰的手枪去哪儿了吗？

I had been intrigued by it from the moment I started working on my new book, Out of Colditz .

从我开始写新书《Out of Colditz》的那一刻起，我就对它很感兴趣。

It seemed like a classic MacGuffin – a plot device in a movie that helps drive the story but is otherwise unimportant to the audience (the Maltese Falcon , for example).

它看起来像一个经典的麦高芬——电影中的一种情节装置，有助于推动故事发展，但对观众来说并不重要（例如，马耳他猎鹰）。

The story of Berger and the Prominente would have been much the same without the pistol, but the weapon seemed to embody the theatricality of their brief, strange encounter.

如果没有手枪，伯杰和杰出人物的故事也会大同小异，但这把武器似乎体现了他们短暂而奇怪的遭遇的戏剧性。

Berger had presented the pistol to John Elphinstone, so I set out to learn more about him.

伯杰将手枪送给了约翰·埃尔芬斯通，所以我开始更多地了解他。

Elphinstone was a countryman, a fisherman and a keen shot.

埃尔芬斯通是一位乡下人、渔夫，也是一位射击敏锐的人。

After the war, he returned to manage the family estate in Scotland.

战后，他返回苏格兰管理家族庄园。

I assume he took the pistol home with him, though I could find no evidence of this or of what happened to it next.

我猜想他把手枪带回家了，尽管我找不到任何证据证明这一点或接下来发生了什么。

Its last known sighting was on the popular TV programme This is Your Life in 1985, when my father was the subject and Michael Alexander – a guest on the show along with a couple of the other Prominente – produced it from his pocket with a theatrical flourish.

人们最后一次看到它是在 1985 年的热门电视节目《这就是你的生活》中，当时我的父亲是节目的主角，迈克尔·亚历山大（Michael Alexander）——节目的嘉宾以及其他几位知名人士——从他的口袋里以戏剧性的方式制作了它。

“Do you remember this, George?” he asked.

“你还记得这个吗，乔治？”他问道。

Elphinstone had died in 1975, so Alexander seemed to me to be the most likely holder of the gun.

埃尔芬斯通于 1975 年去世，因此在我看来亚历山大是最有可能持有这把枪的人。

However, Alexander had died without leaving a will, and his friends had no idea of the weapon’s whereabouts.

然而，亚历山大死后没有留下遗嘱，他的朋友们也不知道这件武器的下落。

It was another dead end.

这又是一个死胡同。

So if Alexander or his descendants didn’t have the pistol, who did?

那么，如果亚历山大或他的后代没有手枪，那么谁拥有呢？

Elphinstone’s family seemed the most likely.

埃尔芬斯通的家人似乎是最有可能的。

He never married, so the title, the estate and the contents of the family home passed to his nephew, Jamie.

他从未结过婚，因此头衔、房产和家里的物品都传给了他的侄子杰米。

Jamie married Willa Chetwode shortly after inheriting, and they had four children together before Jamie died in 1994, aged just 41.

杰米继承王位后不久就与威拉·切特沃德结婚，他们育有四个孩子，杰米于 1994 年去世，年仅 41 岁。

Willa was left rattling around with four young children in a large house that held unhappy memories for her.

威拉和四个年幼的孩子在一所大房子里闲逛，那里给她留下了不愉快的回忆。

Within a year she had sold the house, moved out and put its contents into storage.

一年之内，她卖掉了房子，搬了出去，并将里面的东西存放起来。

There it all remained, untouched, until a fire at the storage unit destroyed much of it.

所有东西都原封不动地留在那里，直到存储单元发生火灾，大部分东西被毁掉。

Did that include the pistol, I wondered?

我想知道这包括手枪吗？

When I finally tracked down Willa, who had since remarried, I asked her whether she had any idea where the pistol was.

当我最终找到已再婚的威拉时，我问她是否知道手枪在哪里。

“Oh yes,” she replied.

“哦，是的，”她回答道。

“I know exactly where it is.

“我确切地知道它在哪里。

I’ve got it here in my safe.”

我把它放在我的保险箱里了。”

I drove to meet Willa and her husband Thomas Lloyd at their home in west Wales, getting hopelessly lost in the narrow lanes around their house and arriving late, hot and flustered.

我开车去威拉和她的丈夫托马斯·劳埃德位于威尔士西部的家中会面，结果在他们家周围的狭窄小巷里迷路了，而且迟到了，天气又热又心慌。

“Don’t worry about that,” said Willa.

“别担心这个，”威拉说。

“I expect you want to see the pistol.”

“我想你想看看手枪。”

Thomas held up a red leather case.

托马斯举起一个红色皮箱。

He clicked open the brass catches on the lid.

他咔哒一声打开了盖子上的黄铜锁扣。

It was, in its own small way, a dramatic moment.

就其本身而言，这是一个戏剧性的时刻。

The lining of the box was a faded yellow, not the red that Michael Alexander had described.

盒子的衬里是褪色的黄色，而不是迈克尔·亚历山大描述的红色。

The case was a little battered, the engraved brass barrel quite tarnished and the ivory handle discoloured, but the Nazi eagle, swastika, SS insignia and Berger’s signature were very much as originally stated.

盒子有点破旧，雕刻的黄铜枪管已经失去光泽，象牙手柄也变色了，但纳粹鹰、纳粹党徽、党卫军徽章和伯杰的签名与原来的情况非常相似。

I lifted the pistol carefully out of the case.

我小心翼翼地把手枪从箱子里拿出来。

It was smaller than I had expected, settling easily into my palm, but heavier too.

它比我想象的要小，很容易放入我的手掌中，但也更重。

I checked the safety catch and the trigger.

我检查了安全扣和扳机。

Both were jammed solid – hardly surprising, as it hadn’t been handled for a long time and had probably never been fired.

两者都被卡住了——这并不奇怪，因为它已经很长时间没有被处理过，而且很可能从未被发射过。

There was something almost comically theatrical about the way it had been presented, but the SS insignia and the swastika gave it a sinister edge.

它的呈现方式几乎有些滑稽戏剧性，但党卫军徽章和纳粹党徽给它带来了险恶的边缘。

As often happens if you’ve been looking for something for a long time, the moment of discovery can be an anti-climax, but there was a tickle of emotion there, too, as I tried to picture the strange scene when the presentation was made.

如果你一直在寻找某样东西很长时间，那么发现的那一刻可能会让人感到反高潮，但当我试图想象演示时奇怪的场景时，也有一种激动的感觉。

“Wow!” I said, rather feebly.

“哇！”我说道，声音有些微弱。

“So it really does exist.” Willa smiled ruefully.

“所以它确实存在。”威拉苦涩地笑了笑。

“Yes.

是的。

It’s been sitting there all this time, and I’ve never known what to do with it.”

它一直放在那里，我从来不知道该怎么处理它。”

We talked about what might happen next.

我们讨论了接下来可能发生的事情。

We agreed that a museum, probably the Imperial War Museum, would be the pistol’s best destination.

我们一致认为博物馆，可能是帝国战争博物馆，将是手枪的最佳目的地。

It would be a permanent home for this “splendidly flashy” weapon, as Michael Alexander described it – a special weapon with a strange history.

正如迈克尔·亚历山大所描述的那样，它将成为这种“华丽华丽”武器的永久家园——一种具有奇怪历史的特殊武器。

As I write, Elphinstone’s family and the Imperial War Museum are currently in discussions.

在我撰写本文时，埃尔芬斯通的家人和帝国战争博物馆目前正在讨论。

There could be no more suitable home for a weapon that, to me, has come to represent the extraordinary encounter between Berger and the Prominente, and its enduring impact on the lives of all concerned.

对我来说，没有比这更合适的武器来代表伯杰和杰出人物之间的非凡相遇，以及它对所有相关人员生活的持久影响。

David Lascelles, 8th Earl of Harewood, is a BAFTA-winning film and television producer.

第八代哈伍德伯爵大卫·拉塞尔斯 (David Lascelles) 是荣获英国电影和电视艺术学院 (BAFTA) 奖的电影和电视制片人。

He is the author of Out of Colditz: My Father the POW and the Nazi Who Controlled His Fate (Profile Books, 2026)

他是《走出科尔迪茨：我的战俘父亲和控制他命运的纳粹》一书的作者（Profile Books，2026 年）

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