Book Festival | Charles Wood interviewed by Lt Gen Sir Alistair Irwin

Second World War – Prisoner of War
On 2 September 1944, a German Wehrmacht Liaison Officer was captured by the Russians in Bucharest. His name was Lt-Col Heinz-Helmut von Hinckeldey and he was to remain a “war convict” of the Soviets until 1955. For 11 years, Heinz-Helmut von Hinckeldey had to endure the deprivation – both physical and psychological – of imprisonment; the filth and squalor of the cells in which he was kept; the agony of isolation and repeated self-examination; and the pain of ignorance, of not knowing if his motherland (Germany) still existed or whether those he loved even realised that he was alive.

Charles Wood will discuss with Lt Gen Sir Alistair Irwin how he learned of this story with fascination and then admiration while working as Military Assistant to Maj Gen von Hinckeldey, who was by then the Chief of Staff at HQ Northern Army Group at Moenchengladbach, Northern Germany. They will talk about von Hinckeldey’s life, particularly the 11 years spent in captivity and how he coped with and was shaped by the experience.