5 Greatest Escapes of all time
Escape games are mostly about escaping within a time limit. In real life, there have been countless, exciting, daring and incredible attempts to escape from prisons and captivity throughout history. We have summarized the most exciting ones for you.
Escape routes of a special kind
A popular topic in Escape The Room games is often breaking out of prison. For some people, such an outbreak has become a reality during history - often in a spectacular way. This blog is about the greatest escapes in real life.
1. Coldlitz
The escape story from Colditz Castle took place in World War II when an officer prison camp was established there. The camp was known to house soldiers who had tried to escape. It was considered to be “escape-proof” because it was high up a hill and directly over a river. Nevertheless, over 300 attempts were made to break out of it and 32 people even managed to escape.
The prisoners had many methods: they made ropes from bed sheets, sewed German uniforms, or dressed up as women. Keys were copied and radios built. Tunnels were also dug. A tunnel was 44m long and was discovered shortly before the prisoners could use it to exit to freedom, when a plain collapsed. The construction of a glider, which was covered with a blue checkered sheet and which 2 occupants wanted to use from the roof of the castle, was particularly clever. It disappeared after the war. However, BBC has had a model built and a flight attempt has been made to determine that this plan may have worked out - the engineering was perfect.
2. Alcatraz
Alcatraz, the well-known high security prison lends its name to some escape rooms. In fact, there is still no confirmed successful outbreak, because the three inmates, Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin, have probably drowned (the facility is on a rocky island). There were a total of 14 attempts by inmates to escape. In the outbreak mentioned in the 1960s, a 4th man had to be left behind. For years, the men dug with cutlery through ventilation shafts and built dummies for the beds and an inflatable boat. Although there is a high probability that the men drowned, the bodies were never found and that leaves room for speculation - a photo of one of the prisoners was taken in South America years after the break out and his alleged death - the truth remains a secret.
3. Attempts to escape from the GDR
Various attempts to escape from the GDR can also be assigned to the post-war period, some of which were extremely inventive.
Underwater - A man built a scooter that pulled him 22 km under water until he was picked up by a Danish ship and was free.
In the air - two families built a hot air balloon and carried 4 adults and 4 children over the West German border in just under 30 minutes
On the ground - and again not. A man hijacked a plane that had already landed and threatened the pilot with a toy gun. Although the man went to prison for 9 months for this, he did so on the west German side of the country and managed to free 7 other GDR residents with his action.
Under the ground - the tunnel was 145m long and the 35 Berlin citizens dug for 6 months. They tried to move several people from one side to the other, of the then separated city. They finally succeeded. The tunnel ran directly under the Berlin Wall
4. Tunnel escape
Tunnels are very popular ways to escape. Even in the beginning of 2020 75 prisoners escaped from a prison in Paraguay through a tunnel. Another popular event was the tunnel escape of the Mexican drug cartel boss El Chapo Guzman. In 2015, he escaped through a 1 km long tunnel to a neighboring plot of the high security prison where he was locked up. Incidentally, this was his second (successful) escape from a maximum security prison. That’s recent history and makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
5. Helicopter escape
This story is about the convict Pascal Payet, who fled from a prison twice with a helicopter and freed 3 other prisoners during his move. This story is only 20 years old and happened in 2001 and the second time in 2007. Unfortunately, Payet didn't have much of it, because he was repeatedly caught and got a few more years extra in prison for those attempts. Still a spectacular escape!
This is just a selection of exciting stories about escaping. Would you like to write history yourself? Then come to our Escape Game in Vienna at Open The Door. Here you can safely “practice” what an escape under time pressure feels like and whether you would be up to the challenge. Escape the room for you and your friends in Vienna.