Cornelius Rost
Cornelius Rost was an Austrian drafted into the German army as a soldier in World War II who allegedly escaped from a Soviet Gulag camp in Chukchi Peninsula, Siberia. His supposed experiences were the basis for a book, a television series, and a film. Later research strongly indicates that Cornelius Rost's escape story is not true.
Life
Rost was born on 27 March 1919 in Kufstein, Tyrol, Austria. He was living in Munich when the Second World War broke out, and during the war, he was captured by the Soviet Army. By his own statement, made in 1942, he held the rank of private, although Clemens Forell, his alias in his novel, was depicted as a Wehrmacht officer.According to the Munich registration office, Rost returned from war imprisonment in Russia on 28 October 1947. In 1953, he started working in the in-house printing division of the Franz Ehrenwirth publishing house in Munich. After ruining numerous book covers, Rost said that he had been made color blind by being imprisoned in Soviet lead mines. Seeking an explanation, Ehrenwirth learned of Rost's prisoner of war experiences. Sensing a good story, Ehrenwirth asked Rost to write down his recollections. Rost's script was of very poor quality, but Ehrenwirth was keen on the story and hired professional writer Josef Martin Bauer to get the material into shape.
Book
Allegedly fearing a possible backlash by the post-war Allied authorities, Rost agreed to an oral interview only after being granted the use of the alias Clemens Forell. Bauer then processed the eight hours of taped material into his famous 1955 So weit die Füße tragen.In the 1960s, Rost used some of his recollections in his own paperback, Unternehmen Konterbande, but it was never printed or published. Bauer's novel, however, was translated into at least 15 languages and is still being re-published.