Escape from Colditz? You’ll be lucky...

Colditz: Prisoners Of The Castle Ben Macintyre Viking £25 ★★★★☆

On January 6, 1974, a Mr Michael Hall of Dulwich in London penned a pithy and exasperated letter to The Times. ‘Sir,’ he wrote, ‘is there no escape from Colditz?’

Mr Hall had a point because, at that time, the world seemed awash with television programmes and books about the notorious Second World War prisoner-of-war camp in Germany.

Unfortunately for Mr Hall, during the past half-century, there never has been any escape from Colditz, as the British obsession with what was a supposedly escape-proof camp has manifested itself in countless more dramas, documentaries, board and computer games, history books, thrillers and group tours to the castle in Saxony.

It’s at this stage that the current reviewer should declare himself part of the problem, being responsible for at least one thriller, more than a few tours, and even an O-level history project many, many decades ago.

And now along comes yet another book about Colditz, this time from the phenomenally successful historian Ben Macintyre. The jacket blurb makes some pretty bold claims, stating that this is the

‘real Colditz for the first time’, and that the book is ‘an astonishing inside story, revealed here for the first time’, forged from ‘access to an unprecedented range of material’.

While it may seem unfair to lambast an author for their publisher’s hyperbole, these claims really are too bold.

Aside from an interview with a relative of a former PoW, and getting hold of a scrapbook about Colditz given by a German officer to the first American in Colditz, there are no other sources that haven’t been available to, or indeed used by, many others who have written about the camp.

Macintyre is gracious, however, when he says that ‘by far the best general account of the camp’ is still Colditz: The Definitive History, by Henry Chancellor.

What Macintyre has done is to attempt to change the focus of the Colditz story away from a Boy’s Own tale of spiffing chaps constantly planning daring escapes and giving the beastly Hun a run for his money, and to reposition it on the social side of life in the camp.

While there are plenty of tales of derring-do – many of which will be familiar to anybody who has read memoirs by the likes of escapers Pat Reid and Airey

Neave – Macintyre also shows us that living in Colditz was no picnic. The place was cramped and cold, with the prisoners’ courtyard seeing very little sun. This feeling of claustrophobia was heightened by the views of the countryside all around, and the roofs of the cosy German town at the foot of the castle. Unsurprisingly, many suffered from the types of mental health problems that we are more adept at identifying today.

Macintyre also does not flinch from the tricky topics – especially for the time – of homosexuality and ‘onanistic tendencies’.

Then there is the issue of racism, which seemed prevalent among the French, who had a shameful attitude towards their own Jewish officers, although the British contingent is not spared for its shunning of an Indian in its ranks.

In addition, divisions were prevalent along social lines. Whatever your poshness and status were back in Blighty, they were simply mapped on to the social strata of Colditz society. There was an exclusive form of the Bullingdon Club and those who had been to Eton seemed to congregate exclusively.

Macintyre has done a great service in introducing the story of Colditz to a new generation who haven’t been raised on the classic texts.

Aficionados will find few if any surprises, but that shouldn’t prevent this being a deserved chart-topper.