Escape From Colditz

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Escape From Colditz by P.R. Reid is a World War Two memoir that reads as a cross between The Great Escape and Hogan’s Heroes. 

Reid goes into detail to describe the many escape attempts from German POW camps in which he either participated or assisted. He and his fellow prisoners exhibit loads of creativity in devising escapes involving tunnels, disguises, forged papers, distractions, and anything else that might help POWs elude their captors.  Their escape efforts are fascinating, but there’s little suspense until Reid describes the final attempt that successfully lands him and a partner into neutral Switzerland. 

Reid is easy on his German captors.  At a time when the Nazis were rolling so efficiently through Europe, and while unspeakable acts were occurring under the Nazi regime, Reid usually portrays the camp commandant and guards as stupid and inept—shades of Col. Klink and Sgt. Schultz.  This light treatment may seem inappropriate given the historical reality of the war.

The book lacks a perspective on what it was really like for these men to be imprisoned for so long in an enemy camp.  Reid mentions starvation diets and weeks in solitary confinement, but he doesn’t elaborate.  There’s no reference to his background before the war, or to his family back in England, or to what he planned to do when he returned.  His memoir comes across as rather detached and impersonal.  

Escape From Colditz is a worthwhile read—if you can get past the distinctly British “stiff upper lip.”

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