Escape From Colditz is a World War Two memoir that reads as a cross between The Great Escape and Hogan’s Heroes.
High Point: P.R. Reid builds the suspense masterfully as he recounts their final escape attempt.
Low Point: Escape From Colditz lacks a perspective on what it was really like for these men to be imprisoned for so long in an enemy POW camp.
Author: P.R. Reid
Publication Date: 1952
Genre: History
Project Gutenberg: Not available
LibriVox: Not available
Movie/TV Adaptation: The Colditz Story (1955); Colditz (TV series)(1972-74)
Escape From Colditz is a World War Two memoir that reads as a cross between The Great Escape and Hogan’s Heroes.
P.R. 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. Their escape efforts are fascinating, but there’s little suspense until Reid describes the final attempt that successfully lands him and a partner in neutral territory.
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.
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.
Escape From Colditz is worth reading. But all in all, there is simply too much British “stiff upper lip.”
