The sheer tedium of life at Colditz

They say each generation needs its own biographies of Cleopatra, Joan of Arc and Napoleon, not just when more evidence is unearthed but because the lens through which we view character and motive changes. The same is true for the great set pieces of history.

According to Ben Macintyre, the story of Colditz and its second world war POWs with their ‘moustaches firmly set on stiff upper lips, defying the Nazis by tunnelling out of a grim Gothic castle on a German hilltop’ has been unchanged and unchallenged for more than 70 years. In his latest page-turner, Macintyre includes the stories of those heroes who were not straight, white, moustachioed or even male, and others who were at once courageous, arrogant and bigoted. Colditz held both toffs and tommies, and class and connections could be as perilous as they were propitious. At least one story of treachery is also brought to light. The result is like watching a black-and-white photograph being colourised. Even the German guards, previously ‘painted in one, uniform colour’ emerge in diverse tones from behind their field grey.

Colditz was designated for those prisoners of the Third Reich who had a demonstrated history of escaping, so it is perhaps unsurprising that there were more attempted breakouts from this legendary leaky castle than from any other Nazi German POW camp. After a cliffhanger prologue, Macintyre opens with the arrival of the first six British officers. Once locked in, the men were welcomed by a group of Polish prisoners carrying several large bottles of beer. It had taken the Poles less than a week to learn how to pick the castle’s ancient internal locks, setting the scene for a series of remarkable escape attempts on the external walls.

Soon several tunnels were being dug by different national teams, while more independent minded escapers tried to make their exits stuffed into mattresses or Red Cross tea chests labelled ‘surplus items’; jumping from windows on ropes of knotted sheets; or disguised variously as boiler engineers, gardeners, female visitors and members of the Hitler Youth.