BOOK REVIEW The Colditz Story

The Colditz Story 
by P.R. Reid
Originally published 1952
Publisher: Cassell military
Non Fiction


2 stars


This book is written by Pat Reid, a British officer who was captured by the German in the second world war. Colditz is the castle like camp that he was taken to, though only after attempting to escape from another camp. That was the sort of prisoners of war (POW) that Colditz inhabited. He was named escape officer at Colditz, so he has many stories about escapes and escape attempts during the war.


Originally I was interested in this book by the familiarity of the name Colditz by a computer game carrying the same name that I used to play as a kid, Escape from Colditz, it was called.


I liked reading about all the different kinds of ways that the British, French and Polish (and some other nationalities) came up with. And about how they used some of their time making fun of the Germans. And I liked what Reid wrote about how well the different nationalities worked together. For me there could´ve been a little bit less people that the book told about, I got confused and did not remember if a certain character had already been introduced earlier. Any world war themed thing reminds me of the fact that it wasn´t that long ago, which makes it all hard to believe.


For me this book was not an easy or fast read, even though it was only 222 pages long. This book is one that I think I do have to read again one day, and the kind that I might have to read in my mother tongue. I felt that I should´ve understood even the little things they were doing when planning and making their escapes. I did not enjoy it as much as I believe that I could´ve because I was bothered in not understanding all. And the book was mostly about the escapes, not about the kind of people there were or what the normal routines were like.