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.