Colditz
1 9 7 2 - 1 9 7 4 (UK)
28 x 50 minute episodes
The setting for this series was the infamous German POW camp
Oflag IVC, situated to this day on a 250 foot cliff face near
Leipzig in Eastern Germany, but better known the world over as the
legendary, so called, "escape proof", Castle Colditz.
This WWll drama was inspired by the 1954 film, The Colditz
Story starring John Mills and Eric Portman, which was itself
derived from the best selling memoirs of real-life escapee Major Pat
Reid and ran on BBC1 from October 1972 to April 1974.
The first three episodes of the series acted as an extended
introduction to the basic foundation plot of the show and introduced
the viewers to the three main central characters by charting the
events that led up to their arrival at the camp.
 Colditz's
British POW contingent was under the reluctant command of Lt Colonel
John Preston whose main adversary was the unnamed German Kommandant
of the camp, played by Bernard Hepton.
The relatively civilised Kommandant departed at the end of the
first season and the overall air of tension was heightened with the
introduction at the beginning of season two of a takeover by the
feared SS, memorably embodied in the sinister form of Anthony
Valentine's sadistic Major Horst Mohn and Hans Meyer's awesomely
stern-looking Hauptmann Ulman, the new security officer.
The most bizarre thing though - The Germans always spoke to each
other in German when they were in the exercise yard or in the
presence of the prisoners, yet when they were speaking to each other
in their offices etc they spoke to each other in English!
Another of the series' greatest assets was its large and vastly
experienced cast of internationally known actors, including former Man
From U.N.C.L.E., David McCallum as Flight Lt. Simon Carter
(pictured above left), and in a two episode guest spot which would
ultimately be recognised as reviving his until then stalled acting
career, Hollywood's Robert Wagner, as Canadian Flight Lt. Phil
Carrington.
The main attraction were the multitude of imaginative attempts by
the prisoners to escape from the inescapable castle, ranging from
attempts at guard impersonations and wall scaling, to the launching
of home made gliders from the castle roof.
 Perhaps
the most memorable and disturbing came in the form of the officer
who succeeded in making his escape by feigning insanity, only for
the stress of doing so being too much for him, leading to an actual
mental breakdown.
British audiences loved Colditz and wrote to the BBC in
their thousands to say so.
There were several petitions from children begging for the series
to be shown before their bedtime, and a London travel agent began
offering excursions to the notorious camp for £38.
The series finally drew to a close with the long awaited
liberation of Colditz's inmates in 1945.
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