as a young kid who loved this series , out of all the episodes I remember the most it was this 2 episode special, I havent seen this since 1976..thank you for putting this up...I over the years have bought many of the books on Colditz and for some unknown reason each time I was in Germany on holiday in Europe from Australia I never managed to get near Leipzig where the castle is near...one day hopefully
In early '80s I attended a boardgaming convention in Maryland where I won a mini-tournament of "Escape from Colditz" -- the new boardgame Pat Reid consulted on. I received an autographed copy from the man himself.
I just had to read about the real history of the Colditz POW camp. It was actually a Dutch officer who found out about a sure way into Switzerland, starting from the German town of Singen. This Dutch officer, Naval Lieutenant Hans Larive, had tried to get to Switzerland before he was sent to Colditz. As if it was a movie, the overconfident Gestapo guy interrogating him after he was captured, told him the safe way into Switzerland. Because, after all, Germany was going to win the war anyway. With this valuable information, several more succesful escapes into Switzerland were made from Colditz. It seems that the Swiss were rather more lenient on escaped Allied POWs than on Allied bomber crews who landed in Switzerland because they were damaged or low on fuel. Those bomber crews were interned because Switzerland was neutral. The Dutch officer who made a second, succesful escape into Switzerland, was provided with false papers by the Dutch consulate in Switzerland and the Swiss pretended they didn't remember his former identity and that he had escaped from German captivity. He travelled onboard a train with passengers from neutral countries through Germany and he ended up in Portugal. Next stop: Great Britain! Starting from March 1942, Naval Lieutenant Hans Larive served onboard the Dutch Motor Torpedo Boat MTB 203, part of the Anglo-Dutch 9th MTB Flotilla untill after D-Day, when the unit was disbanded and their crews were sent as "Port Parties" to liberated parts of The Netherlands.
The airplanes could be (and almost certainly) tracked entering Switzerland, whereas, the POWs had "plausible deniability"! Hence the occasional "accidentally" loosing track of them.....
This is terrific stuff. I particularly like the band playing Noel Coward's A Room With A View while they're doing their research. Mock as you wish, respect the people who had to go through this.
The last scene is a masterclass in tension and cliffhangers. On paper it's such a simple thing - a sentry who has been consistently taking 17 paces just decides to take less. Hardly a huge occurrence. But the silence and build up is just sensational.
Surely the Germans must have eventually realized that when the POWs broke into loud night-time singing, or brawling or when the lights were disabled....that an escape was underway
A serious broken ankle would mean David McCallum taking about 10 months to a year to be ready for another escape attempt. I bloody well know...I have 6 pins and a plate, after a slip on ice. It has taken that long for my leg to feel almost "right". And that's with a good private surgeon and modern healthcare, not Colditz Castle in 1942.
He wrote "Auf Wiedersehen!" on the tea chest lid, but that means, "See you again", or "Until I see you again", which was about 30 minutes later. The same people keep escaping in this series, and the same people keep getting caught. :))
(Just another superfluous observation:) At 9:25, the german guard uses a claw-hammer ('Klauen-' or 'Zimmermannshammer'). The "normal" all-purpose hammer would have been a so-called 'Schlosserhammer' (machinists hammer). Nevertheless: I've been binge-watching these episodes for years now - it's a very well made tv-show.
@@terrortorn I stand corrected - it was not a claw hammer. Although a ballpein hammer isn't usually around in Germany at all - it is the English version(/form) of the German machinists hammer and even has it's own name "Ingenieurshammer".
@@terrortorn A ballpen hammer, is a machinest hammer, it's head is slightly rounded and NOT to be used for driving nails since it is near impossible to strike the nail exactly downward and you quickly will bend the nail....
Let’s just say that during my time in the USAF, I had the distinct displeasure of having spent some time in a box about that size! It was very unpleasant! Very!
In the first series Ulman seems much more harder, colder and abrasive to the prisoners compared to series two. Now there is no real delay in the timeline between series one and two, a matter of days or a few weeks, but his style changes from episode one of series two in my opinion, maybe that was down to the introduction of Major Mohn?
I think after three years of knowing the prisoners Ulman had become to respect and even like the British prisoners after all he was just a ordinary equivalent of a Captain in the Germany Army. Unlike Major Mohn he wasn't a member of the the Nazi Party and he wasn't a SS soldier he was an officer in the Wehrmacht and most of the officers didn't like the SS soldier's or the Gestapo and didn't have much time for Adolf Hitler either..
@@jamesphillips5813 You are very correct. The Wehrmacht officers tended to detest the SS and Gestapo. If you remember from your history, Adolf Hitler had a very hard job to persuade the German armed forces to back him when he took power in 1933. He went on an intense persuasion mode, offering the Wehrmacht full independence from the SS in order to gain their support. Also remember it was the Wehrmacht who wanted to kill Adolf Hitler in 1944.
One of the things I'm beginning to realize as I work my way through this program, is how the writers portray almost everyone (so far anyway) as struggling to be as decent a human being as they know how. This is so far from the power mongering, sadism etc. that often can go on in any prison, let alone an isolated Nazi POW prison during such a harsh, ugly, and violent period in history
Bear in mind that German officers, like their British counterparts, are gentlemen .I think the writers have it about right for a drama and they've certainly taken the 'German soldier' away from the nazi-saluting robot we often see. In this show they are presented as ordinary as the british.
POW camps were a very different situation to a normal prison - they were a fine balance between the numbers of men inside...and the numbers outside. The amazing thing was that so FEW mass riots and breakouts....like Sobibor...ever happened. Also - and the series points this up well - the guards were usually unfit or second-rate soldiers not fit for service anywhere else, the so called "stomach and eye battalions" of men with lingering medical conditions. The Germans gave them guns, we shoved them into the Pay Corps and had them clearing bombing debris!
C A Campbell Where do you get your information from? These were not prison for criminals and low lifes. Officers, including German were 'gentlemen' compared to us today.
My folks went to work in Saudi for BAC in the 1970s. There were a few thousand ex RAF types topping up their pension after completing the 22 year qualification period of service. A couple had been in Colditz after baling out in late 1943.One said the Escape Committee could be a pain as a lot were marking time knowing by then that Germany was losing. Others did correspondence courses with a view to what they would do after the war.
48:00 - The colonel would be seeing Phil again, around two years after this escape happened, when he and his US friends come back to Colditz, I think set in around mid 1944.
If anyone noticed, the “ tea boxes” were from Canada! So we’re there Canadian POWs there? Did Britain buy/ borrow those from Canada, or the series just got them ? Stay safe, stay sane, be well
Polish officers were the first, followed by British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealanders, Dutch, Belgian, and French. Later in the war, the prisoners were predominantly British. A few Americans were also imprisoned there at the very end.
Best TV drama of my youth !!! Even had the board game that came out then. GREAT actors and here the apparition of "Reginald Perrin" as the doctor. ! Just miles ahead of todays 95% violence and b.s. Sorry to some , but just my opinion... Which I stick to !
This is when producers and directors had confidence in their story and dramatic material and didn't need to hype anything with false dramatics and music to tell you how to feel about every second of the show.
This guy Carter is the absolute worst at escaping. Even if he had a helium balloon with a basket full of food and a ton of German money with a strong head wind pointing directly at England in the black of night he wouldn’t make it pass the front gate. Some people are just unlucky, ask Napoleon. ( let’s see who gets that reference, I bet none do)
I am completely amazed that the Germans in Colditz didn't use microphones in the barracks . This was used by the British in ww2 and Germans even in ww1
@@pihoihoi Many thanks ! i just finished watching pt 1 and couldn't find 2 in the available listed episodes, so, appreciate your link even though you replied to someone else.
A tea chest with a man in it along with a rope maade of sheets and the submariners says of the man inside "from my experience of submarines, he has about an hour before he suffocates"
C A Campbell It's just an odd, stupid line. :-) How much air do *you* think is in there? You don't need to be a submariner to know there's not much! And in real life, your average tea-chest with a nailed lid is not exactly airtight. One could force a gap in the lid easily.
bodsnvimto I agree. It's the first time I've seen German soldiers presented as normal men instead of the sterotype nazi-saluting baddies. It is a watchable series and I'm glad they show some of the bad side to prison life such as short tempers, impatience, disagreements, etc.
Thanks for posting this, I am LOVING this series, the Commandant just gets better & better, same w the ranking officer of the Blokes, the Krout keeps lecturing about his lack of integrity, but he knows better, although if this is fact based, those Britts were a real pesky lot, hip hip old man & hurray chap, now I see Y those Nazis were always uptight & pissed, these Blokes kept breaking the rules & not that I want violence, but this can’t be 100 % accurate, I watch enough docs to know they were an angry sadist bunch & that Hitler, what a jerk!!!
The best part was when McCallum was cramped in a box and had the lit nailed. Ain't this exiting or what! In addition, what one can expect other than shoddy courtyard scenes? This was made in early 1970s.
Well while we're nit-picking about details, you'd think Carter would've at least attempted to 'Para-roll' out of that fall? Basic stuff for an 'Umbrella Dangler' no? Nothing takes away my love for this series though, I could watch it on repeat forever
Neave could have done worse than listen to the script ;) "Dick Player", in almost his second sentence of the episodes, notes that "two successful British escapes in two years isn't enough, morale is slipping...!" Noone was portraying this as the first British escape.
One of my relatives was a guard at a pow camp, and he told me they knew exactly what was going on. It made his job easier as they knew not too many would escape. Mainly the toffs who thought of it as a game. The normal soldier couldn't be arsed as they knew their was a good chance of being killed.
The Germans could have put a stop to any escape attempts. Each attempt would result in a dozen officers being transferred to a Japanese internment camp. Then they might realize how well off they were.
Colditz was first shown on TV in the mid 1970s, when the War was still fresh in everyone's mind. Secret Army (which I'm less familiar with) was screened a decade later, once the War had become history.
as a young kid who loved this series , out of all the episodes I remember the most it was this 2 episode special, I havent seen this since 1976..thank you for putting this up...I over the years have bought many of the books on Colditz and for some unknown reason each time I was in Germany on holiday in Europe from Australia I never managed to get near Leipzig where the castle is near...one day hopefully
In early '80s I attended a boardgaming convention in Maryland where I won a mini-tournament of "Escape from Colditz" -- the new boardgame Pat Reid consulted on. I received an autographed copy from the man himself.
Did you get to talk to him?
More chance of really escaping than getting the rules right on the board game...got it Xmas one year
Cool I used to play that board game years ago.
33343😢🎉🎉🎉🎉
I just had to read about the real history of the Colditz POW camp.
It was actually a Dutch officer who found out about a sure way into Switzerland, starting from the German town of Singen.
This Dutch officer, Naval Lieutenant Hans Larive, had tried to get to Switzerland before he was sent to Colditz.
As if it was a movie, the overconfident Gestapo guy interrogating him after he was captured, told him the safe way into Switzerland. Because, after all, Germany was going to win the war anyway.
With this valuable information, several more succesful escapes into Switzerland were made from Colditz.
It seems that the Swiss were rather more lenient on escaped Allied POWs than on Allied bomber crews who landed in Switzerland because they were damaged or low on fuel. Those bomber crews were interned because Switzerland was neutral.
The Dutch officer who made a second, succesful escape into Switzerland, was provided with false papers by the Dutch consulate in Switzerland and the Swiss pretended they didn't remember his former identity and that he had escaped from German captivity. He travelled onboard a train with passengers from neutral countries through Germany and he ended up in Portugal. Next stop: Great Britain! Starting from March 1942, Naval Lieutenant Hans Larive served onboard the Dutch Motor Torpedo Boat MTB 203, part of the Anglo-Dutch 9th MTB Flotilla untill after D-Day, when the unit was disbanded and their crews were sent as "Port Parties" to liberated parts of The Netherlands.
Yes i read that
The airplanes could be (and almost certainly) tracked entering Switzerland, whereas, the POWs had "plausible deniability"! Hence the occasional "accidentally" loosing track of them.....
Always good to see some Canadian content! (The tea chests had "Canadian Red Cross Society" written on them.)
This is terrific stuff. I particularly like the band playing Noel Coward's A Room With A View while they're doing their research. Mock as you wish, respect the people who had to go through this.
I can't imagine who would be clueless enough to mock this, but I guess anything is possible with today's, uh, "mindset".
@@RSEFX I want to know where the drum kit and saxophone came from
The last scene is a masterclass in tension and cliffhangers.
On paper it's such a simple thing - a sentry who has been consistently taking 17 paces just decides to take less. Hardly a huge occurrence. But the silence and build up is just sensational.
I love that ending to the episode. I'm definitely making a little shitpost because of it!
Surely the Germans must have eventually realized that when the POWs broke into loud night-time singing, or brawling or when the lights were disabled....that an escape was underway
I didn't realise quite how loud the footsteps were when I originally watched these so many years ago.
A serious broken ankle would mean David McCallum taking about 10 months to a year to be ready for another escape attempt. I bloody well know...I have 6 pins and a plate, after a slip on ice. It has taken that long for my leg to feel almost "right". And that's with a good private surgeon and modern healthcare, not Colditz Castle in 1942.
Carter's leg would continue to cause him pain throughout all of the second season. He always had a stick even right to the end of the show.
He wrote "Auf Wiedersehen!" on the tea chest lid, but that means, "See you again", or "Until I see you again", which was about 30 minutes later. The same people keep escaping in this series, and the same people keep getting caught. :))
that's because there were only a few people in the escape network. The vast majority were happy to help but stay where they were.
They were composite characters.
Well, TV actors prefer contracts for a few shows .vs. a "one and done"!
'Hals und Beinbruch' or 'Break a leg' would have been funny too...
(Just another superfluous observation:)
At 9:25, the german guard uses a claw-hammer ('Klauen-' or 'Zimmermannshammer'). The "normal" all-purpose hammer would have been a so-called 'Schlosserhammer' (machinists hammer).
Nevertheless: I've been binge-watching these episodes for years now - it's a very well made tv-show.
look when it is down by his leg, it's not a claw hammer, another superfluous observation
@@petercross8871 This is true, it is a ballpein hammer. Used for peining balls if I am reliably informed.
@@terrortorn I stand corrected - it was not a claw hammer. Although a ballpein hammer isn't usually around in Germany at all - it is the English version(/form) of the German machinists hammer and even has it's own name "Ingenieurshammer".
@@terrortorn A ballpen hammer, is a machinest hammer, it's head is slightly rounded and NOT to be used for driving nails since it is near impossible to strike the nail exactly downward and you quickly will bend the nail....
Let’s just say that during my time in the USAF, I had the distinct displeasure of having spent some time in a box about that size! It was very unpleasant! Very!
In the first series Ulman seems much more harder, colder and abrasive to the prisoners compared to series two. Now there is no real delay in the timeline between series one and two, a matter of days or a few weeks, but his style changes from episode one of series two in my opinion, maybe that was down to the introduction of Major Mohn?
John King Except in the real story there was nobody like Mohn.
@@lawrencewright2816 Mohn was added to bring tension and drama to the show.
Dramatic/artistic reasons I agree.
LOL, in this episdoe Ulman is acting like a cross mother who told her kids, repeatedly, to tidy up their room.
I think after three years of knowing the prisoners Ulman had become to respect and even like the British prisoners after all he was just a ordinary equivalent of a Captain in the Germany Army. Unlike Major Mohn he wasn't a member of the the Nazi Party and he wasn't a SS soldier he was an officer in the Wehrmacht and most of the officers didn't like the SS soldier's or the Gestapo and didn't have much time for Adolf Hitler either..
@@jamesphillips5813 You are very correct. The Wehrmacht officers tended to detest the SS and Gestapo. If you remember from your history, Adolf Hitler had a very hard job to persuade the German armed forces to back him when he took power in 1933. He went on an intense persuasion mode, offering the Wehrmacht full independence from the SS in order to gain their support. Also remember it was the Wehrmacht who wanted to kill Adolf Hitler in 1944.
One of the things I'm beginning to realize as I work my way through this program, is how the writers portray almost everyone (so far anyway) as struggling to be as decent a human being as they know how.
This is so far from the power mongering, sadism etc. that often can go on in any prison, let alone an isolated Nazi POW prison during such a harsh, ugly, and violent period in history
Bear in mind that German officers, like their British counterparts, are gentlemen .I think the writers have it about right for a drama and they've certainly taken the 'German soldier' away from the nazi-saluting robot we often see. In this show they are presented as ordinary as the british.
POW camps were a very different situation to a normal prison - they were a fine balance between the numbers of men inside...and the numbers outside. The amazing thing was that so FEW mass riots and breakouts....like Sobibor...ever happened. Also - and the series points this up well - the guards were usually unfit or second-rate soldiers not fit for service anywhere else, the so called "stomach and eye battalions" of men with lingering medical conditions. The Germans gave them guns, we shoved them into the Pay Corps and had them clearing bombing debris!
C A Campbell Where do you get your information from? These were not prison for criminals and low lifes. Officers, including German were 'gentlemen' compared to us today.
My folks went to work in Saudi for BAC in the 1970s. There were a few thousand ex RAF types topping up their pension after completing the 22 year qualification period of service. A couple had been in Colditz after baling out in late 1943.One said the Escape Committee could be a pain as a lot were marking time knowing by then that Germany was losing. Others did correspondence courses with a view to what they would do after the war.
By now Carter has got to be feeling like his name is Gilligan.
Ha ha, I know he’s the absolute worst at escaping.
The German military idea of "informality" is pretty funny in my opinion!
48:00 - The colonel would be seeing Phil again, around two years after this escape happened, when he and his US friends come back to Colditz, I think set in around mid 1944.
If anyone noticed, the “ tea boxes” were from Canada! So we’re there Canadian POWs there? Did Britain buy/ borrow those from Canada, or the series just got them ?
Stay safe, stay sane, be well
Polish officers were the first, followed by British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealanders, Dutch, Belgian, and French. Later in the war, the prisoners were predominantly British. A few Americans were also imprisoned there at the very end.
Best TV drama of my youth !!!
Even had the board game that came out then. GREAT actors and here the apparition of "Reginald Perrin" as the doctor. ! Just miles ahead of todays 95% violence and b.s.
Sorry to some , but just my opinion... Which I stick to !
No swearing and...blessed relief,, No "mood music" to ruin it. Where was this made again....?
This is when producers and directors had confidence in their story and dramatic material and didn't need to hype anything with false dramatics and music to tell you how to feel about every second of the show.
This guy Carter is the absolute worst at escaping. Even if he had a helium balloon with a basket full of food and a ton of German money with a strong head wind pointing directly at England in the black of night he wouldn’t make it pass the front gate. Some people are just unlucky, ask Napoleon. ( let’s see who gets that reference, I bet none do)
At 35.20 would the German Guard not have spotted the window shutter suddenly open ?
Good point!
I am completely amazed that the Germans in Colditz didn't use microphones in the barracks .
This was used by the British in ww2 and Germans even in ww1
You need to watch the second season of Colditz and you will see they do.
Where is Part 2 of this season finale?
ua-cam.com/video/Bqb9hb5SagQ/v-deo.html
@@pihoihoi Many thanks ! i just finished watching pt 1 and couldn't find 2 in the available listed episodes, so, appreciate your link even though you replied to someone else.
@@colliecandle glad to be of help ♥
A tea chest with a man in it along with a rope maade of sheets and the submariners says of the man inside "from my experience of submarines, he has about an hour before he suffocates"
Your point, precisely, IS? (That it was poor scriptwriting? A foolish analogy?)
C A Campbell
It's just an odd, stupid line. :-) How much air do *you* think is in there? You don't need to be a submariner to know there's not much!
And in real life, your average tea-chest with a nailed lid is not exactly airtight. One could force a gap in the lid easily.
bodsnvimto
I agree. It's the first time I've seen German soldiers presented as normal men instead of the sterotype nazi-saluting baddies. It is a watchable series and I'm glad they show some of the bad side to prison life such as short tempers, impatience, disagreements, etc.
did any one get the gilder joke
doe's it fly like a brick
Yes. They actuall Build a glider in the attic.
No part II 😢
Thanks for posting this, I am LOVING this series, the Commandant just gets better & better, same w the ranking officer of the Blokes, the Krout keeps lecturing about his lack of integrity, but he knows better, although if this is fact based, those Britts were a real pesky lot, hip hip old man & hurray chap, now I see Y those Nazis were always uptight & pissed, these Blokes kept breaking the rules & not that I want violence, but this can’t be 100 % accurate, I watch enough docs to know they were an angry sadist bunch & that Hitler, what a jerk!!!
The best part was when McCallum was cramped in a box and had the lit nailed. Ain't this exiting or what! In addition, what one can expect other than shoddy courtyard scenes? This was made in early 1970s.
any attempt with Sub Lt Player does seem to have failure written all over it
His name is “Dick Player”, which is another way of saying “Wanker”.
huge continuity problem - german's deliver two boxes.. and then later walk out with three ???!!
Why didn't Carter wait until it was dark?
He’d be missed from roll call. He had to go when he did. I knew he’d get caught:
Dixieland with a military drum! Lol
Well while we're nit-picking about details, you'd think Carter would've at least attempted to 'Para-roll' out of that fall? Basic stuff for an 'Umbrella Dangler' no? Nothing takes away my love for this series though, I could watch it on repeat forever
Fallsschrimjager
Y is the wind noise so false, and wen in the mess, all the men in there bunks or playing chess, no one speaks
15:45 Oooooo....now that is embarrassing! :-)
What did Airey Neave not like about this?
If these guys can spend a couple days in a Japanese internmente content to stay in Colditz for the remainder.
It would've to be him of all the characters. A scared rabbit in front of car headlights
it looks so green and hazt
"A cricket bat. Even the ~English don't play cricket in the winter. If Germany played cricket we would beat you."
Are you claiming to be an American?
+pix046 The English DO play Cricket in Winter in Nets or Indoors !For Practice !
they play away matches in the winter off to sunnier climates India west India's south Africa Australia just a few winter away matches played
Neave could have done worse than listen to the script ;) "Dick Player", in almost his second sentence of the episodes, notes that "two successful British escapes in two years isn't enough, morale is slipping...!" Noone was portraying this as the first British escape.
I don't recall him saying this more than in this one episode. (I missed who Noone was, though.)
what happened to Anthony Valentine.
Anthony Valentine only appeared in the second season.
He became Raffles.
From my experience in tea chests he can easily push out the sides.
Harry Houdini over here.
One of my relatives was a guard at a pow camp, and he told me they knew exactly what was going on. It made his job easier as they knew not too many would escape. Mainly the toffs who thought of it as a game. The normal soldier couldn't be arsed as they knew their was a good chance of being killed.
The Germans could have put a stop to any escape attempts. Each attempt would result in a dozen officers being transferred to a Japanese internment camp. Then they might realize how well off they were.
Transferring men in the middle of a war to Japan, around 5,500 miles away was utter madness in your plan
the courtyard scenes are really poor quality
Why dont you pay for netflix and watch it there, nitpicking over something Free .
Tremendous moustache
Bonneserie jemensouviensplaisirsarevoir
Lügnen, das ist NIE passiertet
Danke Gott fur Deutsche efficizency!
Secret army was much better
Colditz was first shown on TV in the mid 1970s, when the War was still fresh in everyone's mind. Secret Army (which I'm less familiar with) was screened a decade later, once the War had become history.
@@rastrats Secret Army was only a few years later, I think from 1977-79. Not much difference
I disagree