Colditz TV Series S01-E01 - The Undefeated
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- Опубліковано 28 гру 2012
- "The Undefeated"
Pat Grant is captured at Dunkirk, and sent along with many other British Officers to Oflag VIIC, Laufen. Together with his colleagues, both a rooftop escape and a tunnelling escape are attempted. The latter works, and Pat escapes dressed as a townswoman. After several days on the run, Pat is caught and sent to Laufen once more. The Kommandant of Oflag VIIC, disgusted with Pat, sends him to the Sonderlager, Oflag IVC, Colditz.
Eat Beefy Crisps, sitting in front of a coal fire, with my parents watching Colditz… Miss you mam and dad😥
You’re a good son to cherish their memories, my friend - Requiescant In Pace.
Yes mate
Remember it well
Bless you, mum xxx
And Mums everywhere xx
I love that memory. Thank you for sharing it. God bless you and your Mom and Dad
anthonydickinson5913... Thank you, Anthony. I feel the same way. I have fond memories of watching certain TV shows with my mom and step-dad way back in the mid 1960s.
I can still picture the setting: me laying on the floor right in front of our box floor model B&W TV, my step-dad on his recliner smoking his pipe, and my mom sitting on the couch, hunched over and eating pretzels and drinking a coke, or smoking her Salem's brand of cigarettes. I miss them too.
Me too, great memories ❤
These older T.V. series are so much better than the crap they pawn off as T.V. today.
This is probably the best tv series ever made.
@@123TauruZ321 I just found it incredible how their hair grew back so quickly after they had their heads shaved. Must be the German air.🤷♂
@@CB-xr1eg I noticed that too ^^ have to look past a few details in serie like these ^^ but i don't think any has it 100% genuine.
The episode with Michael Bryant trying to convince them he’s mad only to actually go mad is an incredible piece of acting
And unfortunately based on a sad truth.
I totally agree with you, I cried ❤
Mental !
I loved Colditz and didn’t realise for so many years how much of it was very true. So many amazing, brave and determined men.
Visited Colditz 5 years ago when working in Leipzig Germany, there is a village below the bluff where the castle stands and a fair was taking place .The castle is a museum and I bought a polo shirt with I escaped from Colditz on the front .Used to watch this every week and loved it, For you Tommy the war is over
It,s always been my dream to see Colditz.
I've been there and still got the t-shirt! It would have been the same time. It's a youth hostel
Watching this show from 1972 you realize how well made BBC drama once was compared to the crap they turn out now
Is the a list of BBC dramas from around this era? They are wonderful and so happy when I find a new one.
Thats what happens when you sell out to the nanny state and leftists!
@Richard Johnson What have we got now reality shows and glorified soaps masquerading as dramas!
Great drama by The BBC before it became a left wing propaganda machine
@David Montague Well said. Thank you, you've saved me from typing a longer but less pungent comment. Cheers!
As a young child I loved this series when it was on in NZ, read all the books by Pat Reid after this,,thank you for putting this up..great memories
One of the best series ever made.
WHAT A GREAT SERIES, I WAS NEVER A FAN OF WAR MOVIES BUT THIS HAS CHANGED MY ATTITUDE COMPLETELY, WATCHING IT FOR THE 2ND TIME NOW AND WHEN THE OPENING MUSIC STARTED IT WAS LIKE MEETING AN OLD FRIEND, GREAT STUFF!!
Oh my goodness. I remember watching this in the evenings with my Dad. Sadly he isn't with us now, but seeing this brought that memory back. Thank you so so very much for the series.
Karen Joy I also remember watching this with my father . I used to hurry up and do my homework so I can watch it with pap . Good old days .
Karen Joy: Me to, I used to watch this with my old dad, certainly brings back memories of a better time.
also to with my father...
Back in 1972...When Little Jimmy Osmond was No.1 with 'long haired lover from Liverpool'.
me too ,never missed an episode yrah
Read both of Pat Reid’s books recently. Will sit and watch this series all the way through. Just bought the board game from EBay. To think the Brits built a glider in the roof space but they were liberated before it could be used. The resourceful nature of these guys in very trying circumstances was just incredible.
Have you read the German version by Reinhold Eggers ?
He never knew how some of them escaped until he read Pat Reids book , years later
@@46FreddieMercury91 no mate I haven’t! Will look for it. Thank you
It's a fantastic board game, by the way. I had many happy hours playing it when I was a kid back in the day!
Used to watch this in NZ back in the 70’s at that time they only had 1 channel till mid 70’s but love this
what a find, i used to watch this show with my dad when i was a young fella, he's been gone 6yrs now. some great memories. thank you so much.
My dad died 44 years ago but I still remember with fond memories, I was 10 at the time
My dad went onto his next destination 1982 .
Remembering watching this series with the whole family now my parents are not here anymore gave me a very somber feeling.
Wasn't much on New Zealand tv 40 years ago, this something I looked forward to and never missed.
I was watching too.
Was plenty on Aussie TV 40yrs ago, nothing these days, but still watched this back then :)
Thanks for uploading. This series was a family affair back then when there was only one TV in a house and the whole family would watch and make comments.
My father (WWII veteran) and my mother watched this here in Finland. As a teenage girl I wasn't very interested in this. It's nice to be able to watch this now
Was an American kid growing up in New Zealand when this aired. THANK YOU for posting!!!
Acting is superb, writing and production quality are excellent, most importantly historically accurate.
But it is so slow...and the soldiers (actors) are so old...never noticed that when i watched it in the 70'
@@falcondmpit’s not slow it’s everything now is running at double speed and no one has concentration, thanks to internet mentality, I recently thought the same watching Starsky and Hutch until it dawned on me about social programming in 2024. How much we have lost.
@@falcondmpif you look at actual photos from the time, everyone looked much older.
The follow up series to this was "Secret Army", about the Underground Resistance helping allied airmen to escape back to England. It is a gripping drama.
I looked for this a few years ago, glad it has finally showed up on yt.
I owned The Colditz board game when I was a kid. You could bribe guards, collect rope, wood & metal to make escape equipment, etc. It was very well thought out.
There's an even more accurate game called, "Skedaddle" that allows for historical Colditz escapes such as the box escape --- where a prisoner hidden in a packing crate was literally carried to the train station by the Germans!
Me too! The most coveted card was "SHOOT TO KILL!!"
Saw the series when it first came out, loved it then,love it now
I’ve never seen this and am 12 minutes in and I’m giddy like a kid. Modern programming is devoid of any sense morality and ethics
Who else got the board game for Christmas back in the 70's?
Our dad always played the germans. Appel Roll Call. Bloody hell, not again!
Yep...i had it....wish i had kept it LOL
Bet the board game was another thing poor Rishi was deprived of
My Action Man had the Colditz Camp Kommandant kit. On the box were forged papers you could cut out. Brilliant.
@@johnboyt2778I still have the game... Had it for a Christmas present back in the early seventies from my parents... Me and my Dad could never fathom out how to play it and I don't think it ever came out of the box, except for my Dad trying to fathom out the instructions... It's in the attic under my railway layout...
I'm delighted to see dear Edward Hardwicke in this splendid series!
The opening episode to one of the greatest British television shows that dealt with the Second World War.
Brilliant! Totally gripping!
If I remember rightly there was one day of the week in 1972 when I was glued to the tv each Thursday for many weeks - there was Top of the Pops, followed by Colditz, followed by War and Peace starring Anthony Hopkins. Great days!
Thanks for uploading this marvellous series, I used to watch it with my dad in the 70s and of course I couldn't understand it then but now I realize why he loved it so much.
Just finished watching the entire series and enjoyed it thoroughly. Thanks for posting!!
Previously watched the whole series in order. Now repeating the same. Great series, worth watching more than once. Good writing, excellent acting, and this is a marvelous upload. Thank you Wayne G.
thank you for posting this watched it as a child,brings back a lot of memories
Thanks so much for this, one of my "never missed" series as a teenager!
Have read all the books on this place, wow what a story. Love it. ❤️❤️❤️👍👍👍
Thank you so much for uploading this series. Like many people on here, I remember watching this with my Dad (he was an ex WWII soldier) in the 70's when I was a kid and it brings back a lot of memories. Thanks again!!!
Apophis XI : thanks for uploading this wonderful series. One of the high points of British TV from the '70's.
love it. had to watch it the X-time over and over. much to learn about leadership and mentality beside the historical background and superb storys in every episode
it's been a while i've seen this serie. i was still kid, but loved every minute of it
Never heard of this series before. I'm in the US. I'm hooked 5 minutes in! Looking forward to the rest of the episodes. Thank you so much for posting!
Saw the castle and read the books, but first time seeing this. Beautiful, thanks.
I can't believe that I've found this programme. I remember being allowed to stay up late because it was on at 9pm. I was 9 years old. I'm going to watch all these now, during the lockdown in 2020.
It's a bit disconcerting how much the main actor reminds me of Jeremy Hardy., who passed away recently. Thanks for posting this old classic. Cheers
Thanks for this. I´ve seen this serie when I was a child. Love the tune. Greetings from Holland.
loved this series as a lad, recently watched again to much enjoyment
I just completed the research into the mystery of what happened to Royal Canadian Engineers (RCE) Lieutenant William Anderson MILLAR.....He first deployed in WWII on Operation Jubilee, the infamous "Dieppe Raid" where almost 2,000 Canadians were killed/wounded and made Prisoners of War.....Lieutenant Millar was a demolitions and explosives expert having graduated from the University of Alberta in Edmonton with a degree in mining engineering. He was assigned as a demolitions team leader in 7 Field Company, RCE....and specifically tasked to destroy Red Beach obstacles permitting 30 Assault Unit, Royal Marine Commando direct entry into the inner Dieppe port and then to destroy port facilities covering their withdrawal. He was captured and made a POW when the beach assaults failed to penetrate into Dieppe. He was the force marched to a German holding area and then put on a train delivering captured officers to Eichstadt Officers POW camp. With others, he escaped, jumping from the train inside a tunnel.....but was recaptured four days later. He was then escorted directly to the camp, but then taken with other captured Canadian Dieppe POWs to a separate German special POW camp in a nearby castle.....where the Canadian officers were subjected to being handcuffed daily in reprisal for being accused of hand tying German soldiers at Dieppe.....while in that prison castle, Lieutenant Millar escaped and was on the run for five days when he was recaptured again. He was then escorted directly to the Eichstadt POW Officers camp. He then joined British engineering officers in designing and digging a unique (tunnelling was uphill) tunnel and joined the 65 escaping officers a few months later.....he was again on the run for approximately nine days but recaptured once again......on his return to Eichstadt POW camp, he was judged as a persistent escaper and transferred to the German maximum security POW camp for officer escapees at Colditz.......on arrival there, he studied the routes that previous Colditz POW escapees had take out of the castle and in February 1944, he escaped through a window, having sawn through its bars and dropped to the castle courtyard during an air raid at night....hid under a German truck and departed the castle holding on under the truck which had been ordered out of the castle......he successfully escaped, travelling to Czecheslovakia.....nine days later he was recaptured when the safe house he had been hidden in, was raided by the Gestapo......his recapture was reported up the German security service chain of command to their headquarters in Berlin and taken to a Stalag POW camp and jailed there. On his arrival there under police escort, he was recognized by some of the camps Canadian Dieppe POWs, Canadian Doctor and a Canadian padre......two days later he was seen being taken in handcuffs out of the camps jail by gestapo agents.....analysis of post war Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal captured German/gestapo and SS records....it was revealed that in March 1944, the German Security Service (SD) had been directed by Hitler to issue a secret state order called the "Kugel Erlass" (Bullet Decree) that all recaptured escaped Allied Prisoners of War were to be immediately transferred from the military custody of the protection of the Geneva Convention to the status of being a political enemy of the third reich......to the custody of the gestapo, escorted directly to the Austrian Mauthausen Concentration turned over by the gestapo to the camps SS staff and shot dead. Further analysis of post war captured Mauthausen camp records reveals that Lieutenant Millar was shot by the SS "while trying to escape" and that the SS reported his death to their SS/SD Headquarters in Berlin as having been subjected to "Aktion Kugel". Mauthausen records hidden from the camp staff as the camp was then liberated by the US Army reveal that he and others subjected to the "Aktion Kugel" we're first shot, then their bodies were cremated in the camps crematoria and ashes scattered.....the Chief of the German security services, the SD, Ernst Kaltenbrunner was charged for war crimes against humanity at Nuremburg, found guilty and hung.
Good work doing all of that, he deserves to be remembered.
@@christhorpejunction8982 Agree...
Tragic, one hopes you have published your report of the events as transpired...
There is some speculation that the real purpose of the Dieppe raid was to create a diversion that allowed a commando unit to steal a code book that was needed by Bletchley Park. So Dieppe may not have been the unmitigated disaster that it appeared to be.
Fascinating, just googled him, says he was "mentioned in dispatches", hope there is some army camp or street named after him, unsung heroes need recognition, RIP.......Thanks.....
Fantastic to find this series. Thank you so much for these.
Great series, like many I remember this when it was first shown. Thanks lots.
You my friend are a hero for taking the time to upload these
A long time fan of this series, from its very first airings in the US on the local PBS affiliate in Michigan/Ann Arbor area. I don't recall the first episodes all that much, so it was good to see this one again. They hadn't quite worked out the filming style yet, and the geography of who is where at any one time during the rooftop sequences (and a few others) isn't real clear, but this was smoothed out within a few episodes. Here it appears the exteriors possibly were shot on 16mm since a fair amount of it looks a bit soft (and not well-lit for some of the night scenes, making it hard to get oriented). I suspect after this and maybe the 2nd episode they may've switched to 35mm for the exteriors (with video tape for interiors, of course), as later episodes looked sharper, better overall.
Jolly good show, I say....although the word "jolly" is not terribly appropriate!
In my view, one of the best TV series ever created....
Brings back memories of watching exciting TV in the 1970s as a kid. And does anyone remember playing the Colditz board game? We had to rewrite the rules to make it fairer for the guards!
Loved the game- but we thought it too easy for the Germans!
Thank-you for the upload, Sir.
Thanks for uploading this wonderful person!
Thank you for the uploads. Much appreciated
thanks for the good quality. makes a great series really enjoyable to watch again instead of the usual youtube disappointment thanks again
Awesome series. Thanks so much for sharing
Every time I hear Churchill's "Never Surrender" speech I always expect to hear Iron Maiden's song Aces High to kick in when he finishes.
Great memories of watching this fantastic series when I was young.
The character of Pat Grant is clearly based on Major P. R. Reid, who wrote the Colditz books on which the TV series was based, and he is mentioned as a Technical Adviser in the closing credits. Pat Reid held the position of Escape Officer overseeing British escape attempts in Colditz until he made his successful "home run" to neutral Switzerland in late 1942. I remember watching this series and the sequel when it first aired and I actually had the honour to meet the man himself at a Colditz Exhibition, where I got a signed copy of his book.
When this was first transmitted I remember my old school U.C.S. yearly magazine wishing old boy David McCullam good luck with this series.
How cool, I used to watch this with my Dad, so thank you for this upload!
I seen these episodes when I was a teenager and it still great to watch again. What these British POWs must have gone through was purely hell that endured them.
Remember watching this in the Scrubs. Loved it truly inspirational.
fantastic ...whats not to like going to watch them all …
Very good! Thanks for posting.
A great tv series I remember watching as an 8 or 9 year old. The BBC turned out some great programmes during the 70s. I remember a friend of mine had the board game Escape from Colditz and I always linked the two together. Another favourite was "Wings" set during the first world war, with stories about the Royal Flying Core.
I saw this as a child too, great that I can see this again. Thank you so much.
Like so many television programmes which aired in Australia on a Tuesday or Thursday night I never saw this one. Tuesday and Thursday nights were Civil Defence training nights and I was never home. Thirty years of missed television.
This is quality tv,,thanks for the upload
Finally found a war series I haven’t seen yet ! I’m excited
Thanks for loading, this is excellent.
Heavens, didn't think this would be on you tube!
Awesome! I've visit Colditz in summer 2017. It was very interesting!
Great series! Thanks for uploading
that intro music brought back lots of memories, crazy flashback to my youth,,thanks for sharing,,,xbxx
Great , brings back memories of my childhood.
I watched this series as well . Have the music theme on vinyl . Commandant as I see now , reminds of Col . Klink from Hogan's Heroes . By looks only . An excellent actor . Seen him in many British W W 2 dramas . Thank you .
R.I.P Edward Hardwicke. True English gent.
……his father was renowned English actor, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, who played Pharaoh SETI in 1956 film, ‘The Ten Commandments’………
Wow ! When television was actual television and great acting..
All those ingenious escapes and attempted escapes. So resourceful and clever.
I remember watching this when I was 9 years old back in 1972. As I recall, it was on PBS and even then, you could tell that it was done to a much higher standard than most crap on TV at the time. But I have to admit I found it a bit grim. Always felt bad when the escapees failed and were re-captured by the Germans.
I so forgot about watching this when i was growing up it was brilliant
Got to say I'm loving Edward Hardwicke in this.
Seems like other you tubers prefer this series over POW. That's what brought me here. Thanks for taking the time to upload these. Lets enjoy while they last.
this is a classic with secret army & kessler too...
All second to none.
It is decades since I read Pat Reid's Colditz books but as far as I can remember this first part of the series has kept closely to his story of his escapades at Laufen POW camp, including his attempt to use a sewage drain as a short cut for his escaper tunnel - with dire consequences!
Classic great upload
Wonderfullll,thankssss,please ep 2.
This is still the best War television series in Britain.
I had a Colditz action man set. With sentry boxes& barriers. I'm sure there was even a dog!
Takes me back to good days as a boy in the North East. Had the book and board game too.
Just finished reading P.R.Reid's book. What a treat to find this uploaded. I am about to hit the play button!!! Regardless of the quality... it'll be highly relevant. This story has me captivated.
Me Michael read the many other books that cover aspects of Colditz. There are a bunch and rarely disappoint. The men who survived Colditz were remarkable.
@@garycort7997 Thanks, and I agree they would have been exceptional men. Wouldn't it be something if that glider was intact and stored somewhere eh.
Me Michael there was a BBC or Nat Geo show that attempted to build and launch per the plan. It certainly exists somewhere in the interweb.
Same era/ genre as Danger UXB also worth a watch
It's even better watching it at4a.m,rattling&emotional. Helps pass the hours of gloom.
Love this series. Went to Colditz Castle and stayed there over night.
1944?
@@rpm1796 lol.
Putting aside that this is a semi-fictional series, and a very interesting and entertaining one at that, but seeing the way prisoners were treated in this series makes me wonder how they were actually treated, by all sides not just the Germans, but all the protagonists in the Second World War, I don’t think that the allies treated their prisoners as badly as the Axis forces but not completely within the rules for prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention.
I watched this series as a kid, sitting with my dad and hoping that every escape would work and that they would make it home, but obviously they didn’t, but not for the lack of trying and ingenuity that was displayed in the real story as well as in the storyline, they did their duty trying to get out and give the Germans the runaround, everyone of them was a hero in my eyes, even at the age of 11-12 years of age.
What a great series !
Can't understand why it was never repeated ?
BarryCroucher It has been repeated.
I think in future I shall just read the description! It will save me watching the film!
This is summer evenings at the cottage for me...with a storm coming in over ''Loch Nippy''.
What a great series
Welcome to Colditz gentleman, I trust you will find things firm but fair here, Enjoy both series, the first for me has something missing undoubtebly though I can't quite put my finger on what but NEVERTHELESS.. we shall accommodate you then as we accommodate you now.. well carry on
Gonna start to watching,remember when on tv , just too young at the time to understand