S. P. Mackenzie. The Colditz Myth: The Real Story of POW Life in Nazi Germany. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. xvii + 446 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-926210-6.

Reviewed by Vasilis Vourkoutiotis (Department of History, University of Ottawa)
Published on H-German (October, 2005)

S. P. Mackenzie has done much previous and good work relating to Second World War Western prisoner-of-war history. He has covered the ground in articles and lengthier works stretching back at least a decade, and the quality of his scholarship was evident even in its earliest incarnations. With The Colditz Myth, he continues the trend of good scholarship, but manages to broaden the appeal of his work to include non-specialists and amateur historians, in general. The list of things to like in this book outstretches the possible complaints and reinforces Mackenzie's position within the field.

The book is organized thematically, and contains, in addition to the introduction and conclusion, twelve chapters on "Capture and Interrogation," "Transit and Processing," "Compounds and Commandants," "Leaders and Followers," "Body and Soul," "Work and Play," "Reprisals and Rewards," "Allies and Aliens," "Patriots and Traitors," "Abiding and Escaping," "Exodus and Liberation," and "Repatriation and Adjustment." Useful illustrations, abbreviations, and maps are included. Mackenzie made full use of British and American archival sources (relying on my work for the German archival findings on the field), interviews, and a truly thorough overview of the existing secondary literature. The work is well supported by archival and secondary source evidence and direct citations.

The book's main task is to examine the mythology referred to in the title, surrounding the escapades and pranks of the inmates of Oflag IV C (located in Colditz Castle), a German prisoner-of-war camp for officers that was subject to heightened surveillance and security. The prisoners were generally sent to Colditz from other "normal" camps because of incorrigible tendencies toward escape. Their story was somewhat sensationalized in a series of books by one of the former prisoners (P. R. Reid) after the war. Reid, in fact, did no more than provide the public with what it desperately wanted to hear: tales of British courage and public school (meaning private, in Americanese) derring-do and pluck in the face of evil or incompetent Nazi jailers. Having read most of these works as well, I can confirm that they sometimes smack of a desperate attempt to salvage British pride in an increasingly American-dominated world, in a similar way that James Bond films can give the impression that Britain mattered as more than a junior partner in the Cold War. The tendency is unfortunate, given that the actual British wartime record certainly does not need rescue by exaggeration, but then, one supposes that one's public must be amused.

And amused it was, as Mackenzie diligently informs the reader. The virtual info-tainment industry surrounding Colditz in the postwar decades (leading up to the new century, even) was staggering, and so it is not surprising that a serious historian such as Mackenzie felt the need to sift fact from fiction, in order to provide a balanced view of precisely how exceptional the Colditz experience really was, in terms of the general treatment of American and British prisoners of war. This objective forms the main motive of the book, and accounts for the approach Mackenzie follows in each of his chapters.

Mackenzie begins most sections with a succinct but useful overview of the obligations the Geneva Convention of 1929 imposed upon the Germans. This analysis is then followed with an overview of the general British experiences for each topic under consideration. These sections are based on secondary and some primary source material, but contain no findings exceptionally new in comparison to what has been published before. This does not detract from their value, however. Mackenzie's synthesis is supplemented by interviews and individual case studies or examples, providing newcomers to the field with a well-written, engaging overview of the main historiography. Professional historians may read these passages quickly, but they will be of use and interest to students and the wider public, especially given Mackenzie's habit of backing up his observations with appropriately detailed citations.

After providing the overview, Mackenzie turns his attention to what was the case for the inmates at Colditz, to see how much their experience may or may not have differed from the general trends. Mackenzie does a thorough job of demonstrating that, while the inmates were indeed incorrigible, they were not truly unique among the greater pool of prisoners; in the case of escapes and "home runs" (attempts that resulted in the ultimate prize of making one's way out of Nazi-controlled territory and back home), Mackenzie provides interesting comparisons with the records of British prisoners elsewhere. The end result is that the mythology surrounding Colditz indeed appears to be the result of postwar popular culture exaggerations, rather than based on significant differences from the norms. Some of the norms will probably be unpleasant reminders, in the current age: the section on general anti-Semitic attitudes among many British prisoners is a welcomed reminder of how widespread such thinking was at the time (p. 275). A final point deserves mention, for Mackenzie does an excellent job, throughout the book, of demonstrating just how unhappy many of the former prisoners themselves were, by the way in which their personal histories--their very lives--were appropriated and exaggerated; one truly feels saddened for these reticent and humble men, whose past was cast open to public spectacle in the name of entertainment.

Despite all this, Mackenzie seems sometimes wistfully reluctant to deflate the myth entirely, and informs the reader, "as in other spheres, the experience of prisoners at Oflag IV C ... was a mixture of the typical and the unique" (p. 178); or, "Colditz was both unusual and yet in some ways quite typical" (p. 280). Given that the same could be said of any camp occupied by non-clones, the equivocation seems unnecessary and a little bland. I had few other complaints about the book rather than this occasionally repetitive tone (though there were multiple misspellings of my last name in the citations). Aside from this matter, it was usually a matter of quirks and style: German officers are frequently described as "martinets"; Stalag IID Steglitz is referred to as "Steglity" (p. 251). One hopes that Mackenzie wrote with tongue planted in cheek with the phrases "it was the camp for bad boys" (p. 310), followed on the next page with "the bad boys of Colditz." There was only one truly jarring point, from my perspective: "What was happening to Soviet prisoners was a nasty reminder of what life had been like initially for men of the BEF, and might again without Red Cross parcels and the protection of the Geneva Convention" (p. 269). With all respect for the true desperation suffered by the men of the BEF, there was never, ever, even the remotest comparable grounds between the plight of Soviet and western prisoners of war. It was probably not Mackenzie's intention to say so, but the phraseology allows for such an interpretation to be made, and so it needs to be pointed out. Readers of German may be referred to a comparison I made on this issue in an article in Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte 6.2 (2005). However, in overall substantive terms, there was little to find fault with in Mackenzie's work.

S. P. Mackenzie writes in a far more engaging and accessible style than the vast majority of published historians today. He has managed, with The Colditz Myth, to bridge the gap between popular culture/history, and serious scholarship. The book will be of interest to a wide range of readers, including many historians. The specialist in the field may be unsurprised by the conclusions, but that does not mean that they were not worth proving, and that the Colditz myth did not need to be put into proper perspective.

If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at: https://networks.h-net.org/h-german.

Citation: Vasilis Vourkoutiotis. Review of Mackenzie, S. P., The Colditz Myth: The Real Story of POW Life in Nazi Germany. H-German, H-Net Reviews. October, 2005.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11185

Copyright © 2005 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For any other proposed use, contact the Reviews editorial staff at hbooks@mail.h-net.org.