Colditz (1972) TV series

Composer: Robert Farnon

Starring: David McCallum, Richard Heffer, Paul Chapman, Jack Hedley, Bernard Hepton, Hans Meyer, Christopher Neame, Robert Wagner, Edward Hardwicke, Anthony Valentine

More info: IMDb

Plot: This grim and claustrophobic drama chronicles the lives of the prisoners in Colditz Castle from the arrival of the first British prisoners after Dunkirk until the liberation of the castle by the Americans in 1945. Colditz was a "special" camp, designed by the Nazis to hold high-risk and politically important prisoners. Many of the series' plots are based on real events.

My rating: 9/10

Will I watch it again?  Yes.

Outstanding!  The first three or so episodes deal mostly with a few future residents in their escapes that led to their being sent to Colditz castle.  Once these introductions are dispensed with the rest of the episodes are nearly all spent at the prison camp.  Those first few episodes run rather slow but once most of the time was spent at the castle and hanging around these guys full time I liked it more and more.  It gets better as it goes and the second half was much more engaging and it's in some of these episodes you will find the best of the entire run.  Some of them had me quite emotional toward the end.  I'm fresh off of binging the show (being sick allows you to do nothing all day and feel good about it) and I can't say enough about it.  It's a show that takes the subject seriously and doesn't spoon feed the sugar.  Actions have consequences and people have to deal with them.

One thing I learned was that the POW camps were under the jurisdiction of the Luftwaffe and not the SS or Gestapo.  I'm sure I knew this at one point but had simply forgotten about it.  The Kommandant for most of the series (played by Hepton) is an honorable man.  Most of the Germans in the show are portrayed this way.  They're good men doing their duty, abiding by the law and the rules of the Geneva Convention.  The prisoners are treated fairly and with dignity.  I like the respect both sides had for each other.  It's when Major Mohn (Valentine) shows up as second in command when we have a villain to boo and hiss at.  He's a Nazi that couldn't care less about the Geneva Convention and does his best to make it difficult for the prisoners.  There is some fantastic storytelling in this show and anyone interested in this sort of thing needs to fast track this to the top of the list.  It's on YouTube in full.