Opinions of a Wolf

The true story of the Allied Prisoners of War in Colditz, a German fortress turned into a prison.

Summary:
During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners. For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend.

Review:
This is a rare combination for historic nonfiction. Well-researched and engagingly written. As easy to read as a well-paced thriller. Yet chock-full of fascinating facts.

The book is organized into sub-sections chronologically by year. Each year then has however many chapters it needs to tell the story. This made it quite easy to keep track of what was going on. There are two insets of wonderful photographs, clearly labeled. This allows the reader to easily put a face to the name of the person being discussed at various points.

Here are just a few of my favorite things that I learned in reading this book.

• An Indian officer was a prisoner at Colditz – and Indian soldiers were prisoners of war in general. Indians fought in WWII on the British side. The Germans tried to get them to come over to their side by appealing to the desire to be free of British rule. This appeal worked for some but not for others.
• A real person inspired the character Q from James Bond. He was responsible for some very creative methods of getting supplies through to the Allied POWs. (For a read about spies in WWII, check out this other book review.)
• The demographic with the most successful escape attempts were the French.
• It’s not so much that officers had a duty to escape as that the Germans would treat them with the courtesy “due an officer” so it was safer for them to attempt escape than for enlisted soldiers to do so.
• The British had a fighter ace who was a double amputee. He was missing part of both legs. He was an excellent flyer but, by all accounts, a real jerk to other people.
• Class structure existed within POW camps. Officers were sent to Colditz with enlisted men who acted as their servants. These men were called orderlies. These men even had their escape attempts denied to continue serving the officers. In one case, a man was given the chance to go home with German consent, but his officer blocked it, insisting he couldn’t go home until the officer did.

My one complaint about the book is this. There were some POWs who the Germans called “Prominente.” They were men with prestigious ties in the West. (For example: a relative of Winston Churchill.) The Germans oversaw them much more closely as they thought they might be valuable as a bargaining ticket. When the Allies were approaching Colditz, these Prominente were sent deeper into German territory, along with their orderlies. Given how attentive to detail this book is, I found it jarring that the two Maori orderlies who accompanied the Prominente were left nameless in the book. (They were Ben McLean and Reginald Mitai.) There were also no details provided on if they escaped the war with their lives. This in spite of the book providing a very detailed run-down at the end of what happened to most of the named prisoners and Germans in the book.

Overall, this is a well-written and enjoyable read on a specific area of WWII. Anyone with an interest in the experience of Allied prisoners in WWII will enjoy this one.

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4 out of 5 stars

Length: 368 pages – average but on the longer side

Source: Library

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