In postwar Britain, former inmates portrayed Colditz Castle as a place of excitement and derring-do, where plucky British officers defied their jailers with ingenuity and resilience.
One escapee, Pat Reid, wrote several books portraying the camp as a place in which there was “never a dull moment”. His account Escape from Colditz was adapted into a gung-ho 1955 film starring John Mills.
In reality, most Colditz prisoners were cold, hungry and extremely bored. But compared with the fate of those held in the concentration camps run by the SS, they were also comparatively safe.
The castle this week reopened after a six-month renovation with a new tour guide: an interactive tablet device offering augmented reality, 3D animations and the opportunity to build an imaginary escape
