Colditz TV Series S2/E7 • French Leave

Irritated at the British contingent having to receive war news via the French prisoners, who have two wireless units, Carter is asked to request one of them for the British. The request is refused by the dashing Captain André Vaillant. He expresses frustration with being kept as a prisoner of war despite the fact that France is no longer at war with Germany following the Vichy agreement. He is forced to eat his words when Mohn triumphantly announces to the French contingent that because they are no longer prisoners of war, they are being moved to a labour camp in Poland where things would be much more difficult for them. Meanwhile, the pastor of Colditz protestant church makes a request to the Kommandant that the prisoners' choir sing at the town church during the Bishop of Leipzig's visit at Easter. The Kommandant reluctantly agrees when he hears the choir singing Bach melodies. As the rest of the French contingent resign themselves to their fate, Vaillant takes the opportunity during rehearsals to seek help from the church organist, a young German woman. She assists him in a daring escape during the concert and takes him home; one of her brothers is dead and another is a prisoner of war in the USSR, which makes her sympathetic to Vaillant. They sleep together, and she reluctantly agrees to go with him when he takes a train the next day on the first stage of his journey back to France posing as a foreign worker. But Mohn is on their trail, and not everything goes as planned.