To Ruhleben -- And Back

by Geoffrey Pyke, Paul Collins (Editor)

The second title re-released by our Collins Library imprint, To Ruhleben And Back is the first eyewitness account of a German concentration camp. Lost to obscurity for over eighty years, Geoffrey Pyke’s extraordinary book is a college student's sharp-tongued travelogue, a journey of hair-breadth escapes behind enemy lines, a sober meditation on imprisonment and escape … and, as Pyke intended, a ripping yarn.

Genres: History, Memoir, Nonfiction

215 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1916

Reviews

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit light on period detail (of which there can't be too much if you're really reading for that) but there is enough here to transport the reader to a different world, that of 1914. A world where cannon and horse fought world wars, weather and season were uppermost on the minds of the warriors, and in which the idea of "spy" wasn't quite set as a genre.

This is apparently direct documentary reportage, and suffers (a little bit) by comparison to it's fictional competitors, Erskine Childers, say, or John Buchan. But the fact is that this is a template for those kinds of narratives, an outline of the strange events and the nagging goblins that inhabit men's minds when the world is at war. Geoffrey Pike's voice in the book is kind of endearingly chipper and defiantly blasé in the closest of calls; he's a kind of Great War teenage ancestor of future Clandestine Britannia, ala Mr.Bond.

So not a Thirty Nine Steps or a Riddle Of The Sands but a forerunner of same. The harrowing chase across the moor, the forced-march across frozen night-landscapes, the endurance tests where the protagonist must swear to a fraudulent claim and appear nonchalant... We'd never get to Eric Ambler or Ian Fleming without the originals like Mr Pike.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is interesting; the author as a young adult during WWI travels incognito from London to Berlin to report on German moral and the Russian advance. He does learn that what the Brits want to hear is not what is happening, the Germans are not panicing or showing hardship from the Russian advance and the British blockade is have only a minor effect on them. During his tour our earstwhile hero ends up imprisioned at Ruhleben and finds the Brits there having established a community the way only the Brits would. I did find at times the author plodding with the story. I read this because one of my favourite authors, Paul Collins, is the editor and recommended it. His introduction to the book is enlightening and well worth reading, as he illuminates the person of Geoffery Pyke, the author, which adds to the story.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

great, true account of a british college boy who decides to go report from WWI germany and gets tossed in a POW camp. this was unexpectedly excellent.