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Return to the Reich

Autor*innen

Eric Lichtblau

Buchbewertung

4,3(499)Abgeben

Parameter

304 Seiten
11 Lesestunden

Mehr zum Buch

The remarkable story of Fred Mayer, a German-born Jew who escaped Nazi Germany only to return as an American commando on a secret mission behind enemy lines. Growing up in Germany, Freddy witnessed the Nazis' rise to power. At sixteen, his family fled to the United States, becoming one of the last German Jews to escape in 1938. After Pearl Harbor, Freddy sought to enlist but was rejected as an "enemy alien" due to his German origins. He was later recruited by the OSS, America's first spy agency. Alongside Dutch Jewish refugee Hans Wynberg and Nazi defector Franz Weber, he parachuted into Austria as the leader of Operation Greenup, aimed at thwarting Hitler's last stand. Posing as a Nazi officer and a French POW, he sent vital intelligence to the OSS via Hans, who operated from a nearby attic. His reports provided crucial information about the Battle of the Bulge and enabled the Allies to bomb twenty Nazi trains. Captured by the Gestapo, Freddy endured torture but remarkably convinced the Nazi commander to surrender, completing one of the most successful OSS missions of the war. Based on extensive research and interviews with Mayer, whom the author met shortly before his death at ninety-four, this narrative is an eye-opening account of World War II heroism.