Agent 110: An American Spymaster and the German Resistance in WWII by Scott Miller

I'm kind of going off the rails here, but this song used to really move me when I was in middle school: George Harrison's What is Life?

Agent 110: An American Spymaster and the German Resistance in WWII by Scott  Miller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a very interesting book for a number of reasons.

First up is the reason why I bought the book. It was about espionage, always exciting. Secondly, it takes place towards the end of WWII, a time period I have been enjoying reading about and all you fellow fans of Foyle's War would enjoy the book for that reason.

Finally, Miller presents information of which I was not previously aware.

Allen Dulles is an agent for the U.S. in the O.S.S., the precursor to the C.I.A. He has been assigned to Switzerland to flush out any Germans disenchanted with Hitler and the Nazi's and persuade them to provide essential information to the Allies leading toward defeating Hitler and his regime.

Dulles is able to contact the German resistance movement, a group of Germans who are trying to overthrow Hitler internally. They were responsible for several failed assassination attempts on Hitler's life. Dulles and the cooperative Germans work together through the final year of the war.

Miller sheds new light on the fact there was a significant internal resistance to Hitler throughout the war and on more than one occasion, the Allies unintentionally thwarted their attempts at organizing the Germans against Hitler, which might have lead to the overthrow of Hitler from the inside. This was no doubt due to a lack of awareness that such an organization even existed on the Allies' part.

There are several reasons for this, but you'll have to read the book, because it's too involved to try to sum up here.

The book is non fiction but reads like a high action suspense novel. Many of the resistance members were actually part of the Nazi regime, which is why they were able to access valuable information and carry it to Dulles. When Hitler fell, many of them were racing to escape and some of them ended in prison until Dulles could come to the rescue and explain their real role in the war. Some of them were later used as witnesses against other Nazis during the Nuremberg Trials.

Miller writes in a way that shows us the lives of each player involved on both sides of the war. He also provides a follow up at the end of the book to let us know what happened to each of the major players after the war up to their death.

I think this book is an excellent and unique source of WWII history.

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