“Reads like a thriller . . . As timely as it is chilling and engrossing.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz The Axmann Conspiracy is the previously untold true story of the Nazi threat that continued in the wake of World War II, the espionage that defeated it, and two fascinating men whose lives forever altered the course of post-war Germany. A trusted member of Hitler's inner circle, Artur Axmann, the head of the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend), witnessed the Führer commit suicide in his Berlin bunker—but he would not let the Reich die with its leader. He led a group of Nazis, including Martin Bormann, intent on escaping the encircling Red Army. Evading capture during the Battle of Berlin, and with access to remnants of the regime’s wealth, Axmann had enough adult followers to reestablish the Nazi party in the very heart of Allied-occupied Germany. U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps Officer Jack Hunter was the perfect undercover operative. Fluent in German, he posed as a black marketeer to root out Nazi sympathizers and saboteurs after the war, and along with other CIC agents uncovered the extent of Axmann’s conspiracy. It threatened to bring the Nazis back into power—and the task fell to Hunter and his team to stop it.

The first history of postwar fears of a Nazi return to power in Western political, intellectual, and cultural life.

Based on extensive archival research in six countries and intensive fieldwork, the book analyzes the history of the village of Nkholongue on the eastern (Mozambican) shores of Lake Malawi from the time of its formation in the 19th century to the present day. The study uses Nkholongue as a microhistorical lens to examine such diverse topics as the slave trade, the spread of Islam, colonization, subsistence production, counter-insurgency, decolonization, civil war, ecotourism, and matriliny. Thereby, the book attempts to reflect as much as possible on the generalizability and (global) comparability of local findings by framing analyses in historiographical discussions that aim to go beyond the regional or national level. Although the chapters of the book deal with very different topics, they are united by a common interest in the social history of rural Africa in the longue durée. Contrary to persistent clichés of rural inertia in Africa, the book as a whole underscores the profound changeability of social conditions and relations in Nkholongue over the years and highlights how people’s room for maneuver kept changing as a result of the Winds of History, the frequent and often violent ruptures brought to the village from outside.

A trusted member of Hitler's inner circle, Artur Axmann, the head of the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend), witnessed the Führer commit suicide in his Berlin bunker--but he would not let the Reich die with its leader. He lead a group of Nazis, including Martin Bormann, intent on escaping the encircling Red Army. Evading capture during the Battle of Berlin, and with access to remnants of the regime's wealth, Axmann had enough adult followers to reestablish the Nazi party in the very heart of Allied-occupied Germany. U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps Officer Jack Hunter was the perfect undercover operative. Fluent in German, he posed as a black marketeer to root out Nazi sympathizers and saboteurs after the war, and along with other CIC agents uncovered the extent of Axmann's conspiracy. It threatened to bring the Nazis back into power--and the task fell to Hunter and his team to stop it. The Axmann Conspiracy is the previously untold true story of the Nazi threat that continued in the wake of World War II, the espionage that defeated it, and two fascinating men whose lives forever altered the course of post-war Germany.

Did Hitler shoot himself in the Führerbunker or did he slip past the Soviets and escape to South America? Countless documentaries, newspaper articles and internet pages written by conspiracy theorists have led the ongoing debate surrounding Hitler's last days. Historians have not yet managed to make a serious response. Until now. This book is the first attempt by an academic to return to the evidence of Hitler's suicide in order to scrutinise the most recent arguments of conspiracy theorists using scientific methods. Through analysis of recently declassified MI5 files, previously unpublished sketches of Hitler's bunker, personal accounts of intelligence officers along with stories of shoot-outs, plunder and secret agents, this scrupulously researched book takes on the doubters to tell the full story of how Hitler died.

SPECTATOR, NEW STATESMAN, TELEGRAPH, SUNDAY TIMES and FINANCIAL TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2015 No American statesman has been as revered and as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Hailed by some as the "indispensable man", whose advice has been sought by every president from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush, Kissinger has also attracted immense hostility from critics who have cast him as an amoral Machiavellian - the ultimate cold-blooded "realist". In this remarkable new book, the first of two volumes, Niall Ferguson has created an extraordinary panorama of Kissinger's world, and a paradigm-shifting reappraisal of the man. Only through knowledge of Kissinger's early life (as a Jew in Hitler's Germany, a poor immigrant in New York, a GI at the Battle of the Bulge, an interrogator of Nazis, and a student of history at Harvard) can we understand his debt to the philosophy of idealism. And only by tracing his rise, fall and revival as an adviser to Kennedy, Nelson Rockefeller and, finally, Richard Nixon can we appreciate the magnitude of his contribution to the theory of diplomacy, grand strategy and nuclear deterrence. Drawing not only on Kissinger's hitherto closed private papers but also on documents from more than a hundred archives around the world, this biography is Niall Ferguson's masterpiece. Like his classic two-volume history of the House of Rothschild, Kissinger sheds dazzling new light on an entire era.

Revised Edition: As the Nazi war machine caused death and destruction throughout Europe, one man in the Fatherland began his own reign of terror. This is the true story of the pursuit and capture of a serial killer in the heart of the Third Reich. For all appearances, Paul Ogorzow was a model German. An employed family man, party member, and sergeant in the infamous Brownshirts, he had worked his way up in the Berlin railroad from a manual laborer laying track to assistant signalman. But he also had a secret need to harass and frighten women. Then he was given a gift from the Nazi high command. Due to Allied bombing raids, a total blackout was instituted throughout Berlin, including on the commuter trains—trains often used by women riding home alone from the factories. Under cover of darkness and with a helpless flock of victims to choose from, Ogorzow's depredations grew more and more horrific. He escalated from simply frightening women to physically attacking them, eventually raping and murdering them. Beginning in September 1940, he started casually tossing their bodies off the moving train. Though the Nazi party tried to censor news of the attacks, the women of Berlin soon lived in a state of constant fear. It was up to Wilhelm Lüdtke, head of the Berlin police's serious crimes division, to hunt down the madman in their midst. For the first time, the gripping full story of Ogorzow's killing spree and Lüdtke's relentless pursuit is told in dramatic detail. Note: The ebooks and new paperbacks are the 2024 revised edition.

In June 1942, the U.S. Army began recruiting immigrants, the children of immigrants, refugees, and others with language skills and knowledge of enemy lands and cultures for a special military intelligence group being trained in the mountains of northern Maryland and sent into Europe and the Pacific. Ultimately, 15,000 men and some women received this specialized training and went on to make vital contributions to victory in World War II. This is their story, which Beverley Driver Eddy tells thoroughly and colorfully, drawing heavily on interviews with surviving Ritchie Boys. The army recruited not just those fluent in German, French, Italian, and Polish (approximately a fifth were Jewish refugees from Europe), but also Arabic, Japanese, Dutch, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Turkish, and other languages—as well as some 200 Native Americans and 200 WACs. They were trained in photo interpretation, terrain analysis, POW interrogation, counterintelligence, espionage, signal intelligence (including pigeons), mapmaking, intelligence gathering, and close combat. Many landed in France on D-Day. Many more fanned out across Europe and around the world completing their missions, often in cooperation with the OSS and Counterintelligence Corps, sometimes on the front lines, often behind the lines. The Ritchie Boys’ intelligence proved vital during the liberation of Paris and the Battle of the Bulge. They helped craft the print and radio propaganda that wore down German homefront morale. If caught, they could have been executed as spies. After the war they translated and interrogated at the Nuremberg trials. One participated in using war criminal Klaus Barbie as an anti-communist agent. Meanwhile, Ritchie Boys in the Pacific Theater of Operations collected intelligence in Burma and China, directed bombing raids in New Guinea and the Philippines, and fought on Okinawa and Iwo Jima. This is a different kind of World War II story, and Eddy tells it with conviction, supported by years of research and interviews.

From the summer of 1940 until May 1941, nearly twenty German Abwehr agents were dropped by boat or parachute into England during what was known as Operation Lena, all in preparation for Hitler's planned invasion of England. The invasion itself would never happen and in fact, after the war, one of the Abwehr commanders declared that the operation was doomed to failure. There is no doubt that the operation did indeed become a fiasco, with almost all of the officers being arrested within a very brief period of time. Some of the men were executed, while others became double agents and spied for Britain against Germany. Only one man managed to stay at large for five months before eventually committing suicide: Jan Willem Ter Braak. Amazingly, his background and objectives had always remained unclear, and none of the other Lena spies had ever even heard of him. Even after the opening of the secret service files in England and the Netherlands over 50 years later, Jan Willem Ter Braak remained a 'mystery man', as the military historian Ladislas Farago famously described him. In this book, the author – his near-namesake – examines the short and tragic life of Jan Willem Ter Braak for the first time. Using in-depth research, he investigates the possibility that Ter Braak was sent to kill the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and discovers why his fate has remained largely unknown for so long.

"Tells the story with the gripping pace of a true-crime 'Ocean's Eleven.'" The New York Post • "Like a diamond, this true-life caper is clear, colorful, and brilliant." Publishers Weekly ★Starred Review★ The Antwerp Diamond Center was one of the most secure buildings in the world. With hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of diamonds stored in its subterranean vault, it had to be. Located in the heart of Belgium's ultra-secure Antwerp Diamond District, it benefited from two police stations, armed patrols, extensive video surveillance, and vehicle barriers securing an area where 80 percent of the world's diamonds traded hands. But on February 15, 2003, a band of skilled Italian thieves — fronted by the charming Leonardo Notarbartolo, who spent over two years clandestinely casing the building — subverted every one of the Diamond Center's defenses and made off with a record amount of loot. Experts estimate they got away with nearly half a billion dollars in diamonds, cash and other valuables. They'd pulled off the biggest heist in history--everybody loves diamonds and they now had more than any thief before them. The robbers did it with stealth and smarts; no one was hurt or even threatened during what was quickly labeled the largest diamond heist in history. The bandits — members of a group of professional thieves known as "The School of Turin" — used cunning in lieu of violence, successfully evading security cameras, thwarting an array of electronic sensors, and penetrating a vault protected by a double-locked foot-thick steel door. Even when the police zeroed in on who committed the crime, how it was done remained a mystery, like something out of a heist movie or TV show. Flawless is a fast-paced global scavenger hunt uncovering the truth behind the daring Valentine's Day weekend heist. Tracking clues, sources, and documents throughout Europe — from seedy cafés in Turin, Italy to sleek diamond offices in Antwerp, Belgium — authors Scott Selby and Greg Campbell retrace Notarbartolo's careful discovery of the building's security flaws. They recreate the heist and its aftermath — detailing how the thieves brilliantly neutralized each element of the security protecting the Diamond Center's vault while inviting the readers into the secretive world of diamonds and diamond dealing. The result is a thrilling ride through the better-than-fiction heist of the century. "Fans of caper books and movies will be in seventh heaven." Booklist ★Starred Review★