They were doomed from the very beginning.
 
During the Second World War, it didn’t take long for the British Secret Services to discover that Nazi Germany’s cohorts of espionage agents — influenced either by the illusionary light of profit or idealism, or the darkness of blackmail and reprisals — were largely comprised of amateurs so grossly inefficient it seemed almost a shame to hang them.
Sourced exclusively from previously highly classified MI5 files, this thought-provoking new book tells the dramatic stories of some of Hitler’s so-called spies whose training and credentials as secret agents were so pathetic that it was virtually inevitable they be caught.
Secret interrogation centres, double-cross, international intrigue and deadly, leap-in-the-dark adventures of enemy agents, lie at the heart of every chapter of this captivating, multi-storied book.

From a spy who deliberately jumped out of his aircraft knowing that he would be caught, to a dashing but misguided Errol Flynn look-alike, or a secret agent who had been duped into becoming a diamond courier, Tony Matthews strips back the layers of Nazi espionage to reveal a world of duplicity, stupidity, betrayal and deceit.

A probing exposé into the perilous and inefficient world of some of Hitler’s most endangered spies. 

Details: Non-fiction, published 2024.

Format: Soft cover, 384 pages.

Dimensions: 23.5 cm (h) x 15.5 cm (w) x 2.5 cm (d) / 450 grams.