Softly Softly

Capturing Hitler’s Spies

By Tony Matthews

Published by Big Sky Publishing
RRP $32.99 in paperback | ISBN 9781923004788

During the Second World War, it didn’t take long for the British Secret Services MI5 and MI6 to discover that Nazi Germany’s cohorts of espionage agents were largely comprised of ill-trained and ill-prepared amateurs.

Take the case of the last man executed at the Tower of London: Joseph Jakobs. He was parachuted into Britain, landing in a farmer’s field near Warboys, Huntingdonshire, roughly eighty miles north of London, on 1 February 1941.

Matthews has painstakingly reconstructed the story of his landing in England, his discovery by farmworkers, his subsequent interrogation by security services and, finally, his execution, tied to a Windsor chair at the miniature rifle range in the Tower of London on 15 August 1941, unknowingly becoming a footnote in the Tower’s grisly history as it is told to tourists who flock to the famous landmark. He was poorly prepared for his mission to deliver a radio transmitter, given his inability to speak fluent English, considered a vital requirement for a spy who wants to go unnoticed in the local community.

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 book.

Through reconstructing the stories of a number of unsuccessful espionage attempts, Matthews reveals a world of duplicity, stupidity, betrayal and deceit in the upper echelons of the Nazi hierarchy not to mention poor preparation which meant it was virtually inevitable the German spies would be caught as they attempted to serve their Nazi masters.

Note for blog readers: Tony Matthews is a prolific author. Three of his books are listed on this blog. Use the easy search function to find them under author name.