The Traitors Circle: THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

by Jonathan Freedland

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE ESCAPE ARTIST

A THE ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR

'Magnificent . . . Important and impressive'
DAILY TELEGRAPH

'Astonishing . . . Freedland is a master'
MICK HERRON

'Remarkable . . . This is how the best history books will be written in the future'
ANDREW ROBERTS

'Excellent . . . Perfect reading for this moment'
ANNE APPLEBAUM

'Utterly gripping, brilliantly researched and written'
ANTHONY HOROWITZ

'Compelling'
MAX HASTINGS, SUNDAY TIMES

'Thrilling, humane, and deeply moving . . . Not to be missed'
DAVID McCLOSKEY

'Totally gripping and timely'
JONATHAN DIMBLEBY

When the whole world is lying, someone must tell the truth.

Berlin, 1943. A group of high-society anti-Nazi dissenters meet for a tea party one late summer afternoon. They do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them all to the Gestapo - revealing their secret to the Nazis' most ruthless detective.

They form a circle of unlikely rebels, drawn from the German two countesses, a diplomat, an intelligence officer, an ambassador's widow and a pioneering headmistress. Meeting in the shadows, rescuing Jews or plotting for a future Germany freed from the Führer's rule, what unites them is a shared loathing of the Nazis, a refusal to bow to Hitler and the courage to perform perilous acts of resistance. Or so they believe.

How did a group of brave, principled rebels, who had successfully defied Adolf Hitler for more than a decade, come to fall into such a lethal trap? And who betrayed them?

Undone from within and pursued to near-destruction by one of the Reich's cruellest men, they showed a heroism that raises a question with new urgency for our what kind of person does it take to risk everything and stand up to tyranny?

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, War, Audiobook, Germany, Historical

Audible Audio

First published September 11, 2025

About the author

Jonathan Freedland is a British journalist. He also writes thrillers under the pseudonym Sam Bourne.

Reviews

[Marquise]

DNF at 11%. No rating.

For my own record-keeping (I own a copy), here's why I'm dropping this book:

- Freedland isn't a historian, he's a journalist and thriller writer who only found out about the Solf Circle resistance group while writing a very poorly done pop history book about Rudi Vrba. His lack of knowledge of history and history writing is noticeable in his framing, presentation, and delivery of historical facts.

- Freedland lets the tabloid journo side of himself take over and makes sweeping generalisations based on partial and incomplete statistics, and makes emotional- based assertions he presents as fact. Case in point, in his short intro he mentions the study claiming that about 3 million Germans were imprisoned & killed for opposing the NSDAP, which he then takes to mean over 95 percent of the 65 million Germans living at the time were complicit with Nazism.

Sorry? Does he even realise that the Jews, his own people, are accounted for amongst those 65 million? And does he realise the percentage of children, minors, elderly, and disabled amongst those 65 million that were blameless on account of age and health? Does he understand how many of those 65 million fled abroad, weren't caught, went to fight for others (bet Freedland would be shocked to learn there were Germans in the French Résistance)? Does he even stop to think how many of those 65 million were relatives and associates of the 3 million caught & imprisoned and thus were under psychological duress or even direct Gestapo surveillance for being close to 'traitors'?

Of course he doesn't! As a biased journo, he omits facts and presents false claims based on a statistic that is at best an educated guess (so many concentration camp and Gestapo records were destroyed). I'm not going to defend Germany's population at the time for their responsibility in the Holocaust and other WWII atrocities, it's a sad fact that they did go along either actively or passively, that can't be denied although numbers can be debated. But to say over 95 percent of them were complicit is, to be brutally honest, a shitty lie.

- Freedland lets the thriller writer side of himself take over alongside the tabloid journo side, too. He writes about real people like this was some spy thriller book, ascribing thoughts and emotions to long-dead people he hasn't met nor interviewed. His defence will probably be that he read their diaries and memoirs and interviewed their surviving relatives, a niece here, a grandchild there, etc. But that doesn't enable him to put thoughts and emotions into these people, his sources are secondhand, third-hand, fourth-hand, etc.

Here's where Freedland's lack of historian expertise shows the most, for any self-respecting historian or non-historian writing history knows not to make these kinds of mistakes. They're projections of the writer and reveal a personal agenda to present these real people under a certain light that plays into the author's own ends. The real people here, members of the Solf Circle, read not like they were but like characters in a spy novel that feel and think and behave like Freedland wants them to. Maria von Maltzan is the starkest example. Sure, she did have a very adventurous life and was a unique, brave woman, but she was by no means the thriller superheroine with TSTL behaviour that the author presents her as here.

- Freedland lists at the beginning all the places he went to for 'research', according to him, even name-dropping director Tuchel at the German Resistance Memorial Centre in Berlin. For all the good that it did him, because in the end it's not how many archives you go dig a hole in or how many lofty scholars you speak to when it's what you make with all that information that matters. Freedland's interpretative skills leave much to be desired, as once again the fact that he only found out about the Solf Circle very recently and did what appears a hurried and likely surface-level analysis of the sources, often omitting or simply not being aware of the larger context. Case in point, he claims a reason Elisabeth von Thadden (whom he paints as initially Nazi-sympathetic) stopped being favourable to Nazism was that she found out the Third Reich was going to create a German church that would put Hitler in place of Jesus.

I want to be kind and assume Freedland, as a Jew, is utterly unaware of how Christianity works on a Church level as opposed to on a theological level, but I'm not sure I can give him the benefit of the doubt here. He has also made very biased and false claims in his previous book, so I can only think he has an axe to grind here. But even beyond whatever Freedland personally thinks of Christianity, this claim just goes to, once again, highlight how utterly unprepared he is for the craft of writing WWII history with merely a crash-course run of researching the war and its circumstances. Even I, who am a mere history fan and by all accounts as unprepared as your average layman, have read enough to know that the 'replace Christianity' thing was Himmler's juju and not Hitler's, much less the Nazi hierarchy. Himmler and his small circle of weirdos were the ones into occultism, pagan rituals, and all that supernatural stuff. Hitler and the rest looked down on them, they were like the flower hippies of the Nazis, for goodness' sake! There's even a speech by the Führer calling his flower hippies out. Replace Jesus with Adolf, my arse. Freedland would've been better off if he had read on the complicated religion-NSDAP relations before embarrassing himself with claims like that one. Stiegmann-Gall and others have excellent books on the matter.

Anyway, if all these issues are there at merely 10 percent of the book, I don't want to know what the other 90% may contain. I am familiar with all the German Resistance groups, I already know what the Solf Circle did, and who betrayed them, so I don't believe there's anything new for me here as I was hoping. I can't tell others what to do, but if some others read this and think they would also raise the same objections I have, then this book is probably not for them either

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is so easy to forget that during World War II, there were Germans actively working from the inside to destroy Hitler. Very often, they would pay a terrible price. This is certainly the case for the people in Jonathan Freedland's The Traitors Circle.

I hesitate to give any of the plot away, so I will keep to a very high level recap. The story is centered around a gathering of Germans who are in various stages of resistance against the Nazis. Some are just talkers while others are actively making things happen. Unfortunately, one of the attendees is an agent for the Gestapo. I'll leave it there.

Freedland does write this like a thriller. Chapters end on ominous notes which promise twists, turns, and further betrayal. I generally hate books which try to hard to make history into something that it is not. However, this is one of the few times where it absolutely works. Freedland doesn't overdo it, and his characters are not well known enough for the reader to know what ultimately happens to each. For example, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is mentioned, but he is not a direct part of this particular group. This makes sense since anyone familiar at all with World War II knows exactly how Bonhoeffer's brilliant life ends.

All of this is to say that this book works for every audience. Non-history readers will be enthralled by the propulsive and novel-like storytelling. History nerds will once again be reminded that doing the right thing can sometimes exact a terrible cost.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by NetGalley and Harper Books.)

[Manybooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are a few (and of course clandestine) groups of German anti-Nazi resisters during the Third Reich whose courageous activities (dangerous and generally also deadly for both group members and often also for their families and for their friends) have been well chronicled and are also internationally known and respected, such as the 1944 assassination plot of Adolf Hitler planned by Adam von Trott and his fellow army collaborators and the pacifist White Rose circle of Munich university students and their professor who distributed anti-Nazi leaflets (and with both groups paying for their rebellion with their lives, with their executions, something I can sort of very very grudgingly accept and understand regarding the 1944 assassination plot even if I totally do admire and strongly agree with the plotters and with their supporters, but considering that all the White Rose did was to distribute propaganda denouncing Nazism, while I am not really surprised that Hans and Sophie Scholl et al were executed for their public resistance, it still does flabbergast me a trifle but it also clearly demonstrates just how dangerous, how potentially lethal ANY kind of rebellion and negativity towards Nazism and towards Adolf Hitler was and could be, and in particular in Germany proper). But just to point out that aside from the 1944 assassination plot and the White Rose, and as author Jonathan Freedland very specifically notes in the preface for his autumn 2025 The Traitors Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany―and the Spy Who Betrayed Them (and contrary to popular belief I might add) there were actually very very many Germans who opposed Nazism in one way or another (both quietly and actively) and that between 1933 and 1945 some three million Germans were imprisoned in concentration camps for so-called crimes of dissent (and that even making jokes about Adolf Hitler could in fact lead to arrest, and worse, often even to execution).

Now while doing research for his 2022 book The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World (and which I now definitely want to read even though a number of trusted Goodreads friends have really disliked The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World) Freedland came across the heartbreaking but also encouraging story of one such German resistance group (of the so-called Solf Circle or the Solf Kreis in German) and in and with The Traitors Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany―and the Spy Who Betrayed Them Jonathan Freeedland tells the story of the Solf Circle in meticulous, horrifying and cinematically dramatic detail, textually exploring the secretive world of anti Nazi activists in the Third Reich (and yes, like with the 1944 assassination plot mentioned above, the conspirators, the resisters in The Traitors Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany―and the Spy Who Betrayed Them were mostly upper class Germans).

And Freedland's textual focus in The Traitors Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany―and the Spy Who Betrayed Them, this is a September 1943 Berlin tea party hosted by Elisabeth von Thadden, the aristocratic headmistress of a private girls’ academy (and where she neither did nor even permitted any Heil Hitler type of salutes), with guests being Otto Kiep (a Foreign Ministry official who was also part of a clandestine governmental anti-Nazi ring), the Countess Hannah von Bredow, Count Albrecht von Bernstorff, Jesuit priest Father Friedrich Erxleben, Nikolaus von Halem, Richard Kuenzer, State Secretary Arthur Zarden and his daughter Irmgard as well as Paul Reckzeh, a young "Swiss" doctor who enthusiastically applauded the other party attendees musing about overthrowing Adolf Hitler (but who also made no such comments himself) only to later (since Reckzeh was in fact a ruthless spy) make a detailed and damning report to his Gestapo handlers (and while Kiep received Reckzeh's report, as it was leaked to him by fellow anti-Nazi government official Helmuth James von Moltke, this was sadly not in time to save both himself and the other tea party conspirators, the majority of whom were arrested, brutally tortured and executed, and indeed the same fate was in store for von Moltke as well).

Furthermore in The Traitors Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany―and the Spy Who Betrayed Them Jonathan Freedland also recounts the extraordinarily cinematic exploits of Countess Maria von Maltzan, a close friend of Elizabeth von Thadden (and who luckily skipped the fateful tea party), who sheltered Jewish fugitives, viscously harangued SS officers regarding their investigations, hid in a tree to evade searchlights and guard dogs and even shot a man in a Berlin sewer (sounding almost unbelievable, but my own research indeed shows that all of the scenarios presented by Freedland about von Maltzan are or more to the point were reality, they did indeed occur). And albeit Jonathan Freedland's text for The Traitors Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany―and the Spy Who Betrayed Them with its tense cat-and-mouse espionage game, pitting vilely sadistic Nazi functionaries and their unsavoury minions against their victims, against their hapless prey whose considerable monetary resources, privilege and moxie do give them at least a fighting chance against Nazism (and even though readers well know right from page one of The Traitors Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany―and the Spy Who Betrayed Them that all is and will be for naught so to speak) is often almost a bit too verbally movie-like and as such also sometimes even feels rather artificial for me, no, what Freedland presents in The Traitors Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany―and the Spy Who Betrayed Them is contents wise absolutely and totally historically accurate (which yes, I did check online). But well, if Freedland wants to make his text (his story) a bit like a thriller, like espionage fiction so be it, and that the exciting and in one's face textuality of The Traitors Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany―and the Spy Who Betrayed Them should keep in particular young adult readers of The Traitors Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany―and the Spy Who Betrayed Them nicely engaged even if I personally would definitely prefer a bit less theatrics, less melodrama and a bit drier a text. Therefore, I do majorly understand why Jonathan Freedland uses extensive dramatics in his account, that The Traitors Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany―and the Spy Who Betrayed Them totally works as an espionage story (and that my rating for The Traitors Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany―and the Spy Who Betrayed Them is also solidly five stars and as such comes highly and warmly recommended).

[Iain · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no big conspiracy or plot at the centre of The Traitors Circle. Instead the use of a social gathering - a tea party - amongst friends who disagreed with the Nazi regime is used ro highlight how brutal the punishment for the merest hint of dissent against the Reich was. This does leave the book in a slightly odd place - there is no dramatic climax to a plot, not much in terms of excitement or high drama. It is the story of normal people standing up against an intolerable evil in small ways and being severely punished for doing so - and that is still relevant in the world today, perhaps worryingly so. An interesting and well written look at a lesser known story from the time.

[Betsy Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was eager to read this book for a number of reasons. First, I read and was deeply affected by Freedland's The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World . And second, I hoped I would learn more about heroes—members of Berlin's elite society, non-Jews, who were against the Nazi regime. That they merely met at a tea party to discuss strategy and were infiltrated by a covert member of the Gestapo and then were subjected to all manner of torture, terror, and interrogation provided understanding for my third reason for reading this painstakingly researched and dramatically written history: I wanted to see where the USA is in its devolvement and emulation of the Nazi regime.

For both present-day USA and Hitler's Third Reich, cruelty and terrorizing people is/was the intention. How the torture was so studied and developed makes me queasy. But it is important to know.

This is vibrant, character-driven history, not "torture porn" but Freedland does not back away from what these people endured as the Nazis interrogated them not only for their "defeatism" (the crime of believing Germany would not win the war) at the tea party but for nonexistent connections to the German generals' foiled attempt to assassinate Hitler.

In my hunger to understand the difference between then and now, I took note of details about the Gestapo's inaugural mission "to detect the first hints of a hostile opinion forming in the German population, and to prevent the holders of those opinions, dissidents actual or potential, from making contact with each other (132)." Despite the chilling similarity between Hitler's trajectory and our own, our internet allows lightning speed communication and sharing of information that Nazi Germany did not have. It has birthed a robust independent media on Substack—trained journalists who value fact-checking and sourcing—that is working at blazing speed to inform us—publicly, in real time. It has summoned nearly 8 million of us to the streets to fight for democracy; nobody is hiding. It allows me to write freely here and on Substack about my concerns and disgust with the Trump regime. So there is no need for secrecy on the democracy side and there can be none of the secrecy that allowed the Nazis to thrive as they did. That, to me, is cause for some optimism.

As with Freedland's previous book, this one sent me into my own research. He briefly mentions "Greifers"—Jews who worked for the Nazis grabbing "submarines" (Jews who were hiding) and sending them to their deaths in concentration camps. The most infamous Greifers were Stella Kȕbler and Rolf Isaaksohn. Stella was known as the "Blonde Poison" for her skillful tricking of fellow Jews. Because the mention is so brief, I instantly judged her to be a monster, and I was absolutely incredulous. How could anyone do this?


This led to me reading her Wikipedia page which tells a much bigger story, and this led to my learning about a 2023 movie, Stella, a Life, shortlisted as the German submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film for the 97th Academy Awards. I am going to rent it at Fandango.

It also led me to one of several true heroes of this book, Countess Maria von Maltzan, a veterinarian who hid her Jewish lover, helped Jews escape, and even stood up to the molestations of the Russians who liberated Germany but also liberally raped women. There is a videoed oral history with her here: Oral history interview with Maria Grafin von Maltzin, 2 hrs. and bad audio.

I am so eager to understand what makes one person endure torture yet never betray others and another (Greifer Stella Kȕbler) to not only betray her own people but rebuke them with contempt once she is free of personal threat.

Before Hitler took over in 1933, Berlin had more than 160,000 thriving Jews. When the war was over, there were 1,500. One of the characters who was interned in Ravensbrȕck concentration camp, a sick woman named Lagi Solf who died young after liberation, trying desperately to free her husband from a Soviet-run labor camp, once free, seemed to lose the resilience that had sustained her through the camp. She wrote:

I do not want to think of the past because it has lost its meaning. The world has learned nothing from it—neither slaughterers nor victims nor onlookers. Our time is like a dance of death whose uncanny rhythm is understood by few. Everyone whirls confusedly without seeing the abyss. (387)

If you want to better understand the abyss we Americans are circling, take a look at this deeply researched book that reads as if it has a novel's plot.

Here are some villains; since it’s not always clear from the captions, I’m adding to them.

Leo Lange inaugurated gassing people to death by experimenting in ways to murder first sick and disabled people, then Jews. He was famous for his death van disguised as a coffee truck.

Paul Reckseh should chill all Americans’ blood. He was a doctor who worked as a spy for the Gestapo (pretending to be with the German resistance), was responsible for the arrest of all those involved in the infamous tea party, testified at their trials, and much more. And he got away scot-free. His father, also a doctor, after the war testified that his son was a congenital psychopath. No matter what he did, he always managed to slither free and not only get away with it, but by making manipulative alliances, live quite well. He believed in nothing but himself and his own wellbeing. His "colleagues regarded him as untrustworthy from the start. His wife's friends found him creepy and pompous, whether because of his tendency to pepper any conversation with Latin tags or his constant bragging. (416)" After sabotaging his own daughter for daring to try to go with her fiancé to West Germany and having her arrested by the Stasi of East Germany (where he was living well beyond his salary means), he died “a peaceful, old-man’s death on the last day of March 1996, his remains buried in the anonymous field of urns in the Ohlsdorf [West Germany after reunification] main cemetery. Like so many Nazis who had spilled the blood of innocents, he was allowed what his victims were denied: a life. (419)”

A note about the edition(s) of the book I read
I took this very long book out of the library. There was so much demand for it that I had to wait awhile and I could not renew it because others had it on hold. The minute I began to read I realized the borrow time would be a problem (this is not a book to fly through). So I bought a copy. I preferred the cheaper and easier to hold e-book, and I bought it at Bookshop.org, where profits go to indie bookstores. Their e-books are the same cost as Amazon's Kindle edition. I read mine on my iPad which is actually easier on the eyes than the small font of the hardback, and as I found places I wanted to highlight in the hardback, I made the notation on my e-book.

Also, in the e-book, the photos are in their own section at the back of the book where they are far more pristine, vivid, and therefore chilling than the reproduced images in the hardcover.

[SnarkyMoggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley. The following review is only my thoughts, and have not been influenced by the author, the publisher or by Net Galley.

This is a heart-wrenching biography on an Anti-Nazi group made up of people from all walks of life. Family members. Differences in ages. Of workers or people of pleasure. A group of intellectuals that came together to talk. These weren't people who wanted to kill Hitler or any other Nazi. These were people talking about how the world would be better if Hitler and the Nazis were over-thrown and the world returned to making sense. And yet even that, these discussions between them over how Germany could be changed, was enough to sign their death warrant.

The aftermath once caught; upon being betrayed changed their lives. Not all of them survived, and the ones that did were broken. And yet the spy in their midst... Well, you'll have to read the book to find out what happened to -that one-.

I don't want to go much further into this book, because I feel like this will detract from the beauty of the writing style, of the lives of everyone involved in this. Jonathan Freedland is a really good author, based on this book alone I will be seeking out more of his. This reads more like a thriller, and there is barely any point when the reader can breathe. I had to put this down because not only was I not going to bed at a reasonable time, or even at a unreasonable one, I was staying up until three in the morning. And not only did I need sleep; I needed to pause from the rush of feelings that never melted away. This book consumed me.

I'd highly recommend this book, and I'm buying the audiobook once it comes out.

4.5 Stars

[Heather~ Nature.books.and.coffee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an interesting non-fiction book about the secret resistance network in WW2 Nazi Germany, and the spy who betrayed them. I love reading about parts of history that are not well known. In The Traitors Circle we read about a group of Germans, working to resist Hitler and the Nazis, but one of them is a spy. Freedland did such a great job with his research and the way he implemented it all in such a gripping way. This book was intense and I cannot believe the bravery of these people. The things they did, and how they risked their lives is beyond amazing! It breaks my heart to know what happened to some, and wishing others got what they deserved. Such a great read and now my 17 yr old son who LOVES history is also going to read this! 


Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy. All opinions are my own.

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating story of courage and defiance by extraordinary German people who refused to be engulfed in the horror and terror of the Nazi years.
Freedland tackles the disturbing subject of ‘what would I have done’ ‘what kind of person I might have been’.
The book is unfortunately peppered with spicy touches of murder mystery, little give-aways and spoiler alerts at the end of short chapters .
This style is unfortunate and inappropriate to honour the memory, bravery and resilience of those who have been betrayed, viciously tortured and brutally murdered.

[Nic · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5* The Traitor’s Circle - Jonathan Freedland. Bringing together multiple strands of the true story of those who stood up against the tyranny of the Nazis. An impeccable work of non-fiction which buries deep into the soul (this book wlll be with me for a long time), while reading like a thriller and courtroom drama. It’s an astonishing accomplishment.

The work of the resistance across Europe is well documented across every kind of media. There have been some excellent accounts of life for ordinary Germans living inside the Nazi bubble but Jonathan Freedland brings us a fascinating account of those who secretly denounced the Nazi party, hid and helped Jews, denounced the rhetoric of certain victory and actively planned for a Germany beyond the Third Reich. The group comprise nobility, high ranking officials and intellectuals and they are all aware of the peril of denouncing Hitler’s idea - potentially the death penalty. It is a powerful story of friendship, bonds and holding out against cruelty and evil.

The detail should be read and not spoilt in a review. Suffice to say there is follow up on those who make it to the end of the war. The detail is incredible (the first third is maybe a little too detailed) but the structure with short chapters and cliffhangers, means that this is not a dry work of non-fiction it is both a page turner and an eye opener. Highly highly recommended.

With huge thanks to John Murray Press and Netgalley for an ARC.

[Lois · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliantly written and researched: it must have been a mammoth task.

[Martin Southard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jonathan Freedland’s The Traitors Circle is an extraordinary account of the little-told story of Germans who dared to resist Hitler from within Berlin’s elite circles. Drawing on meticulous research and vivid detail, he brings to life aristocrats, officials and intellectuals who risked everything, only to be betrayed and dragged before brutal Nazi courts. The book balances historical depth with the pace of a thriller, building tension around a fateful tea party while never losing sight of the moral weight of the story. Gripping, sobering and deeply human, it’s a powerful reminder of courage in the darkest of times.

Many thanks to John Murray Press, Jonathan Freedland and Netgalley for the advanced copy.

[Cordelia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is interesting but it took me a while to get onboard with the writing style

[Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing an advance copy.

This review contains spoilers.

The Traitor's Circle's greatest strength is that it is absolutely gripping, in a way that had me flipping forward to the next chapter so many times when I should have been getting up to do chores or going to bed on time! I devoured this book in about three or four sittings, getting so hooked on the story that I read for several hours straight. The blurb promises tension, and the book delivers.

A real strength of this book is that it conveys so powerfully the kind of everyday stress and scrutiny that came with the Nazi regime, and how oppressive it was to live under. Readers get a clear picture of how horrendous it was - Freedland, to his credit, does not shy away from the gory details, especially when discussing Leo Lange, who essentially invented concentration camp gas chambers - and I think that emphasises just how brave the group of people the book follows really were. We follow them through true ups and downs, into the horrors of being imprisoned in a concentration camp and tortured, and it drives home the message of just how horrific Nazi Germany was.

Freedland does a great job of introducing us to the main cast of 'characters,' the people in the so-called 'Traitor's Circle.' Their stories were central to the book, and Freedland manages to condense a vast amount of research and detail into a narrative that is easy to follow and gripping to watch unfold. My only problem with this was that sometimes, the intense focus on the members of the tea party worked to the book’s detriment. There were several times when a brother, son, maid, etc., of one of the leading ‘characters’ seemed to spring out of nowhere, or were referred to as if they had already been introduced; I would have appreciated a little more introduction of these people.

Also, while I'm not entirely sure this is not my own faulty memory talking, I felt like we could’ve done with more explanation or detail of how the participants knew each other before they were all invited to the tea party. We got that for some members, but some invites seemed a little random. And because of this, it felt a little odd that the blurb and title were selling this as ‘the Traitor’s Circle’ as if they were an organised group of rebels, like the various groups who plotted to assassinate Hitler, several of whom (Black Orchestra, July 20th plot) are detailed in this book as well. As for the tea party group, it often seems more like they were rebels doing separate anti-government things who all happened to know each other and all happened to get invited to the tea party with the spy. They were treated as if they were an organised group later on by their interrogators, true, but it still felt like a disconnect between the marketing and what actually happened in the book.

As for the writing itself, I often felt The Traitor's Circle could have used more mentions of exactly where Freedland was getting his information from, for example, ‘she wrote in her diary’ or ‘we know from a letter’. The style he’s written it in increases the thriller-like nature of the text, but I would’ve really appreciated seeing a bit more of the bones, so to speak, so I would know when the author had direct evidence for someone saying or thinking something, and when he was inferring what they must have been feeling. I feel like this is so important in historical writing because it assures people you’re not just pulling this stuff from nowhere to make the story more exciting; it gives the text much more credibility.

Linked to this, I felt that the author missed a trick when I reached the acknowledgements section and saw how many relatives he had spoken to who got no mention in the text. Again, seeing more of the bones of the research would've helped hugely with making this feel more like a credible historical work than a thriller. It would’ve been great to hear that this comment came from an interview with a nephew or granddaughter, for example, and I don't think asides like that would've slowed down the pace of the book or made it feel less thrilling. The author did a tremendous amount of work and research in writing this book, and unless you flip through the notes or read the acknowledgements (which many readers don’t!), you’re not getting a good sense of exactly how much work went into this. 

I also feel that there’s some information in the notes that would have been much more satisfying if it had been included in the main text. The account of what Bianca Segantini felt after Reckzeh was outed as a spy stands out most obviously in my mind; I was wondering about that throughout most of the book, and I am glad we got that answer, but it should have been in the main text!

And while we're talking about it, a note on the notes system in this book: I’m not convinced by the idea of having notes attached to phrases in the main text (i.e., “joining the Kriminalpolizei: Montague, Chełmno, p. 16.”) rather than the usual style of having a superscript number correspond with a note in the back of the book. In the former system, you still have to flip from the main text to the notes section to see exactly which part of the main text is relevant, and random phrases are, in my opinion, much harder to pick out than superscript numbers. A case of ‘don’t fix what isn’t broken'!

Throughout the book, I got a little tired of the ‘stinger’ lines at the end of every chapter. Some worked well, setting up anticipation for the next chapter that kept me reading, but when it was at the end of every chapter, it at times became forced and repetitive.

With all that said, I am still giving The Traitor's Circle four stars, as it is a very well-written book with a lot of research behind it. None of my gripes above really detracted from my reading experience all that much; I often got so caught up in the flow of the story that I didn't really notice them. What's more, I think The Traitor's Circle addresses a truly important subject matter that, with the worrying rise of fascist tendencies worldwide, we need to be discussing. Topical, intense, and thrilling, I would highly recommend The Traitor's Circle.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book, excellent narration.
At first I found this audio version a bit confusing, as more and more people and the details of their lives were introduced. Being an audiobook, one can't really flip pages to remind oneself who was who and where they fitted in.
Just persevere for a bit and it all starts clicking into place as the stars of the stories and the historical threads become fleshed out. I found myself drawn deeply into the subjects' lives and on the edge of my seat as danger crept ever closer.

I have read many books on WW2, but was not aware of these particular German resistance figures and their fates. What fascinating, diverse characters who risked their welfare and their lives to stick to their convictions, resist the Nazis and help the persecuted. At times I must admit I was moved to tears.
The author's narration is excellent with my only gripe his mispronunciation of more challenging German names and words. The bit of extra Googling I'll need to do to clarify in order to explore further, is an exceedingly small price to pay for the pleasure and enrichment gained.

[Jo-anne Atkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the Second World War started to turn against the Nazis, Berlin propaganda was always positive and the small groups of dissenters were careful to keep themselves hidden. One such group consisted of several members of the elite society and diplomatic core. They had links to dissidents in Switzerland which the SS were determined to block and so an SS mole infiltrated the group.
This is true story and one which is not well known but Freedland's impeccable research has brought it into the public gaze. There are many stories of Nazi cruelty towards rebels in Germany and this is just one but it is so sad and harrowing. The people involved were mainly older and they were tortured and for many of them they lost their lives. Freedland tells the story with sympathy but also in a factual way which makes it all the more stark

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long and obvs heavy going. Scary reminder of what happened. Really interesting and would recommend to everyone as it told historical facts in a story/fiction way.

[Mhairi McGee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sensational and not at all to do with BBC’s The Traitors

[Carol Dimitriou · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very interesting and informative book about a group of German people during World War II who were anti-Nazi, and were exposed by a spy working for the Gestapo. The author did a wonderful job writing this story, and exposing the life of the spy himself. It's amazing how the horror that was Nazi Germany still has new stories to be told.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Admittedly, I wasn’t always able to keep all the characters completely straight, especially in the beginning/first half, but it had little effect on my enjoyment of the book.

[Simon Fletcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating but disjointed read, to be honest. There were moments reading Freedland's book where I felt like he was rehashing articles he'd written previously and failed to fully incorporate.

[Jean Sharp · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a pre-release copy. It was accompanied by a little card asking for readers not to release any spoilers. I don't think I am spoiling anything when I say that it will keeps you hooked right from the start. Factual books really need to be interesting to keep me reading. I just had to know the fate of the people in this book.
Don't let the fact it's factual put you off. You learn lots, and...have some tissues to hand

[Lady Fancifull · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘What would I have done?’

I know Freedland from his thoughtful columns in the Guardian, carefully argued, without heat, but clear of mind and with warm heart, so I was keen to read this book, which I knew would be well researched, and though of course dealing with a time and place of history where the most shameful depths of human viciousness and malevolence occurred, that without pulling punches Freedland would most definitely not be describing brutality in a salacious, almost pornographic way.

There are two telling points made in the foreword. Freedland is a British born Jew. His mother, also born in this country, ‘was 8 years old when her own mother was killed by the last German V-2 rocket of the war to fall on London, killing 133 people in a corner of the East End, almost of them Jews’. Freedland grew up in a house where nothing German was allowed, and the edict was that ‘the Germans were a guilty nation, every
last one of them implicated in the wickedest crime of the twentieth century’. That was the assumption Freedland was raised on.

This book explores the history of some of those, within Germany, who resisted and defied the Third Reich from the very beginning, and continued throughout the dictatorship. In fact, after the war, one Allied investigator estimated some 3 million Germans had been inmates of prisons and concentration camps for dissent. Yes, the majority of the population did as they were told. But Freedland asks ‘What makes one person refuse when everyone around them obeys. And what compels them to do it when it would be so much easier to do nothing, when breaking ranks can only bring pain, hardship or death’

And then comes the paragraph which to me is central, and which, without preaching, acts as a warning, in many ways, explaining how and why darkness seems to be descending again, as we look at the rise of vicious demagogues, some of them within democratic nations, that is, elected by voters, when it is still possible to make a choice :

“Anyone who has stared hard into the abyss of the mid-twentieth century has surely asked themselves versions of those questions, and one question above all: what would I have done? Most of us like to think we would have been one of the rebels of refusers, that we would have been brave. But the statistics suggest that most of us would not. Almost all of us would have stayed silent”

Reading these accounts many verbatim testimonies and court documents, and various archival sources, I have no illusions about my potential for bravery in the face of the kind of danger those resisters and rebels faced.

This is a deeply sobering book. It is also very readable, as the author is a clear and engaging writer. So the book is structured in a way which interweaves the stories and lives of a connected group of powerful and influential people who were involved in orchestrated resistance and trying to help those in most danger to escape from Nazi Germany. Freedland enables us to see and know these men and women as individuals, not just a collection of names, facts and acts on a page.

I’m grateful to the publisher, via NetGalley, for giving me access to the digital ARC

[Selena · Rating 5 out of 5]

While researching *The Escape Artist*, Freedland stumbled across a story of German resistance and, unable to let it go, wrote *The Traitors Circle*. It begins with dramatic arrests by the Gestapo in 1944, but ultimately, the crux of the story seems a world away from many stories of resistance: a birthday tea attended by high society Germans, resulting in a terrible betrayal.

The first half of the book introduces us to the main characters, including diplomats, officials and members of wealthy and noble families. We learn how they came to rebel against the Nazi regime, when it would have been easy for them to turn a blind eye to events and remain silent. Horrified by what their country's descent into darkness, they risk everything to preserve their values, do what is right and tell the truth. Freedland manages to incorporate heart-stopping close calls, assassination attempts, a countess' risky escapades. In contrast, we also get a failed law student's rise through the SS (Freedland doesn't shy away from the horror inflicted by the mobile death squads) and how the traitor came to infiltrate that birthday tea with such devastating consequences.

As with *The Escape Artist*, the book is well-researched, and Freedland presents a little-known story as a gripping read, effectively utilising his thriller-writing skills. There are a lot of names in the book, but I stopped worrying about who everyone was and just focused on the main characters, which is all you really need. The book can initially feel slower at times, but Freedland kept me reading, and later, I appreciated the time taken to introduce those characters, as we see the impact of the traitor's actions, the relentless hunt for those who dare to disagree with the state, and the Nazi version of justice. It reveals the best and worst of human nature, and how much courage it takes to act on and speak the truth when everything tells you not to. Remarkable, relevant and well-told, Freedland brings another compelling story to the wider audience it deserves.

[Maine Colonial · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think we all know that, despite most of Germany having at least passively gone along with Nazism, there were resisters of various types. One group of people were the men and women in the so-called Solf Circle, named for one of its members, Hanna Solf. There were several other men and women in the Solf Circle who worked to aid those opposed to national socialism and who tried to help replace Hitler with someone who would come to a quick peace agreement with the Allies, including Elisabeth von Thadden, an ardent Christian whose school was shut down for resisting the Nazi creed in its teaching.

Most of the Circle’s members were betrayed because of their attendance at a tea party thrown by von Thadden—a party to which she naïvely invited a new acquaintance, Dr. Paul Reckzeh, who claimed acquaintance with friends of von Thadden’s in Switzerland. But Reckzeh was actually a Gestapo spy, and what he heard at that tea party resulted in the arrests of those present and the eventual execution of some of them. Those who escaped death sometimes did so only because the system was too slow; they were still in prison when Germany fell to the Allies.

Though this book does spend a good deal of time on how the members came to form their convictions and join together, at least half the book is about what happened after the tea party. The Nazi “justice system” was as twisted and cruel as you would expect, but it also had its oddities and incompetences that allowed some of the convicts to survive. Freedland also tells us of the postwar lives of the survivors, which were poignant. I was also happy that he spends the last part of the book tracing the postwar life of Paul Reckzeh. I won’t spoil that part for you, except to say that he doesn’t seem ever to have learned anything.

Similar to Ben MacIntyre, Jonathan Freedland has a talent for making history read like a thriller.

[Rachel N · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Traitor’s Circle tells the story of a group of Germans brave enough to work against the Nazi regime during the Second World War and the price they paid for their courage. Freedland introduces us to a wide group, mostly from the upper levels of society or working for the party itself, who meet to voice their opposition but have their group infiltrated by a Nazi spy. We see what brought them to their beliefs and, most especially, the dangers they face and the price they pay.

It's a fascinating and gripping read, beautifully conveying the sense of menace and the danger of never knowing who can be trusted. Everywhere colleagues and neighbours are reporting those they suspect of treason, often to protect themselves, and it really emphasises the courage needed to make a stand. All the main characters very quickly become clear in your mind and the tension of what will happen to them is immense.

As with The Escape Artist, his previous book about the Second World War, Freedland has managed to find the story of a select few people that paints a much bigger picture. His levels of research are superb, with every detail taken from the archives and nothing quoted without being verified, and the pace is relentless. His experience of writing both thrillers and for newspapers makes it highly readable and every chapter ends on a cliffhanger which make it impossible to put down. It’s written with great empathy and it’s easy to forget these are real people, making it all the more affecting, most especially in the final chapters which lay out their fates. This is a wonderful read, telling a little known but very important story, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publisher for an advance copy in return for an honest review.

[Greville Waterman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderfully researched and beautifully written book that is also an important historical record of the resistance to Hitler's tyranny and National Socialism on the part of many brave if somewhat naive members of the Berlin upper class and how they were ruthlessly betrayed, hunted down and savagely dealt with by the merciless Nazi regime.

We learn the back stories of so many interlinked families and influential people, some in high positions of authority who gather together to express their distress and hatred of Hitler, his cronies and Nazi Germany and the likely outcome of the war where the tide is now turning against Germany with eventual defeat inevitable.

Such defeatist talk is seen as dangerous treason and a spy is sent into their midst at a fatal tea party when indiscrete comments are made.

Their fate is sealed at that moment and the book traces their arrest, inhumane treatment and interrogations, the show trials led by the fanatical Nazi judge Roland Freisler where the outcome was predestined and the sad fate that befell the majority of them.

Freedland also outlines other plots against idler such as Claus Von Stauffenberg and Operation Valkyrie and how the Nazis tried to link every conspiracy together.

What comes through is the absolute sense of dignity and bravery of all the dissidents and how in many cases they accepted their fate and execution as inevitable.

The book also continues the tale after the end of the war and outlines what happened to the survivors on both sides.

It was a privilege to read this book which deserves a wide audience.

[Christy fictional_traits · Rating 5 out of 5]

'...how did a group of brave, principled rebels, who had successfully defied Adolf Hitler for more than a decade, come to fall into such a lethal trap'?

It's 1943 and we're in Berlin. Hints that the war is no longer going Germany's way are particularly welcomed by a small group of elite Germans who've spent the last decade secretly meeting and devising ways by which to both help Jews and subvert their country's dictator. But by September of that very year, this quiet, dignified group is betrayed. The subsequent mass arrests are only just the beginning of another tale of survival and bravery.

Thoroughly researched and methodically told, Freedland introduces the reader to each member of the circle, their background, careers, family, and just why they felt a calling to betray their country. As the reader gets to know each member, an understanding of just how difficult it must have been to adhere to being a patriotic German, indeed even a member of the party, in order to stay and be helpful yet absolutely abhor condoning and perpetuating the party's beliefs in any way. As the story unfolds, a real thriller filled with tension is revealed, and we follow the circle's fate from its inception right to the very end, highlighting the courage and moral character in amongst the chaos, fear, and paranoia.

This book will appeal to both non-fiction and fiction readers due to the book's well-researched base, pre-digested into a coherent, thriller-like story.

'When the moment came, they dared to be traitors - not to their country, but to tyranny'.

[Vicuña · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely astonishing. It’s time received history was revisited to redress many incorrect assumptions and perceptions. I was born in 1950. My parents had German and Jewish friends and I never subscribed to the view that Germans were bad and Britain won the war. Over the years, I’ve been saddened and disappointed by the way people are brainwashed into belief. There are no winners in war. We hear endless stories, years on, about how badly London was blitzed and how many innocent people were killed. That’s never balanced by the fact of the Allied bombing of Hamburg, for example, where in a single night, over 20,000 civilians were killed, more than the total killed in months of the Blitz. It’s also easy to forget that there were significant pockets of resistance to Hitler throughout Germany and The Traitors Circle is the story of one such group. The research is, I’m certain extensive and meticulous. Jonathon Freedland tells a story that reads like a thriller. But this is real and it’s totally engaging. More to the point, some 80 years one, it still resonates and we should be learning from lessons of the past. But despots are everywhere and this book is an excellent wake up call. I hope it goes straight to the top of every non fiction list and is widely talked about. It’s remarkable and memorable.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an early review copy.

[Macy Mckay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always the vexed question when considering 1930’s Germany, how many Germans were actively resisting the Third Reich and what would anyone else would have done. Especially in the latter stages of the war when organised political opposition was long gone, when the punishment for opposing the Reich were quite clear, and when there was no clear path to rebuilding Germany following the end of the war.
From reading this immensely readable book, I am quite clear that I would have been amongst the 95% of Germans doing nothing whether to protect my own family, or from fear of my own punishment. Not least because I lack the upper class background and outlook which gave so many of these characters backbone and experience to face down petty tyrants, Having said this, ironically, with the exception of the Stolfs and Countess von Maltzan*, the “Traitors” were themselves pretty inactive in resisting the Reich. For the most part their resistance extended only so far as keeping in contact with other German speakers in exile or reducing the number of Heil Hitlers in schools.
Never dry, Freedland’s book reflects more on the workings of the state and possible motivations of the Traitor himself. The book also touches on the relative lack of consequences for Nazi activity following the war, and the difficulty victims had in bringing perpetrators to justice.

* And a mighty shout out to Countess Maria Von Maltzan especially. No idea why she’s not more widely known.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-written and terrifying read on how easy it is to lose your voice in a government regime change that doesn't listen to or support the people. Pre-World War II and during World War II, Germany moved to eliminate anyone who didn't unanimously support the Nazi government's position across the board. This book outlines a group of individuals who were clearly from Germany's upper society who theoretically would have been given greater protection just because of their societal ties. However, with the continuous fear mongering, no one was safe. This book is written and reads like a novel. You feel the need for normalcy in their lives and the yearning for the freedom to discuss "regular things" like the end of the war, freedom, changes in the political climate, etc. Unfortunately, the desire to pretend like things are "normal" can lead to a horrible result - especially when torn apart and viewed through the distorted eyes of an enemy. I highly recommend this book - not just for the horrors of what happens to people who are not fighting the war, but for the people who are targeted for a trait that they can't control because it's what they were born with. These individuals are often sacrificed for characteristics they have no control over - their only decision is whether they try to "fight back" in some way or just go meekly to the slaughter.