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The Secret War: Spies, Codes and Guerrillas 1939-1945
Examining the espionage and intelligence stories in World War II, on a global basis, bringing together the British, American, German, Russian and Japanese histories.
There were two Second World Wars: one fought on the battlefields, and another conducted by men and women few of whom ever fired a weapon in anger, but whose efforts vastly influenced the conflict.
‘The Secret War 1939-45’ examines that other war waged by British, American, German, Russian and Japanese intelligence-gathering personnel. Moving chronologically through the conflict, Max Hastings charts the successes and failures of allied and axis forces, espionage and counterespionage.
Observing how the evolution of electronic communications dramatically increased the possibilities and significance of these secret battles, this is the story of intelligence beyond Bletchley to the FBI, Russia and the spies of axis dictatorships. For the first time since his best-selling ‘All Hell Let Loose’, Max Hastings returns to the Second World War, this time to chronicle its second, untold story.
There were two Second World Wars: one fought on the battlefields, and another conducted by men and women few of whom ever fired a weapon in anger, but whose efforts vastly influenced the conflict.
‘The Secret War 1939-45’ examines that other war waged by British, American, German, Russian and Japanese intelligence-gathering personnel. Moving chronologically through the conflict, Max Hastings charts the successes and failures of allied and axis forces, espionage and counterespionage.
Observing how the evolution of electronic communications dramatically increased the possibilities and significance of these secret battles, this is the story of intelligence beyond Bletchley to the FBI, Russia and the spies of axis dictatorships. For the first time since his best-selling ‘All Hell Let Loose’, Max Hastings returns to the Second World War, this time to chronicle its second, untold story.
700 pages, Hardcover
First published September 10, 2015
1094 people are currently reading
4572 people want to read
About the author
Max Hastings
98 books1,703 followersSir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings, FRSL, FRHistS is a British journalist, editor, historian and author. His parents were Macdonald Hastings, a journalist and war correspondent, and Anne Scott-James, sometime editor of Harper's Bazaar.
Hastings was educated at Charterhouse School and University College, Oxford, which he left after a year.After leaving Oxford University, Max Hastings became a foreign correspondent, and reported from more than sixty countries and eleven wars for BBC TV and the London Evening Standard.
Among his bestselling books Bomber Command won the Somerset Maugham Prize, and both Overlord and The Battle for the Falklands won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize.
After ten years as editor and then editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, he became editor of the Evening Standard in 1996. He has won many awards for his journalism, including Journalist of The Year and What the Papers Say Reporter of the Year for his work in the South Atlantic in 1982, and Editor of the Year in 1988.
He stood down as editor of the Evening Standard in 2001 and was knighted in 2002. His monumental work of military history, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945 was published in 2005.
He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Sir Max Hastings honoured with the $100,000 2012 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.
Hastings was educated at Charterhouse School and University College, Oxford, which he left after a year.After leaving Oxford University, Max Hastings became a foreign correspondent, and reported from more than sixty countries and eleven wars for BBC TV and the London Evening Standard.
Among his bestselling books Bomber Command won the Somerset Maugham Prize, and both Overlord and The Battle for the Falklands won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize.
After ten years as editor and then editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, he became editor of the Evening Standard in 1996. He has won many awards for his journalism, including Journalist of The Year and What the Papers Say Reporter of the Year for his work in the South Atlantic in 1982, and Editor of the Year in 1988.
He stood down as editor of the Evening Standard in 2001 and was knighted in 2002. His monumental work of military history, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945 was published in 2005.
He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Sir Max Hastings honoured with the $100,000 2012 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 268 reviews
July 18, 2024
“The Gestapo retained 116 other Rote Kapelle prisoners, of whom almost half were executed once protracted interrogations had been completed. Among these was the American Mildred Harnack. She was initially sentenced to a mere six years’ hard labor, but Hitler intervened personally to insist upon a retrial at which she was condemned to death. She spent some of her last hours with Pastor Harald Polchau, a prison chaplain who solaced hundreds of Hitler’s political victims; she asked him to recite the ‘Prologue in Heaven’ from Faust, before herself singing, ‘I pray to the power of love.’ Her last, wondering words before being beheaded on 16 February 1943 were: ‘And I have loved Germany so much.’ She was just forty, and her fair hair had turned white during her months of confinement. She must have felt a far, far journey from Wisconsin…”
- Max Hastings, The Secret War: Spies, Ciphers, and Guerillas, 1939-1945
The sheer statistical devastation of World War II tends to have a depersonalizing effect. It is hard to imagine the deaths and suffering of millions of people all over the globe. It is hard to envisage the reality of Nanking, or Babi Yar, or Dresden, when you are overwhelmed by the numbers: as many as 300,000 civilians murdered in the then-capital of China; 30,000 Jews shot in a Ukrainian ravine; 25,000 civilians burned in an ancient Germany city on the Elbe.
That’s part of what drew me to Max Hastings, The Secret War. I wanted to read about spies and saboteurs because their stories – almost by definition – shrink the Great War of the World down to human dimensions. Usually, history consists of tremendously large forces catching ordinary humans up in its maelstrom. Espionage inverts this equation. It is the tale of individual humans attempting to bend these huge forces to their will. As Hastings points out, time and time and time again, spies and saboteurs were typically unsuccessful in singlehandedly altering the course of the future. It was not, however, for lack of trying.
***
The Secret War is a bit of an idiosyncratic book. It looks, walks, and quacks like a comprehensive history of espionage activities. It is over five hundred pages of text, exclusive of endnotes, and it is written by a first-rate author/historian who has produced masterful one-volume histories of both World War II (Inferno) and Vietnam (Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy). It encompasses a number of different aspects of the secret war, including old-school spying, new-school cipher breaking, and disruptive special operations carried out by the likes of the British Special Operations Executive, the French Resistance, and Soviet Partisans. It is structured as a series of thematic chapters, focusing on one particular aspect of espionage, with these chapters arranged chronologically so, for example, you will have a chapter on British code-breaking at Bletchley Park both early in the war (at the start of the book) and later in the war (towards the end). Thus, this title is not lacking in the breadth and scope I associate with comprehensiveness.
Nonetheless, The Secret War is certainly not a comprehensive history.
Hastings is very clear about that up front. What does this mean, in real terms? Well, it means there are coverage gaps as big as the holes in Japanese diplomatic code security. Operation Gunnerside, the mission to destroy the Vemork heavy water plant in Norway (used in Germany’s atomic bomb research) rates half a sentence on one page, and half a paragraph on another. The assassination of Reinhard Heydrich gets barely a fleeting mention. The same with Operation Pastorius, the failed infiltration of eight Nazis into America. The exploits of Otto Skorzeny are entirely ignored. I found this absolutely shocking. Okay, that might be hyperbolic. I found this mildly frustrating. But you get the point. Some of these events are well-known, but I still hoped to learn a bit more about them, along with Hasting’s judgments on their utility.
In skipping these events, Hastings not only lessens the usefulness of this volume, but he misses a great opportunity for further discussion. The blowback from the killing of Heydrich by two Czech operatives resulted in the retaliatory slaughter of thousands of people. Since the mission did not really accomplish anything – certainly it sped up, rather than slowed down the killing – this might have proved an interesting starting point for a philosophical discursion on the usefulness of special operations. But, alas.
***
So, what do we have, if not a comprehensive history? We have Max Hastings talking about what he wants to talk about, and ignoring the things he wants to ignore. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
Hastings is one of my favorite historians, because he writes with energy, attitude, and skepticism. In many ways, he is the anti-Stephen Ambrose. He is not out to glorify or romanticize; to the contrary, he is like a big game hunter, stalking conventional wisdom and hazy mythology with a twelve-gauge. Unfortunately, in The Secret War, he too often resembles Elmer Fudd, either missing or barely winging his target. This is starting to become a refrain with Hastings, who – in his prodigious output – is valuing quantity over quality.
***
If there is a theme to The Secret War, it is that espionage, code-breaking, and special operations did nothing to shorten the war. This is the kind of stance I expect from Hastings, a shot across the bow of pop historians such as Ben McIntyre, who tend to discover the outcome of major events – such as D-Day – in clever trickery and complicated deceptions.
For Hastings, certain aspects of espionage, especially the cipher work that helped make the Midway victory possible, were extremely important. Always, though, he is of the belief that hard power – getting there first, with the most men and equipment – is the critical component. While Hastings’ conclusion is probably sound, it is very casually argued. Instead of marshaling his evidence, he tends towards peremptoriness. At times, this felt like a book that Hastings wrote in his sleep. He has a long list of WWII titles to his credit, the accumulation of decades of knowledge, and The Secret War feels like something he threw together based on past research (with a smattering of new archival work done by a Russian researcher).
Does that mean you should skip this? Of course not.
***
The Secret War is still an incredibly entertaining overview of the Second World War’s shadow struggle. Like a spy with short-term memory problems, it might have some plot holes, but it still maintains a certain coherence while giving you some crazy vignettes. There is a veritable rogues gallery on display of the insanely brave, the sublimely stupid, the heroically drunk. We have a clichéd image of the spy as some debonair lady’s man, Fleming’s Bond transplanted to the cobbled streets and back-alleys of Berlin or Vienna. Hastings tries to stress that this image is off the mark. Yet, in reality, there were a bunch of hard-drinking, hard-loving spies (such as Richard Sorge, the German spying for Stalin in Tokyo) prowling the periphery of this massive cataclysm, picking up small shreds of intelligence at astronomical risks to themselves. Moreover, while Hastings shortchanges Operation Fortitude (the D-Day deception), he replaces it with gambits you might not have heard of, such as Stalin’s Stalingrad feint that relied on the brutal sacrifice of thousands of soldiers to get the Germans looking the wrong way.
The spy games are entertaining on a very visceral level. It is amazing how hard spies had to work simply to survive each day without blowing their cover. More than that, many of the accounts that Hastings relates provide distinctly human faces to go along with the vague notions about courage and sacrifice that fill the literature of World War II. For instance, I can’t quite shake the tale of Hilda Coppi, of the Red Orchestra, who was arrested with her husband in 1942. She was pregnant at the time, and though her husband was executed almost immediately, she was allowed to give birth and raise her child to the age of eight months. Then the Nazis beheaded her.
This is the World War at an intimate level. This anecdote does more to describe the contours of suffering than all the stats on all the massacres and bombings put together.
Overall, this is not Sir Max’s best work. In other words, it’s still better than ninety percent of what’s out there on the shelves.
- Max Hastings, The Secret War: Spies, Ciphers, and Guerillas, 1939-1945
The sheer statistical devastation of World War II tends to have a depersonalizing effect. It is hard to imagine the deaths and suffering of millions of people all over the globe. It is hard to envisage the reality of Nanking, or Babi Yar, or Dresden, when you are overwhelmed by the numbers: as many as 300,000 civilians murdered in the then-capital of China; 30,000 Jews shot in a Ukrainian ravine; 25,000 civilians burned in an ancient Germany city on the Elbe.
That’s part of what drew me to Max Hastings, The Secret War. I wanted to read about spies and saboteurs because their stories – almost by definition – shrink the Great War of the World down to human dimensions. Usually, history consists of tremendously large forces catching ordinary humans up in its maelstrom. Espionage inverts this equation. It is the tale of individual humans attempting to bend these huge forces to their will. As Hastings points out, time and time and time again, spies and saboteurs were typically unsuccessful in singlehandedly altering the course of the future. It was not, however, for lack of trying.
***
The Secret War is a bit of an idiosyncratic book. It looks, walks, and quacks like a comprehensive history of espionage activities. It is over five hundred pages of text, exclusive of endnotes, and it is written by a first-rate author/historian who has produced masterful one-volume histories of both World War II (Inferno) and Vietnam (Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy). It encompasses a number of different aspects of the secret war, including old-school spying, new-school cipher breaking, and disruptive special operations carried out by the likes of the British Special Operations Executive, the French Resistance, and Soviet Partisans. It is structured as a series of thematic chapters, focusing on one particular aspect of espionage, with these chapters arranged chronologically so, for example, you will have a chapter on British code-breaking at Bletchley Park both early in the war (at the start of the book) and later in the war (towards the end). Thus, this title is not lacking in the breadth and scope I associate with comprehensiveness.
Nonetheless, The Secret War is certainly not a comprehensive history.
Hastings is very clear about that up front. What does this mean, in real terms? Well, it means there are coverage gaps as big as the holes in Japanese diplomatic code security. Operation Gunnerside, the mission to destroy the Vemork heavy water plant in Norway (used in Germany’s atomic bomb research) rates half a sentence on one page, and half a paragraph on another. The assassination of Reinhard Heydrich gets barely a fleeting mention. The same with Operation Pastorius, the failed infiltration of eight Nazis into America. The exploits of Otto Skorzeny are entirely ignored. I found this absolutely shocking. Okay, that might be hyperbolic. I found this mildly frustrating. But you get the point. Some of these events are well-known, but I still hoped to learn a bit more about them, along with Hasting’s judgments on their utility.
In skipping these events, Hastings not only lessens the usefulness of this volume, but he misses a great opportunity for further discussion. The blowback from the killing of Heydrich by two Czech operatives resulted in the retaliatory slaughter of thousands of people. Since the mission did not really accomplish anything – certainly it sped up, rather than slowed down the killing – this might have proved an interesting starting point for a philosophical discursion on the usefulness of special operations. But, alas.
***
So, what do we have, if not a comprehensive history? We have Max Hastings talking about what he wants to talk about, and ignoring the things he wants to ignore. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
Hastings is one of my favorite historians, because he writes with energy, attitude, and skepticism. In many ways, he is the anti-Stephen Ambrose. He is not out to glorify or romanticize; to the contrary, he is like a big game hunter, stalking conventional wisdom and hazy mythology with a twelve-gauge. Unfortunately, in The Secret War, he too often resembles Elmer Fudd, either missing or barely winging his target. This is starting to become a refrain with Hastings, who – in his prodigious output – is valuing quantity over quality.
***
If there is a theme to The Secret War, it is that espionage, code-breaking, and special operations did nothing to shorten the war. This is the kind of stance I expect from Hastings, a shot across the bow of pop historians such as Ben McIntyre, who tend to discover the outcome of major events – such as D-Day – in clever trickery and complicated deceptions.
For Hastings, certain aspects of espionage, especially the cipher work that helped make the Midway victory possible, were extremely important. Always, though, he is of the belief that hard power – getting there first, with the most men and equipment – is the critical component. While Hastings’ conclusion is probably sound, it is very casually argued. Instead of marshaling his evidence, he tends towards peremptoriness. At times, this felt like a book that Hastings wrote in his sleep. He has a long list of WWII titles to his credit, the accumulation of decades of knowledge, and The Secret War feels like something he threw together based on past research (with a smattering of new archival work done by a Russian researcher).
Does that mean you should skip this? Of course not.
***
The Secret War is still an incredibly entertaining overview of the Second World War’s shadow struggle. Like a spy with short-term memory problems, it might have some plot holes, but it still maintains a certain coherence while giving you some crazy vignettes. There is a veritable rogues gallery on display of the insanely brave, the sublimely stupid, the heroically drunk. We have a clichéd image of the spy as some debonair lady’s man, Fleming’s Bond transplanted to the cobbled streets and back-alleys of Berlin or Vienna. Hastings tries to stress that this image is off the mark. Yet, in reality, there were a bunch of hard-drinking, hard-loving spies (such as Richard Sorge, the German spying for Stalin in Tokyo) prowling the periphery of this massive cataclysm, picking up small shreds of intelligence at astronomical risks to themselves. Moreover, while Hastings shortchanges Operation Fortitude (the D-Day deception), he replaces it with gambits you might not have heard of, such as Stalin’s Stalingrad feint that relied on the brutal sacrifice of thousands of soldiers to get the Germans looking the wrong way.
The spy games are entertaining on a very visceral level. It is amazing how hard spies had to work simply to survive each day without blowing their cover. More than that, many of the accounts that Hastings relates provide distinctly human faces to go along with the vague notions about courage and sacrifice that fill the literature of World War II. For instance, I can’t quite shake the tale of Hilda Coppi, of the Red Orchestra, who was arrested with her husband in 1942. She was pregnant at the time, and though her husband was executed almost immediately, she was allowed to give birth and raise her child to the age of eight months. Then the Nazis beheaded her.
This is the World War at an intimate level. This anecdote does more to describe the contours of suffering than all the stats on all the massacres and bombings put together.
Overall, this is not Sir Max’s best work. In other words, it’s still better than ninety percent of what’s out there on the shelves.
January 30, 2024
In this very lengthy account of secret activity during World War II Max Hastings has very definite opinions. He states that spies were not very effective, usually always talked when caught, and a large number of them took money, disappeared and were never heard from again.
Hastings believes that it was signal intelligence which was the most important secret activity during the war. He especially praises the code breakers at Bletchley Park. There is also praise for the Americans at Pearl Harbor who worked on the Japanese codes.
For Hastings the whole idea of spies has been greatly romanticized, and most books written after the war by spy masters are full of embellishments. I enjoyed his stories in the book and there are plenty of them, mostly of failures of operations and vast amount of money being spent on very little reward.
Hastings believes that it was signal intelligence which was the most important secret activity during the war. He especially praises the code breakers at Bletchley Park. There is also praise for the Americans at Pearl Harbor who worked on the Japanese codes.
For Hastings the whole idea of spies has been greatly romanticized, and most books written after the war by spy masters are full of embellishments. I enjoyed his stories in the book and there are plenty of them, mostly of failures of operations and vast amount of money being spent on very little reward.
September 24, 2025
In the introduction, Max Hastings gives the entire subject away immediately. He says on page xvi that “Allied intelligence contributed nothing to winning the war.” On page XIX, he states that intelligence gathering was “..inherently wasteful….” Such was his presentation, I suspect that the subject itself may have bored him. This is a long book, maybe a contractual obligation?
Along the way, as is my wont, a couple of characters seemed interesting, Aleksandr Nelidov and Igor Miklashevsky. The footnotes gave nothing away as to their existence, so I had to look them up on the www. This happened a few more times on the way through.
I suppose the exhaustive detail that was presented was the issue. Most of it was not that lively in presentation and made the subject seem dull.
This took me several months and was far too long to final finish, others may enjoy it.
Along the way, as is my wont, a couple of characters seemed interesting, Aleksandr Nelidov and Igor Miklashevsky. The footnotes gave nothing away as to their existence, so I had to look them up on the www. This happened a few more times on the way through.
I suppose the exhaustive detail that was presented was the issue. Most of it was not that lively in presentation and made the subject seem dull.
This took me several months and was far too long to final finish, others may enjoy it.
December 2, 2019
This one was a slog and a half, and I almost didn’t finish it. That, however, doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. This I will explain. Max Hasting’s The Secret War is a compendium on the many elements of espionage that took place during the Second World War. It goes through painstaking detail to explain the odds and ends of the spy trade, from electronic warfare, human intelligence and secret operations behind enemy lines. By and large the book makes an incredible effort to dispel the many rumors that surround espionage work, and does very well to explain to the reader the absolute monotony that espionage, for the most part, really is. This, unfortunately, seemed to also produce what is a very exhausting book. It honestly seems smaller than it actually is, Hastings somehow managed to pack over 200,000 words quite tightly into those pages. But to my original point on enjoyment: Hastings writes in quite an incredible manner, distinct from most popular historians. Every chapter of The Secret War is not only a tale of espionage, it is an argument for and against the many ‘what if’s’ and facts pertaining to each story, combined with thorough research and analysis. I can’t say I’ve experienced such an exhaustive style of writing outside of actual history exams. Whereas other historians such as Simon Schama or Antony Beevor go to lengths to put their works into page-turning epic sagas, Hastings clearly went in the complete opposite direction. The Secret War is by far the most comprehensive book ever written on a single subject that I’ve read. Each chapter is chocked full of eye opening analysis and statistics, but in order to get through them, for me personally, took quite a lot of time and patience. It’s difficult for me to criticize the book on this fact as it’s more a personal problem and not a problem with the book. So with that being said, I would recommend this highly if you’re a fan of objective historical writing and historiography in general, but not necessarily if you’re more interested in exciting historical storytelling. I’m giving it a 8/10 personally, but a 10/10 from an objective standpoint, if that even counts.
July 22, 2018
After slogging determinedly through about a third of this book, I've given up. As others have noted, it reads more like a "Who's Who?" of WWII espionage dramatis personae and suffers in the extreme from any contiguous narrative flow. It has the feel of having been assembled from the cut-off pieces of information that didn't quite fit into other books. Most disappointing.
September 28, 2020
Oh what a torture. Certain English authors concentrate on the most minute details of their book and you get lost with the most smallest of details.
November 9, 2015
The Lloyd Report on German oil resources estimated that by December 1940 the aerial bombing campaign had achieved a 15% cut in German oil availability. This would have been news to the Nazi leadership, who at the time were unaware that the allies were engaged in a systematic bombing campaign. Intelligence on the state of the German economy, as Max Hastings discusses in The Secret War was one of the weakest areas, little helped by the all-important interception and decryption of Axis communications. Additionally, the RAF was the agency which probably had the weakest use of intelligence.
The other area of allied espionage which was lacking was ‘humint’ – intelligence derived from human sources i.e. spies and informants in Germany. Hastings outlines how the Russians were so much more effective in harnessing dissidents in Germany, mostly through ideological commitment to the Communist cause. Despite this, however, this magisterial history of espionage, cryptology and resistance (emphasis on the first two) firmly presents the allied intelligence as far more effective.
Britain in particular benefitted considerably from its ability to extend its pool of talent beyond the military and established intelligence services for the duration, recruiting a range of brilliant talent from academic institutions. Additionally, the culture of openness meant that the results of intelligence were able to be honestly reported to the military and politicians. Although they did not always take the notice they should have there were none of the aberrations of the Soviet and Nazi leadership, where unpalatable truths had to be suppressed, or in the instance of events such as the many predictions of Barbarossa, willfully ignored.
Max Hastings book is sweeping, without being encyclopedic. As befitting a veteran journalist and author of over twenty books, his prose is well written without being intrusive and the research is broad, encompassing secondary works, memoirs and research in the Russian archives. Hastings applies a sensible amount of skepticism to the almost compulsive mix of fact and fiction in most of the spies accounts. He also avoids the temptation to become enthralled by the drama and derring do, and repeatedly steps back to look at how much realistic operational or strategic benefit was derived. The answer usually was not that much. He is especially dismissive of much of the sabotage and ‘behind the lines’ activity of OSS and SOE.
Hastings finds many shortcomings of MI6, and is very dismissive of its head Stewart Menzies. He relates how someone who knew him at school could not believe “‘how so unbelievably stupid a man could have ended up in such a position”. The main reason MI6 had any credibility whatsoever was the fact that the Ultra sigint programme was under its control, although Hastings gives little credit to Menzies for its success.
He offers a balanced view of the value of Ultra as well. Many historians have allowed themselves to wax superlative about Bletchley Park, making claims such as that it was the single most important breakthrough in winning the war. Hastings points out how fitful its beginning was, and “that the signals intelligence war, certainly in its early stages, was less lopsided in the Allies’ favour than popular mythology suggests”. A significant theme is that raw sigint wasn’t enough on its own. Often doubts developed about its apparent flaws when correct information was later rendered irrelevant when individuals like Hitler changed their mind. Additionally, even timely information about events such as the impending invasion of Crete failed to make a difference to events. Then of course all the intel in the world was valueless if there was insufficient force to take advantage of it. Hastings reminds us, for example that “it is quite mistaken to view the Battle of the Atlantic exclusively as a struggle between Bletchley and the B-Dienst – here, as everywhere else, hard power was vital”.
There are some areas that receive surprisingly little coverage – for example the “Double Cross” programme and the pre-D Day deception, however Hastings argues that they have been well covered elsewhere. A lot of the material on the Soviet side will be fresh for most general readers, and the limited Japanese information can be attributed to the lack of primary research as he points out. This book provides a fresh, well written and balanced assessment of the Secret War, and is highly recommended..
The other area of allied espionage which was lacking was ‘humint’ – intelligence derived from human sources i.e. spies and informants in Germany. Hastings outlines how the Russians were so much more effective in harnessing dissidents in Germany, mostly through ideological commitment to the Communist cause. Despite this, however, this magisterial history of espionage, cryptology and resistance (emphasis on the first two) firmly presents the allied intelligence as far more effective.
Britain in particular benefitted considerably from its ability to extend its pool of talent beyond the military and established intelligence services for the duration, recruiting a range of brilliant talent from academic institutions. Additionally, the culture of openness meant that the results of intelligence were able to be honestly reported to the military and politicians. Although they did not always take the notice they should have there were none of the aberrations of the Soviet and Nazi leadership, where unpalatable truths had to be suppressed, or in the instance of events such as the many predictions of Barbarossa, willfully ignored.
Max Hastings book is sweeping, without being encyclopedic. As befitting a veteran journalist and author of over twenty books, his prose is well written without being intrusive and the research is broad, encompassing secondary works, memoirs and research in the Russian archives. Hastings applies a sensible amount of skepticism to the almost compulsive mix of fact and fiction in most of the spies accounts. He also avoids the temptation to become enthralled by the drama and derring do, and repeatedly steps back to look at how much realistic operational or strategic benefit was derived. The answer usually was not that much. He is especially dismissive of much of the sabotage and ‘behind the lines’ activity of OSS and SOE.
Hastings finds many shortcomings of MI6, and is very dismissive of its head Stewart Menzies. He relates how someone who knew him at school could not believe “‘how so unbelievably stupid a man could have ended up in such a position”. The main reason MI6 had any credibility whatsoever was the fact that the Ultra sigint programme was under its control, although Hastings gives little credit to Menzies for its success.
He offers a balanced view of the value of Ultra as well. Many historians have allowed themselves to wax superlative about Bletchley Park, making claims such as that it was the single most important breakthrough in winning the war. Hastings points out how fitful its beginning was, and “that the signals intelligence war, certainly in its early stages, was less lopsided in the Allies’ favour than popular mythology suggests”. A significant theme is that raw sigint wasn’t enough on its own. Often doubts developed about its apparent flaws when correct information was later rendered irrelevant when individuals like Hitler changed their mind. Additionally, even timely information about events such as the impending invasion of Crete failed to make a difference to events. Then of course all the intel in the world was valueless if there was insufficient force to take advantage of it. Hastings reminds us, for example that “it is quite mistaken to view the Battle of the Atlantic exclusively as a struggle between Bletchley and the B-Dienst – here, as everywhere else, hard power was vital”.
There are some areas that receive surprisingly little coverage – for example the “Double Cross” programme and the pre-D Day deception, however Hastings argues that they have been well covered elsewhere. A lot of the material on the Soviet side will be fresh for most general readers, and the limited Japanese information can be attributed to the lack of primary research as he points out. This book provides a fresh, well written and balanced assessment of the Secret War, and is highly recommended..
August 13, 2018
A comprehensive and well-researched history of the Allied and Axis powers’ wartime intelligence and covert action efforts.
The narrative is roughly chronological, and Hastings shifts back and forth somewhat, but this is unavoidable due to the scope of his work. Hastings does a great job stripping away the romanticism people can have about espionage work. He also argues that Allied SIGINT efforts were more fruitful and had a greater impact than HUMINT or covert action. “Only 1/1000 of 1% of collected intelligence changed events on the battlefield," he writes. “But that could be precious.”
He covers how the German and Soviet intelligence establishments were undermined by Stalin’s purges and by Hitler’s micromanagement. Most of the coverage ends up devoted to the British side. Hastings describes famous and well-known cases like Sorge, Bletchley Park, Soviet infiltration of the Manhattan Project, and the Cambridge Five without making them boring or repetitive. He’s also pretty critical of Donovan.
There are also some minor errors here and there, like calling Helen Wilky “American,” calling Lisel Gaertner Canaris’s “mistress,” mixing up the NKVD with the GRU (when describing a rezident), some incorrect first names, and some speculation here and there. In one part of the book he seems to get TRICYCLE and GARBO mixed up. He also writes that the Cicero affair was first revealed by Bazna (not Moyzisch?) and that Claude Dansey thought Fritz Kolbe was a double agent (he did?) He also writes that Hans-Berndt Gisevius was MI6’s only known source in the Abwehr (really?)
A clear and well-written work overall.
The narrative is roughly chronological, and Hastings shifts back and forth somewhat, but this is unavoidable due to the scope of his work. Hastings does a great job stripping away the romanticism people can have about espionage work. He also argues that Allied SIGINT efforts were more fruitful and had a greater impact than HUMINT or covert action. “Only 1/1000 of 1% of collected intelligence changed events on the battlefield," he writes. “But that could be precious.”
He covers how the German and Soviet intelligence establishments were undermined by Stalin’s purges and by Hitler’s micromanagement. Most of the coverage ends up devoted to the British side. Hastings describes famous and well-known cases like Sorge, Bletchley Park, Soviet infiltration of the Manhattan Project, and the Cambridge Five without making them boring or repetitive. He’s also pretty critical of Donovan.
There are also some minor errors here and there, like calling Helen Wilky “American,” calling Lisel Gaertner Canaris’s “mistress,” mixing up the NKVD with the GRU (when describing a rezident), some incorrect first names, and some speculation here and there. In one part of the book he seems to get TRICYCLE and GARBO mixed up. He also writes that the Cicero affair was first revealed by Bazna (not Moyzisch?) and that Claude Dansey thought Fritz Kolbe was a double agent (he did?) He also writes that Hans-Berndt Gisevius was MI6’s only known source in the Abwehr (really?)
A clear and well-written work overall.
October 6, 2016
-Disparidad de sensaciones.-
Género. Historia.
Lo que nos cuenta. Con el subtítulo Espías, códigos y guerrillas 1939-1945, acercamiento al espionaje, la parte del león, desde los protagonistas en el campo hasta las ventajas técnicas para su desempeño y pasando por los diferentes grupos que afrontaron la tarea en distintos escenarios, más una aproximación breve (por simple comparación volumétrica con la otra parte) a las acciones de guerra irregular que se dieron en la Segunda Guerra Mundial y a las razones que había detrás.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Historia.
Lo que nos cuenta. Con el subtítulo Espías, códigos y guerrillas 1939-1945, acercamiento al espionaje, la parte del león, desde los protagonistas en el campo hasta las ventajas técnicas para su desempeño y pasando por los diferentes grupos que afrontaron la tarea en distintos escenarios, más una aproximación breve (por simple comparación volumétrica con la otra parte) a las acciones de guerra irregular que se dieron en la Segunda Guerra Mundial y a las razones que había detrás.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
September 4, 2025
I listened to the audio book version in the car, but I don’t often have the opportunity to listen, so it took me two years. I am also not very interested in spies, I was there for the coding content. So I apologise to Max Hastings for poor marks, I chose the wrong book. The parts about code-breaking and sigint were interesting. The Germans don’t get enough credit for the Afrika korps brilliant sigint and breaking the French codes. Bletchley Park made up for that.
I’m sure it’s a good book, just not my thing.
I’m sure it’s a good book, just not my thing.
April 6, 2017
Shelves-full of history books have been written about the triumphs of Allied intelligence in World War II. The Ultra Secret. The Man Who Never Was. Operation Mincemeat. Agent Zigag. Double Cross. A Man Called Intrepid. I’ve read all these and more. (There are hundreds more.) Now comes British journalist and historian Max Hastings with a revisionist view in The Secret War. With his eyes focused on the harsh realities of that all-consuming conflict, Hastings debunks the myths that inspired these books and takes their exaggerations down a peg with a long-lacking sense of perspective. The effect is sobering. This is revisionist history at its best. Anyone who seeks to understand how World War II was really waged should read this book without delay.
Revisionist history: myths debunked
Hastings reviews some of the many fanciful reports that have come out over the years about British and American espionage in World War II. For example, he savages William Stevenson’s self-aggrandizing tale in A Man Called Intrepid, calling the book “wildly fanciful.” Among the more obvious lies in Stevenson’s book is the fact that no one but he himself ever called himself Intrepid. And, as Hastings makes clear, Stevenson’s work coordinating British intelligence in the United States had virtually no impact whatsoever on the war.
He is less harsh in his oblique references to other books, but he makes clear that the many bestselling titles exaggerate the importance of the spies they made famous. Even the legendary Alan Turing comes under the microscope: Hastings asserts that another young mathematical genius who also worked at Bletchley Park was equally important in cracking the Enigma Code. More significantly, that celebrated breakthrough itself made less of a contribution to the Allied victory than other successes in deciphering Axis codes. (He cites in particular the German and Japanese naval codes.) “Bletchley was an increasingly important weapon,” Hastings notes, “but it was not a magic sword.”
Signals versus human intelligence
The overarching theme in The Secret War is the primacy of signals intelligence. Hastings contends that breakthroughs in deciphering codes by the British, Russians, and Americans contributed far more decisively to the successful outcome of the war than any missions undertaken by spies. And, except in Russia from 1943 onward, the efforts of Resistance movements in Europe were even less significant (although they played a large role in fostering popular morale). There is one possible exception, the work of the improbably colorful agents portrayed in Ben McIntyre’s Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies. But even this undeniable success story has to be tempered by the realization that signals intelligence played a large role in setting up and supporting the operation. On all sides, enormous numbers of people were engaged in listening to, decoding, interpreting, and reporting on intelligence gained by radio.
However, “One of the themes in this book is that the signals intelligence war, certainly in its early stages, was less lopsided in the Allies’ favor than popular mythology suggests.”
How much did secret intelligence actually contribute to the war’s outcome?
Viewing the big picture, Hastings is skeptical about the effectiveness of intelligence of any sort. As he notes, “Perhaps one-thousandth of 1 per cent of material garnered from secret sources by all the belligerents in World War II contributed to changing battlefield outcomes.” In the course of The Secret War, he cites just four strategically significant battles where intelligence turned the tide: the North Atlantic war under the sea, the American victory over the Japanese at Midway, the unexpected Russian offensive at Kursk, and the misdirection about the Allied landing at Normandy rather than the Pas de Calais.
Viewed from 30,000 feet and the passage of more than seventy years, “nowhere in the world was intelligence wisely managed and accessed.” Though Stalin and Hitler were both notoriously disdainful of secret intelligence, as was the Japanese military, the Americans and the British also failed to make genuinely effective use of the information turned up by their spies and code-breakers.
Other revelations
Perhaps understandably, in writing about Allied intelligence in the war, American and British authors have focused on the work of MI6, MI5, the OSS, and the enormous team of academics at Bletchley Park. However, Hastings makes clear that the Soviet Union was far more successful in uncovering actionable espionage than either of its chief Western Allies. “Some Russian deceptions,” he writes, “dwarf those of the British and Americans.” Hastings’ account of Stalin’s intelligence operations is particularly revealing. So, too, is his skeptical exploration of both German and Japanese secret intelligence. The FBI also comes under fire: “All intelligence services seek to promote factional interests and inflate their own achievements, but the wartime FBI carried this practice to manic lengths . . . The FBI’s incompetence was astonishing.”
About the author
Max Hastings is a prominent British journalist, editor, historian, and author. He has served as editor-in-chief of the Daily Standard and The Daily Telegraph and has presented historical documentaries on the BBC.
Revisionist history: myths debunked
Hastings reviews some of the many fanciful reports that have come out over the years about British and American espionage in World War II. For example, he savages William Stevenson’s self-aggrandizing tale in A Man Called Intrepid, calling the book “wildly fanciful.” Among the more obvious lies in Stevenson’s book is the fact that no one but he himself ever called himself Intrepid. And, as Hastings makes clear, Stevenson’s work coordinating British intelligence in the United States had virtually no impact whatsoever on the war.
He is less harsh in his oblique references to other books, but he makes clear that the many bestselling titles exaggerate the importance of the spies they made famous. Even the legendary Alan Turing comes under the microscope: Hastings asserts that another young mathematical genius who also worked at Bletchley Park was equally important in cracking the Enigma Code. More significantly, that celebrated breakthrough itself made less of a contribution to the Allied victory than other successes in deciphering Axis codes. (He cites in particular the German and Japanese naval codes.) “Bletchley was an increasingly important weapon,” Hastings notes, “but it was not a magic sword.”
Signals versus human intelligence
The overarching theme in The Secret War is the primacy of signals intelligence. Hastings contends that breakthroughs in deciphering codes by the British, Russians, and Americans contributed far more decisively to the successful outcome of the war than any missions undertaken by spies. And, except in Russia from 1943 onward, the efforts of Resistance movements in Europe were even less significant (although they played a large role in fostering popular morale). There is one possible exception, the work of the improbably colorful agents portrayed in Ben McIntyre’s Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies. But even this undeniable success story has to be tempered by the realization that signals intelligence played a large role in setting up and supporting the operation. On all sides, enormous numbers of people were engaged in listening to, decoding, interpreting, and reporting on intelligence gained by radio.
However, “One of the themes in this book is that the signals intelligence war, certainly in its early stages, was less lopsided in the Allies’ favor than popular mythology suggests.”
How much did secret intelligence actually contribute to the war’s outcome?
Viewing the big picture, Hastings is skeptical about the effectiveness of intelligence of any sort. As he notes, “Perhaps one-thousandth of 1 per cent of material garnered from secret sources by all the belligerents in World War II contributed to changing battlefield outcomes.” In the course of The Secret War, he cites just four strategically significant battles where intelligence turned the tide: the North Atlantic war under the sea, the American victory over the Japanese at Midway, the unexpected Russian offensive at Kursk, and the misdirection about the Allied landing at Normandy rather than the Pas de Calais.
Viewed from 30,000 feet and the passage of more than seventy years, “nowhere in the world was intelligence wisely managed and accessed.” Though Stalin and Hitler were both notoriously disdainful of secret intelligence, as was the Japanese military, the Americans and the British also failed to make genuinely effective use of the information turned up by their spies and code-breakers.
Other revelations
Perhaps understandably, in writing about Allied intelligence in the war, American and British authors have focused on the work of MI6, MI5, the OSS, and the enormous team of academics at Bletchley Park. However, Hastings makes clear that the Soviet Union was far more successful in uncovering actionable espionage than either of its chief Western Allies. “Some Russian deceptions,” he writes, “dwarf those of the British and Americans.” Hastings’ account of Stalin’s intelligence operations is particularly revealing. So, too, is his skeptical exploration of both German and Japanese secret intelligence. The FBI also comes under fire: “All intelligence services seek to promote factional interests and inflate their own achievements, but the wartime FBI carried this practice to manic lengths . . . The FBI’s incompetence was astonishing.”
About the author
Max Hastings is a prominent British journalist, editor, historian, and author. He has served as editor-in-chief of the Daily Standard and The Daily Telegraph and has presented historical documentaries on the BBC.
August 5, 2019
Тайната война на шпионите, шифрите и партизаните през 1939-1945 г.: http://knigolandia.info/book-review/t...
Трудно ми е да опиша колко мащабна книга е “Тайната война” на Макс Хейстингс. В тези малко над 600 страници са събрани безброй истории, някои познати, други не, и е описана страна на Втората световна война, която често остава в сянка. Тайният фронт на борбата между шпиони, шифровчици и математици, партизани и специални части, секретни операции, надхитряния и коварни капани чес��о привлича внимание, но то обикновено се плъзга по ръба на сензационното. А в тази книга е представена далеч по-реалната, много по-малко триумфалната, но в крайна сметка вярна картина на тази тайна война. И не може да се каже, че е особено бляскава – като всяка война в крайна сметка.
Издателство "Изток-Запад"
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/t...
Трудно ми е да опиша колко мащабна книга е “Тайната война” на Макс Хейстингс. В тези малко над 600 страници са събрани безброй истории, някои познати, други не, и е описана страна на Втората световна война, която често остава в сянка. Тайният фронт на борбата между шпиони, шифровчици и математици, партизани и специални части, секретни операции, надхитряния и коварни капани чес��о привлича внимание, но то обикновено се плъзга по ръба на сензационното. А в тази книга е представена далеч по-реалната, много по-малко триумфалната, но в крайна сметка вярна картина на тази тайна война. И не може да се каже, че е особено бляскава – като всяка война в крайна сметка.
Издателство "Изток-Запад"
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/t...
February 1, 2017
I expected this to be interesting tales of spying, code-breaking, and other aspects of war behind the front lines. Unfortunately, after the prologue it seemed to become a list of who spied for whom, why, who they used, and how they died. I tired of it after the first 60 pages or so.
The prologue was quite interesting. It puts forward a number of opinions of the author's and others' about spying and code-breaking that are hardly complimentary. One went so far as to say that all the intelligence work of the Allies during the war made no difference whatsoever. It basically boils down to the observation that no matter how much you know about the enemy and their actions you still have to win the battle. And the enemy is hardly going to publish something admitting that they were made fools of, so no matter how good your intelligence was it's hard to conclude that it had any real effect on the battle.
The prologue was quite interesting. It puts forward a number of opinions of the author's and others' about spying and code-breaking that are hardly complimentary. One went so far as to say that all the intelligence work of the Allies during the war made no difference whatsoever. It basically boils down to the observation that no matter how much you know about the enemy and their actions you still have to win the battle. And the enemy is hardly going to publish something admitting that they were made fools of, so no matter how good your intelligence was it's hard to conclude that it had any real effect on the battle.
September 24, 2015
A thoroughly enjoyable and interesting read. Despite my possessing a good number of books on espionage in WW2, Sir Max brings cases to light that I'd never heard of. As usual the author redresses the imbalance away from the Western allies, but his verdicts show how intelligence gained was often, particularly amongst the dictatorships, ignored or misinterpreted.
May 15, 2016
Interesante si te gusta todo l referente a la IIGM, pero no está al nivel de otros de sus libros. Reiterativo hasta llegar a cansar.
December 28, 2023
With an overview of such a complex and shrouded subject, not every part will be equally interesting. Ineffective time-wasters of volunteer James Bonds aren't as sexy as the Enigma or their industrial scale US Navy counterparts.
Still, Hastings makes the best of it, with the benefit of the occasional declassified file or revealing memoir.
Still, Hastings makes the best of it, with the benefit of the occasional declassified file or revealing memoir.
June 12, 2016
Hastings contends in his preface to this quite detailed history that the contributions of espionage were not significant in WWII, at least not without factoring in the political will and military prowess to exploit any intelligence. He avers that perhaps only “one-thousandth of 1 per cent of material garnered from secret sources by all the belligerents in World War II contributed to changing battle field outcomes.” Yet that tiny fraction was of immense value.
Nevertheless, he provocatively contends:
“The record suggests that official secrecy does more to protect intelligence agencies from domestic accountability for their own follies than to shield them from enemy penetration.”
There are a number of barriers to the success of spycraft. One is the large amount of information, misinformation, misdirection, and outright fabrications from which “pearls of revelation” must be extracted. Another is the reluctance of leaders to accept information that runs counter to their own beliefs, and the reluctance of intelligence agents to risk angering them (especially relevant when your boss was Stalin or Hitler). But leaders on all sides, Hastings reports, dismissed information that contradicted their preconceptions. Hastings quotes a journalist who noted wittily: “Career officers and politicians have a strong interest in cooking raw intelligence to make their masters’ favourite dishes.” A third is the problem that intelligence very often becomes out-of-date as soon as (if not before) it is received. Fourth, there may be a “failure of will”: i.e., even when you get the information, you may be unwilling or unable to act upon it for political and/or military reasons. Fifth, there is sometimes a reluctance to act upon information because it would reveal too much about decryption prowess in the case of signals intelligence, or it might compromise sources in the case of human intelligence. And finally, intelligence is often assessed and analyzed from the worldview of the those who receive the intelligence, without a full understanding that enemies might have radically different value systems.
So, if much intelligence is of limited use, and if it doesn’t really matter unless it can be acted upon, what is to be gained from reading this very long, in-depth study of global intelligence efforts during World War II? The main reason is that it is just interesting. The topic has an undeniable appeal to those of us so long exposed to James Bond movies and Cold War thrillers. The book contains plenty of amazing and heroic vignettes, and a good look at military and political leaders from the side, as it were, in examining how they reacted to the information their agents gleaned.
Evaluation: What sort of people are interested in risking their lives to spy against and inside of other countries in the midst of very dangerous wars? Who is willing to spy against their own country and why? And is all that risk and expense worth it? What purpose does it actually serve? This book provides detailed answers to all these questions and more.
Rating: 3.5/5
Nevertheless, he provocatively contends:
“The record suggests that official secrecy does more to protect intelligence agencies from domestic accountability for their own follies than to shield them from enemy penetration.”
There are a number of barriers to the success of spycraft. One is the large amount of information, misinformation, misdirection, and outright fabrications from which “pearls of revelation” must be extracted. Another is the reluctance of leaders to accept information that runs counter to their own beliefs, and the reluctance of intelligence agents to risk angering them (especially relevant when your boss was Stalin or Hitler). But leaders on all sides, Hastings reports, dismissed information that contradicted their preconceptions. Hastings quotes a journalist who noted wittily: “Career officers and politicians have a strong interest in cooking raw intelligence to make their masters’ favourite dishes.” A third is the problem that intelligence very often becomes out-of-date as soon as (if not before) it is received. Fourth, there may be a “failure of will”: i.e., even when you get the information, you may be unwilling or unable to act upon it for political and/or military reasons. Fifth, there is sometimes a reluctance to act upon information because it would reveal too much about decryption prowess in the case of signals intelligence, or it might compromise sources in the case of human intelligence. And finally, intelligence is often assessed and analyzed from the worldview of the those who receive the intelligence, without a full understanding that enemies might have radically different value systems.
So, if much intelligence is of limited use, and if it doesn’t really matter unless it can be acted upon, what is to be gained from reading this very long, in-depth study of global intelligence efforts during World War II? The main reason is that it is just interesting. The topic has an undeniable appeal to those of us so long exposed to James Bond movies and Cold War thrillers. The book contains plenty of amazing and heroic vignettes, and a good look at military and political leaders from the side, as it were, in examining how they reacted to the information their agents gleaned.
Evaluation: What sort of people are interested in risking their lives to spy against and inside of other countries in the midst of very dangerous wars? Who is willing to spy against their own country and why? And is all that risk and expense worth it? What purpose does it actually serve? This book provides detailed answers to all these questions and more.
Rating: 3.5/5
December 21, 2018
Hastings in fine form, in his best specialty, WW2. An interesting and meandering history that deals with the problem of everything happening at once, and condenses into a fine tightly-written narrative.
couldnt-get-into
August 12, 2016Well researched, well written, but I felt I grasped his main points in the introduction. At a hundred pages in, I realized I didn't want to read 900 more.
November 23, 2016
Very long, very detailed. Too long, too detailed. Interesting in places though.
December 3, 2025
This is a major factual work, and not a casual read! Hastings has assembled so many facts that it can be hard to follow in places.
The gist is that wartime intelligence was an incredibly tortuous world of interception, analysis, deliberate deception, and betrayal.
The value of factual detail was, however, very much limited by information arriving too late (time expired info -- particularly early war years), by it being totally ignored by dictators (Stalin and Hitler esp.), and a lack of fighting forces on the ground to do anything about the forewarning of enemy strategy.
Progress in intelligence analysis (codebreaking etc.) was also hampered by feuds between services (especially US), between people with over-inflated egos who were dedicated to building their own empires, or lack of reciprocal information exchange between "allies" who were supposed to be working for the common cause.
Progress also stifled by loss intelligencia and scientists during Stalin and Nazi purges and genocides.
Fascinating details of how info gathered late in War was deliberately sought and used for Cold War purposes. This was especially so for nuclear research details passed to Russia.
Overall a fascinating book -- that shows much of wartime espionage has been portrayed in a false and "romanticized" version.
The gist is that wartime intelligence was an incredibly tortuous world of interception, analysis, deliberate deception, and betrayal.
The value of factual detail was, however, very much limited by information arriving too late (time expired info -- particularly early war years), by it being totally ignored by dictators (Stalin and Hitler esp.), and a lack of fighting forces on the ground to do anything about the forewarning of enemy strategy.
Progress in intelligence analysis (codebreaking etc.) was also hampered by feuds between services (especially US), between people with over-inflated egos who were dedicated to building their own empires, or lack of reciprocal information exchange between "allies" who were supposed to be working for the common cause.
Progress also stifled by loss intelligencia and scientists during Stalin and Nazi purges and genocides.
Fascinating details of how info gathered late in War was deliberately sought and used for Cold War purposes. This was especially so for nuclear research details passed to Russia.
Overall a fascinating book -- that shows much of wartime espionage has been portrayed in a false and "romanticized" version.
abandoned
March 20, 2025Tristemente, un tostón. Abandono al poco de empezarlo.
A priori el tema es atractivo, y Hastings es un historiador bélico reputado. Y hay que reconocer que en cuanto a documentación, ha hecho un trabajo extraordinario con este libro. Pero no ha podido encontrar una forma más aburrida de llevarlo al papel: datos, datos y datos, a menudo prácticamente inconexos, detalles superfluos...
Lo dicho, un tostón, solo apto para especialistas que busquen el detalle. Pese a todo, y dado el valor de su contenido, tampoco puedo valorarlo mal: tiene un trabajo de investigación ingente detrás. Así que se queda en blanco: 0 estrellitas.
A priori el tema es atractivo, y Hastings es un historiador bélico reputado. Y hay que reconocer que en cuanto a documentación, ha hecho un trabajo extraordinario con este libro. Pero no ha podido encontrar una forma más aburrida de llevarlo al papel: datos, datos y datos, a menudo prácticamente inconexos, detalles superfluos...
Lo dicho, un tostón, solo apto para especialistas que busquen el detalle. Pese a todo, y dado el valor de su contenido, tampoco puedo valorarlo mal: tiene un trabajo de investigación ingente detrás. Así que se queda en blanco: 0 estrellitas.
March 2, 2023
The sheer breadth of this book makes it a bit of a marathon to finish. Encyclopaedic in nature, it is quite hard to read it as a continuous narrative, given that the subject is organised chronologically, with each combatants' activities dealt with in the particular period before moving on to the next period. In effect you go through a cycle for each time frame of British, American, Russian, German, Japanese then repeat. It does become confusing and hard to keep track of who's who in the zoo, but there is no doubting it is meticulously researched.
August 14, 2022
Hoewel de invloed van de geheime diensten op het verloop van de oorlog beperkt was, levert het wel veel verhalen op.
Het gebruik van verworven informatie is niet zo makkelijk als men zomaar zou denken. Daarnaast is het vaak ook een kwestie van iets kunnen doen. Zonder boots on the ground (militaire slagkracht) kan een oorlog niet worden gewonnen.
Het gebruik van verworven informatie is niet zo makkelijk als men zomaar zou denken. Daarnaast is het vaak ook een kwestie van iets kunnen doen. Zonder boots on the ground (militaire slagkracht) kan een oorlog niet worden gewonnen.
September 22, 2015
Hastings' magisterial and epic overview of the secret war which underlaid the Second World War is a tremendous and essential single volume with much in it for the general reader as well as for those with greater knowledge.
He examines, with typical fluency and great style, the global conflict with special emphasis on codebreakers, spies and guerillas.
I was particularly pleased to see the emphasis given to German successes in reading British codes, an area often overlooked.
As Hastings puts it: "Hitler's codebreakers, especially in the first half of the war, could claim some important successes. In North Africa until June 1942, Rommel knew as much about the British Eighth Army as his enemies knew about the Afrika Korps, and the latter’s commander used his information better."
And he examines the role played, initially by British decrypts of Enigma code traffic and later - and perhaps more importantly - of German teleprinter systems by a team which included Alan Turing but also other brilliant minds, Gordon Welshman, Bill Tutte, Max Newman and the man who designed Colossus, arguably the world's first digital computer, the remarkable Tommy Flowers.
His assessment of the work of Bletchley Park is clear:
"While the Third Reich executed wholesale spies, traitors and saboteurs who threatened its security, its functionaries remained insistently oblivious of the most deadly threat of all – a few hundred tweedy, bespectacled young English academics labouring in drab suburban Bedfordshire. The only credible explanation is hubris: an institutional unwillingness to believe that their Anglo-Saxon enemies, whom they so often humbled on the battlefield, could be so clever."
The extent of Soviet espionage is laid out in its full panoply, from the many British and American agents who facilitated Stalin with the West's atomic secrets to the remarkable "double cross" system which allowed Operation Monastery to effectively derail Hitler's Stalingrad offensive.
Hastings' findings are stark: signals intelligence was far more important in this conflict than human intelligence - setting the scene for the primacy of electronic warfare in the modern world; intelligence is not a substitute for intelligent leadership, fighting skill or numbers on the battlefield; and that totalitarian regimes were, by their very natures, always handicapped.
"The democracies," he writes, "handled intelligence better than the dictatorships – including that of Stalin – because they understood the merit of truth, objective assessment of evidence, not as a virtue, but as a weapon of war."
This is a fine work and an important addition to the history of secret warfare.
He examines, with typical fluency and great style, the global conflict with special emphasis on codebreakers, spies and guerillas.
I was particularly pleased to see the emphasis given to German successes in reading British codes, an area often overlooked.
As Hastings puts it: "Hitler's codebreakers, especially in the first half of the war, could claim some important successes. In North Africa until June 1942, Rommel knew as much about the British Eighth Army as his enemies knew about the Afrika Korps, and the latter’s commander used his information better."
And he examines the role played, initially by British decrypts of Enigma code traffic and later - and perhaps more importantly - of German teleprinter systems by a team which included Alan Turing but also other brilliant minds, Gordon Welshman, Bill Tutte, Max Newman and the man who designed Colossus, arguably the world's first digital computer, the remarkable Tommy Flowers.
His assessment of the work of Bletchley Park is clear:
"While the Third Reich executed wholesale spies, traitors and saboteurs who threatened its security, its functionaries remained insistently oblivious of the most deadly threat of all – a few hundred tweedy, bespectacled young English academics labouring in drab suburban Bedfordshire. The only credible explanation is hubris: an institutional unwillingness to believe that their Anglo-Saxon enemies, whom they so often humbled on the battlefield, could be so clever."
The extent of Soviet espionage is laid out in its full panoply, from the many British and American agents who facilitated Stalin with the West's atomic secrets to the remarkable "double cross" system which allowed Operation Monastery to effectively derail Hitler's Stalingrad offensive.
Hastings' findings are stark: signals intelligence was far more important in this conflict than human intelligence - setting the scene for the primacy of electronic warfare in the modern world; intelligence is not a substitute for intelligent leadership, fighting skill or numbers on the battlefield; and that totalitarian regimes were, by their very natures, always handicapped.
"The democracies," he writes, "handled intelligence better than the dictatorships – including that of Stalin – because they understood the merit of truth, objective assessment of evidence, not as a virtue, but as a weapon of war."
This is a fine work and an important addition to the history of secret warfare.
January 4, 2016
Max Hastings’ courage in tackling a one-volume history of the covert battles of the Second World War as his first foray into the world of intelligence is beyond doubt. To a large extent he succeeds. His usual mix of anecdote and overview, combined with even-handed treatment of the main participants, produces an accessible introduction to the subject.
He does not attempt to replicate the libraries already written on, for example, the Cambridge Five or the workings of Bletchley Park but looks instead at their impact on the war. Here he repeatedly and validly makes the point that the value of intelligence is not in its acquisition but in its use. First the nugget of relevant truth must be sorted from the slag heap of gossip and misinformation – bearing in mind that a true report when written may not be by the time it is read. Then it must be fitted into a coherent picture and believed by the decision-makers. Finally there must be the capacity for action. There is no point in knowing when, where and how your enemy will attack if all you can do is send empty good wishes or – worse still – inadequate or wrong reinforcements.
He makes the point that the British and Americans were more effective overall than their enemies not because they were any better at gaining intelligence but because they were less bad at managing and exploiting it.
The book’s main weakness is flagged in its subtitle. Hastings is interested in spies, saboteurs and signals (specifically cryptography). Other sources of physical intelligence (reconnaissance, captured documents and equipment) and human intelligence (defectors, refugees and prisoners-of-war) get a nod in passing but almost no serious consideration. The Royal Navy’s astonishing meld of service and academic skills in the Joint Services Topographical Department isn’t mentioned at all. A riveting story then – but not quite the whole story.
He does not attempt to replicate the libraries already written on, for example, the Cambridge Five or the workings of Bletchley Park but looks instead at their impact on the war. Here he repeatedly and validly makes the point that the value of intelligence is not in its acquisition but in its use. First the nugget of relevant truth must be sorted from the slag heap of gossip and misinformation – bearing in mind that a true report when written may not be by the time it is read. Then it must be fitted into a coherent picture and believed by the decision-makers. Finally there must be the capacity for action. There is no point in knowing when, where and how your enemy will attack if all you can do is send empty good wishes or – worse still – inadequate or wrong reinforcements.
He makes the point that the British and Americans were more effective overall than their enemies not because they were any better at gaining intelligence but because they were less bad at managing and exploiting it.
The book’s main weakness is flagged in its subtitle. Hastings is interested in spies, saboteurs and signals (specifically cryptography). Other sources of physical intelligence (reconnaissance, captured documents and equipment) and human intelligence (defectors, refugees and prisoners-of-war) get a nod in passing but almost no serious consideration. The Royal Navy’s astonishing meld of service and academic skills in the Joint Services Topographical Department isn’t mentioned at all. A riveting story then – but not quite the whole story.
July 4, 2016
The Secret War by Max Hastings is a most thorough and detailed chronicle of code breaking, spying and sabotage activities behind enemy lines in all the theatres of the Second World War. Beyond the odd cursory mention, the better-known stories of the 'secret war,' Fortitude, Mincemeat, Eddie Chapman are not covered, having been dealt with in greater detail elsewhere but the work at Bletchley Park is rightly celebrated as being central to the Allies eventual victory.
Fascinatingly, Hastings tells of several very important instances where first-class intelligence sources were ignored, leading to catastrophe. Stalin's refusal to believe that Hitler was about to attack the USSR in June 1941 is fairly well known but I wasn't aware that the US had plenty of warning about the impending Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour but squabbles between the US Army and US Navy meant that this went unheeded. Failure to accurately interpret intercepted signals data resulted in the failure at Arnhem and the initial defeat during the Battle of the Bulge.
There is a good deal of time and space devoted to wars of words between different Allied countries intelligence communities and even between various parts of an individual country's spooks. MI6, for example, disliked SOE and various branches of the US armed forces had little time for the OSS. And, this was news to me, the Abwehr, Germany's foreign intelligence service, was incompetent!
Having written a (very short) World War Two non-fiction book, I am aware of the demands that painstaking research makes on an author. Max Hastings undertook months and months of such work, all of it highly relevant and the result is a superb, well-written and thrilling history of a crucial part of the greatest ever conflict.
David Lowther. Author of The Blue Pencil, Liberating Belsen and Two Families at War, all published by Sacristy Press.
Fascinatingly, Hastings tells of several very important instances where first-class intelligence sources were ignored, leading to catastrophe. Stalin's refusal to believe that Hitler was about to attack the USSR in June 1941 is fairly well known but I wasn't aware that the US had plenty of warning about the impending Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour but squabbles between the US Army and US Navy meant that this went unheeded. Failure to accurately interpret intercepted signals data resulted in the failure at Arnhem and the initial defeat during the Battle of the Bulge.
There is a good deal of time and space devoted to wars of words between different Allied countries intelligence communities and even between various parts of an individual country's spooks. MI6, for example, disliked SOE and various branches of the US armed forces had little time for the OSS. And, this was news to me, the Abwehr, Germany's foreign intelligence service, was incompetent!
Having written a (very short) World War Two non-fiction book, I am aware of the demands that painstaking research makes on an author. Max Hastings undertook months and months of such work, all of it highly relevant and the result is a superb, well-written and thrilling history of a crucial part of the greatest ever conflict.
David Lowther. Author of The Blue Pencil, Liberating Belsen and Two Families at War, all published by Sacristy Press.
October 8, 2021
The Secret War by Max Hastings is an extremely detailed look at the ways all the key belligerents in World War II went about trying to understand what their enemies (and friends in the case of Russia) were doing. This was achieved by spies, signals intelligence, human intelligence and the like. We hear about it all. From the well-known, like Bletchley Park’s code breakers, to much more obscure fare the reader is walked through in painstaking detail all the nuances of the secret war.
It must be stressed that the book is excessive at times. Hastings’ writing philosophy appears to be ‘why give one example when three will do?’. But, overall, The Secret War provides the sort of one-stop-shop, ‘everything you might want to know’, that readers have come to associate with this author, all delivered in his easy, journalistic style. In other words: if you are really interested in this stuff this is a great read, but the level of detail would likely be overwhelming to those without a keen interest in the subject matter.
A key device Hastings uses to try and keep his readers on track through the many, many examples and digressions is the repetition of a few key themes. These are not just helpful in tying the book together but ensure the reader develops a solid understanding of what intelligence is and is not good for. It is this, probably more than the sordid tales and Bond-like escapades, that I will remember long from now.
Let’s take the author’s central mantra: “many books about wartime intelligence focus on what spies or code-breakers found out. The only question that matters, however, is how far secret knowledge changed outcomes”. Throughout the book Hastings applies this test to decide whether some daring mission was worth it. As we hear about Russian agent Anotoli Gourevitch: “in his memoirs, [he] touches on a weakness in his own training … he was exhaustively instructed in techniques – secret inks, passwords for rendezvous and suchlike. No matching effort, however, was expended upon explaining the purpose of his mission’. As Hastings goes on to point out (and reiterates many times again): “for many secret agents the management and perils of daily existence consumed a lion’s share of their energies, often overwhelming the function that mattered – the acquisition of information of value to their service and its government”.
Nowhere is this made clearer than in terms of human intelligence (humint). All sides in the war expended considerable resources managing and paying informants in the enemy camp (and, of course, in the case of the Russians, in their allies’ camps too). Yet all sides gained almost nothing of value from any of this. Individuals would pocket money and run, make up information or be arrested almost immediately, as seems to have happened to all Japanese spies landed in the continental United States.
A second overarching theme resonating throughout the book was that intelligence only matters if senior leaders list to it. In the case of humint, even incredible sources like the Russian agent Richard Sorge, viewed by the Japanese (incredibly) as a German spy because of his easy access to that embassy, could achieve little when any information deemed offensive to Stalin was simply not shown to him.
The Germans and particularly the Japanese all seem to have fallen into the trap of dismissing intelligence that did not conform to their leaders’ whims, rendering even good intelligence worthless. The lesson the author draws from this, seemingly a powerful one at our present moment in time, is that authoritarian regimes are good only to stifle understanding of objective truth, which is ultimately to the detriment of all their citizens.
The final message that resounds throughout the book is that intelligence is only useful when governments can do anything about it. For this reason, for all of Britain’s incredible code-breaking achievements in breaking enigma, this made little difference in 1941 because Britain just didn’t have the army, navy or air power to capitalise on their intelligence. Only by 1943 when the tide of war was turning could information be translated into advantage.
These key messages are hammered home in this massive book, offering a refreshingly blunt look at the limitations as well as the glamour of the intelligence world. I learnt a raft about less familiar aspects of the war reading this book. For example, I had no knowledge of Bill Tutte, a cryptographer at Bletchley who helped break German teleprinter traffic (even harder than Enigma). Hastings stoutly advocates for Tutte’s, and many other individuals’, place in history alongside Alan Turing (indeed, Hastings’ comparative neglect of the latter can no doubt be seen as his attempt to re-balance the scales somewhat).
The key issue with the book is its length. I thoroughly enjoyed reading much of the detail, yet I truly felt engulfed by it at times. There are copious quotations from intelligence reports at times which is unnecessary and breaks up the narrative. I found myself praying during some sections for Hastings’ distinctive, journalistic tone to re-emerge with an insightful point about what has just been said. It almost felt at times like reading the evidence behind the author’s assessment. Some is good; more can be bad. Perhaps burying 100 pages or so in an appendix would have helped the flow.
The cast of characters is also colossal. I can’t help but feel that the author or his editors could have smoothed the journey for the reader by offering a few more hints (such as who a person is, added in parenthesis) when less familiar individuals re-surface after fifty pages out of the reader’s mind. This is especially true in discussions of the myriad spies and humint sources working for Russia as part of the ‘Lucy’ ring or the Red Orchestra and so on. The cast of these groups is positively kaleidoscopic at times.
Despite my confusion at times and the occasional murmur of boredom reading through a particularly dense section, I am glad this book exists and very glad I read it. Partly as a window onto many new aspects of the war, but mostly because the book does not shy away from asking hard questions about whether, in the end, intelligence – however incredibly acquired – was valuable to the war effort. This is a fascinating but undoubtedly challenging book.
It must be stressed that the book is excessive at times. Hastings’ writing philosophy appears to be ‘why give one example when three will do?’. But, overall, The Secret War provides the sort of one-stop-shop, ‘everything you might want to know’, that readers have come to associate with this author, all delivered in his easy, journalistic style. In other words: if you are really interested in this stuff this is a great read, but the level of detail would likely be overwhelming to those without a keen interest in the subject matter.
A key device Hastings uses to try and keep his readers on track through the many, many examples and digressions is the repetition of a few key themes. These are not just helpful in tying the book together but ensure the reader develops a solid understanding of what intelligence is and is not good for. It is this, probably more than the sordid tales and Bond-like escapades, that I will remember long from now.
Let’s take the author’s central mantra: “many books about wartime intelligence focus on what spies or code-breakers found out. The only question that matters, however, is how far secret knowledge changed outcomes”. Throughout the book Hastings applies this test to decide whether some daring mission was worth it. As we hear about Russian agent Anotoli Gourevitch: “in his memoirs, [he] touches on a weakness in his own training … he was exhaustively instructed in techniques – secret inks, passwords for rendezvous and suchlike. No matching effort, however, was expended upon explaining the purpose of his mission’. As Hastings goes on to point out (and reiterates many times again): “for many secret agents the management and perils of daily existence consumed a lion’s share of their energies, often overwhelming the function that mattered – the acquisition of information of value to their service and its government”.
Nowhere is this made clearer than in terms of human intelligence (humint). All sides in the war expended considerable resources managing and paying informants in the enemy camp (and, of course, in the case of the Russians, in their allies’ camps too). Yet all sides gained almost nothing of value from any of this. Individuals would pocket money and run, make up information or be arrested almost immediately, as seems to have happened to all Japanese spies landed in the continental United States.
A second overarching theme resonating throughout the book was that intelligence only matters if senior leaders list to it. In the case of humint, even incredible sources like the Russian agent Richard Sorge, viewed by the Japanese (incredibly) as a German spy because of his easy access to that embassy, could achieve little when any information deemed offensive to Stalin was simply not shown to him.
The Germans and particularly the Japanese all seem to have fallen into the trap of dismissing intelligence that did not conform to their leaders’ whims, rendering even good intelligence worthless. The lesson the author draws from this, seemingly a powerful one at our present moment in time, is that authoritarian regimes are good only to stifle understanding of objective truth, which is ultimately to the detriment of all their citizens.
The final message that resounds throughout the book is that intelligence is only useful when governments can do anything about it. For this reason, for all of Britain’s incredible code-breaking achievements in breaking enigma, this made little difference in 1941 because Britain just didn’t have the army, navy or air power to capitalise on their intelligence. Only by 1943 when the tide of war was turning could information be translated into advantage.
These key messages are hammered home in this massive book, offering a refreshingly blunt look at the limitations as well as the glamour of the intelligence world. I learnt a raft about less familiar aspects of the war reading this book. For example, I had no knowledge of Bill Tutte, a cryptographer at Bletchley who helped break German teleprinter traffic (even harder than Enigma). Hastings stoutly advocates for Tutte’s, and many other individuals’, place in history alongside Alan Turing (indeed, Hastings’ comparative neglect of the latter can no doubt be seen as his attempt to re-balance the scales somewhat).
The key issue with the book is its length. I thoroughly enjoyed reading much of the detail, yet I truly felt engulfed by it at times. There are copious quotations from intelligence reports at times which is unnecessary and breaks up the narrative. I found myself praying during some sections for Hastings’ distinctive, journalistic tone to re-emerge with an insightful point about what has just been said. It almost felt at times like reading the evidence behind the author’s assessment. Some is good; more can be bad. Perhaps burying 100 pages or so in an appendix would have helped the flow.
The cast of characters is also colossal. I can’t help but feel that the author or his editors could have smoothed the journey for the reader by offering a few more hints (such as who a person is, added in parenthesis) when less familiar individuals re-surface after fifty pages out of the reader’s mind. This is especially true in discussions of the myriad spies and humint sources working for Russia as part of the ‘Lucy’ ring or the Red Orchestra and so on. The cast of these groups is positively kaleidoscopic at times.
Despite my confusion at times and the occasional murmur of boredom reading through a particularly dense section, I am glad this book exists and very glad I read it. Partly as a window onto many new aspects of the war, but mostly because the book does not shy away from asking hard questions about whether, in the end, intelligence – however incredibly acquired – was valuable to the war effort. This is a fascinating but undoubtedly challenging book.
July 9, 2016
The format of the book lends itself to incredibly tedious reading of the inherently interesting material. The books lacks a clear narrative, chronological or thematic, which makes it very confusing to follow. There are so many interesting individuals in the Soviet Union NKVD, British Intelligence, American intelligence, the RSHA in Nazi Germany, etc., but, with no establishing timeline to follow the progression of their accomplishments during the war - I just found it very difficult to make sense of anything. Chapters under a vague theme contain a haphazard collection of short biographies of dozens of characters, quotes out of context, quick anecdotes, but no sense of structure to pull them together for a bigger picture.
I think the subject of espionage and intelligence is a fascinating and crucial aspect of World War II, but I personally found this book to be a terrible presentation of it. Perhaps it can be considered a valuable resource for research purposes, because it contains a wide breadth (though not depth) of figures and facts, but it lacks focus to be an engaging read.
I think the subject of espionage and intelligence is a fascinating and crucial aspect of World War II, but I personally found this book to be a terrible presentation of it. Perhaps it can be considered a valuable resource for research purposes, because it contains a wide breadth (though not depth) of figures and facts, but it lacks focus to be an engaging read.
November 10, 2024
The Secret War: Spies, Codes and Guerrillas 1939-1945 by Max Hastings brings to life the hidden world of espionage during WWII, taking readers on a journey into the minds and lives of the people working in the shadows. Hastings introduces us to spies, codebreakers, and guerrilla fighters who played crucial but often thankless roles in the war. We meet Alan Turing, a brilliant yet troubled mathematician who led the British team at Bletchley Park, working tirelessly to crack the German Enigma code. His team's success saved countless lives, yet Hastings doesn’t ignore the personal sacrifices Turing and others made, working under immense pressure in relative isolation.
Hastings also tells the story of the Soviet NKVD agents—who were, in many ways, cold and relentless, willing to use brutal tactics to achieve their goals. Soviet agents like Richard Sorge, stationed in Japan, risked everything to gather critical information, while Klaus Fuchs infiltrated the Manhattan Project, giving the Soviet Union vital insights into the development of the atomic bomb. Hastings doesn’t sugarcoat the ruthlessness of these operations, but he gives us a sense of the fear, the urgency, and the strange loyalty these people felt toward their cause.
On the American side, the intelligence effort started off chaotic and inexperienced. However, “Wild Bill” Donovan, a larger-than-life figure with big ambitions, managed to shape the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) into an influential force. Donovan’s determination and charisma pulled people into his orbit, even when missions went wrong. Hastings reveals the struggles of these agents, often in far-flung regions, facing harsh conditions, dangerous enemies, and the ever-present threat of capture or death.
What makes The Secret War compelling is how Hastings combines detailed historical research with the very human stories of those involved. He takes a step back to ask an important question: did all these dangerous missions, secret codes, and spy networks really make a difference? Hastings suggests that, while these efforts helped, they didn’t win the war alone. Military decisions and battlefield outcomes were more complex than one piece of intelligence could ever dictate. Sometimes, vital information was ignored or misunderstood, showing that even the best intelligence is only as useful as the action it inspires.
Hastings fills the pages with personal moments that make these figures feel real: the exhaustion of long days and nights spent decoding messages, the tense silence as spies waited to pass on critical information, and the courage required to carry on, knowing that failure meant death or worse. Hastings’ stories of these individuals give readers a sense of the human cost of espionage, making us feel the weight of their sacrifices.
While the book is rich with historical details, it’s not just for serious history buffs. Hastings paints vivid pictures of the people and places that made WWII intelligence a thrilling, complex, and sometimes devastating endeavor. For anyone curious about the real lives behind the spy games, The Secret War is both informative and deeply moving. Hastings captures not only the hidden battles fought but also the quiet bravery of those who waged them.
Hastings also tells the story of the Soviet NKVD agents—who were, in many ways, cold and relentless, willing to use brutal tactics to achieve their goals. Soviet agents like Richard Sorge, stationed in Japan, risked everything to gather critical information, while Klaus Fuchs infiltrated the Manhattan Project, giving the Soviet Union vital insights into the development of the atomic bomb. Hastings doesn’t sugarcoat the ruthlessness of these operations, but he gives us a sense of the fear, the urgency, and the strange loyalty these people felt toward their cause.
On the American side, the intelligence effort started off chaotic and inexperienced. However, “Wild Bill” Donovan, a larger-than-life figure with big ambitions, managed to shape the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) into an influential force. Donovan’s determination and charisma pulled people into his orbit, even when missions went wrong. Hastings reveals the struggles of these agents, often in far-flung regions, facing harsh conditions, dangerous enemies, and the ever-present threat of capture or death.
What makes The Secret War compelling is how Hastings combines detailed historical research with the very human stories of those involved. He takes a step back to ask an important question: did all these dangerous missions, secret codes, and spy networks really make a difference? Hastings suggests that, while these efforts helped, they didn’t win the war alone. Military decisions and battlefield outcomes were more complex than one piece of intelligence could ever dictate. Sometimes, vital information was ignored or misunderstood, showing that even the best intelligence is only as useful as the action it inspires.
Hastings fills the pages with personal moments that make these figures feel real: the exhaustion of long days and nights spent decoding messages, the tense silence as spies waited to pass on critical information, and the courage required to carry on, knowing that failure meant death or worse. Hastings’ stories of these individuals give readers a sense of the human cost of espionage, making us feel the weight of their sacrifices.
While the book is rich with historical details, it’s not just for serious history buffs. Hastings paints vivid pictures of the people and places that made WWII intelligence a thrilling, complex, and sometimes devastating endeavor. For anyone curious about the real lives behind the spy games, The Secret War is both informative and deeply moving. Hastings captures not only the hidden battles fought but also the quiet bravery of those who waged them.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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