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A Guest of the Reich: The Story of American Heiress Gertrude Legendre's Dramatic Captivity and Escape from Nazi Germany
"Thrilling! An intimate spy story, as though a dear friend is taking us along on her misadventure behind Nazi lines."
--Bill Dedman, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Empty Mansions
From the co-author of The Zhivago Affair, a finalist for the National Books Critics Circle Award, comes the dramatic story of a South Carolina heiress who joined the OSS and became the first American woman in uniform taken prisoner on the Western front--until her escape from Nazi Germany.
Gertrude "Gertie" Legendre was a big-game hunter and from a wealthy industrial family who lived a charmed life in Jazz Age America. Her adventurous spirit made her the inspiration for a Broadway play, Holiday, which became a film starring Katharine Hepburn. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Legendre, by then married and a mother of two, joined the OSS, the wartime spy organization that preceded the CIA. First in Washington and then in London, some of the most closely-held United States government secrets passed through her hands. In A Guest of the Reich, Peter Finn tells the gripping story of how in 1944, while on leave in liberated Paris, Legendre was captured by the Germans after accidentally crossing the front lines.
Subjected to repeated interrogations, including by the Gestapo, Legendre entered a daring game of lies with her captors. The Nazis treated her as a "special prisoner" of the SS and moved her from city to city throughout Germany, where she witnessed the collapse of Hitler's Reich as no other American did. After six months in captivity, Legendre escaped into Switzerland.
A Guest of the Reich is a propulsive account of a little-known chapter in the history of World War II, as well as a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary woman.
--Bill Dedman, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Empty Mansions
From the co-author of The Zhivago Affair, a finalist for the National Books Critics Circle Award, comes the dramatic story of a South Carolina heiress who joined the OSS and became the first American woman in uniform taken prisoner on the Western front--until her escape from Nazi Germany.
Gertrude "Gertie" Legendre was a big-game hunter and from a wealthy industrial family who lived a charmed life in Jazz Age America. Her adventurous spirit made her the inspiration for a Broadway play, Holiday, which became a film starring Katharine Hepburn. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Legendre, by then married and a mother of two, joined the OSS, the wartime spy organization that preceded the CIA. First in Washington and then in London, some of the most closely-held United States government secrets passed through her hands. In A Guest of the Reich, Peter Finn tells the gripping story of how in 1944, while on leave in liberated Paris, Legendre was captured by the Germans after accidentally crossing the front lines.
Subjected to repeated interrogations, including by the Gestapo, Legendre entered a daring game of lies with her captors. The Nazis treated her as a "special prisoner" of the SS and moved her from city to city throughout Germany, where she witnessed the collapse of Hitler's Reich as no other American did. After six months in captivity, Legendre escaped into Switzerland.
A Guest of the Reich is a propulsive account of a little-known chapter in the history of World War II, as well as a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary woman.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published September 24, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 105 reviews
November 4, 2019
Ugh. I thought this had the potential to be interesting, but she was a spoiled brat at the start of the book and nothing changed by the end. I was tempted to stop reading during the detailed accounts of her big game hunting expeditions (too much detail - there’s no need to glamorize the slaughter of innocent lions, elephants, etc), but kept going. I shouldn’t have. I finished the book today and am left with nothing but a bad taste in my mouth.
November 2, 2021
A Guest of the Reich by Peter Finn, the co-author of The Zhivago Affair, a finalist for the National Books Critics Circle Award, is the dramatic story of a South Carolina heiress who joined the OSS and became the first American woman in uniform taken prisoner on the Western front--until her escape from Nazi Germany. Gertrude "Gertie" Legendre was a big-game hunter and from a wealthy industrial family who lived a charmed life in Jazz Age America. Her adventurous spirit made her the inspiration for a Broadway play, Holiday, which also became a film starring Katharine Hepburn. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Legendre, by then married and a mother of two, joined the OSS, the wartime spy organization that preceded the CIA. First in Washington and then in London, some of the most closely-held United States government secrets passed through her hands. In A Guest of the Reich, Peter Finn tells the gripping true story of how in 1944, while on leave in liberated Paris, Legendre was captured by the Germans after accidentally crossing the front lines.
Subjected to repeated interrogations, including by the Gestapo, Legendre entered a daring game of lies with her captors. The Nazis treated her as a "special prisoner" of the SS and moved her from city to city throughout Germany, where she witnessed the collapse of Hitler's Reich as no other American did. After six months in captivity, Legendre escaped into Switzerland. A Guest of the Reich is a propulsive account of a little-known chapter in the history of World War II, as well as a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary woman.
Subjected to repeated interrogations, including by the Gestapo, Legendre entered a daring game of lies with her captors. The Nazis treated her as a "special prisoner" of the SS and moved her from city to city throughout Germany, where she witnessed the collapse of Hitler's Reich as no other American did. After six months in captivity, Legendre escaped into Switzerland. A Guest of the Reich is a propulsive account of a little-known chapter in the history of World War II, as well as a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary woman.
October 31, 2019
My feelings about this book are complicated by the fact that I came to detest the subject.
October 30, 2022
Gertrude Sanford Legendre was a wealthy, swashbuckling American heiress and socialite. Her father had inherited $40 million from his father in 1913, when Gertie was 11 (about $1.2 billion today). Gertie was a great shot, and in her twenties bagged lots of big game on safaris; on one trip, she and a friend shot zebras "to get enough skin for a summer sports coat. We shot four yesterday and we each need six." Later Gertie killed a rhino with six shots, writing in her diary about its "high shrill shrieks" as it died. She was amazed by its thick skin and had a big strip taken off the back "to make a table top." Some of her kills were brought back to the U.S. and installed in the dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
She had two daughters with her husband Sidney, but being a parent brought no excitement. When World War II broke out, she used her connections to get hired by the OSS, which eventually sent her to London and Paris. Gertie was bored, though, and craved more action. She wanted to see the front, "see troops on the move, to actually feel the urgency of war." On September 26, 1944 she persuaded Major Jerome Papurt, who was also in the OSS and had been the lover of war photographer Margaret Bourke-White, and Lt. Commander Robert Jennings, a friend of her husband, to drive to Wallendorf, a town just across the Luxembourg border in Germany. Papurt told them that the town had fallen into American hands. Their driver was a young private, Doyle Dickson.
Papurt was wrong: Wallendorf was still in German hands, and the group came under machine gun fire. Papurt and Dickson were seriously wounded, Papurt in the legs, Dickson in the legs, shinbone, and hand, and all were taken prisoner. Soon they were separated. Gertie spent the next six months being shuttled around between towns and cities, prisons, castles, and private homes in Germany, in various degrees of deprivation, questioned by Nazi officials, who never figured out she and Papurt were in the OSS. She did seem to get better treatment once they realized how wealthy and well-connected she was (she name-dropped General Patton). Her last scene of captivity was the mansion of former I.G. Farben executive Hans Grieme and his wife, where she was allowed to walk freely on the grounds and in the town.
It was becoming increasingly clear that Germany would lose the war, and while for some prisoners of the Reich this was a death sentence, for others it meant their freedom. In March 1945 Gertie was driven by her Nazi escort to the German town of Constance and dropped off. She fled on foot, crossing the border into Switzerland.
After a debriefing by the OSS, who weren't thrilled by Gertie's shenanigans, she high-tailed it to Paris. She wanted to party. Sidney implored her to come back to the U.S., where her daughters needed her, and the OSS insisted on it too. They couldn't take the risk of any more escapades from Gertie, or that she would reveal anything about working for the OSS. They had already confiscated her diary. Back in the U.S., with Sidney still serving in the Pacific theater (Hawaii), Gertie was quickly bored by home life and her young children. "To try and interest myself in Peter Rabbit....nearly kills me."
The book jacket copy and blurbs make note of Gertie's "pluck, guts, and courage," her spirit, intrepidness, extraordinariness, her time in the Reich a "continuous, madcap escapade." But the author takes a different tone, referring to Gertie's "joyride," making sure we understand how her cavalierness led to the deaths of Papurt and Doyle Dickson (whose name Gertie didn't even get right, referring to him in her diary as "Dick"). Papurt was killed in a Limburg hospital by an Allied bomb on November 29, 1944; he was up on his crutches, but hadn't made it to the air raid shelter. Dickson, age 21, still recovering from his wounds in a makeshift hospital, was one of 18 American prisoners killed by an Allied air attack on Brandenburg just outside Berlin on March 31, 1945.
To make matters worse, the OSS mistakenly informed Dickson's parents in July 1945 that he had been released from a POW camp and would be headed home soon. Not until 1949 would they be told where his body was. His remains had been confused with those of another GI. His body was repatriated in 1950.
But Gertrude Legendre, the intrepid, gutsy, madcap socialite, lived to the ripe old age of 97.
September 11, 2019
This book was a very interesting depiction of the time Gertrude Legendre spend in captivity in Germany at the end of World War II.
That being said, I felt the subtitle “The Story of American Heiress Gertrude Legendre’s Dramatic Captivity and Escape from Nazi Germany” was not accurate to the story I read.
First of all, captivity is not very dramatic. It usually involves a prisoner staying in one place while all the negotiating happens out of their sight. While there were a few times Gertie feared for her life, a lot of time was spent examining the characters of the people she was imprisoned with or contemplating the availability of food.
Secondly, her escape was anticlimactic from what I expected, based on the subtitle. The escape took place four pages. It was spur-of-the-moment, with very little planning.
I did find this book an excellent depiction of the World War II era. The book was well written and easy to read. A good book if you’re interested in that era of history.
That being said, I felt the subtitle “The Story of American Heiress Gertrude Legendre’s Dramatic Captivity and Escape from Nazi Germany” was not accurate to the story I read.
First of all, captivity is not very dramatic. It usually involves a prisoner staying in one place while all the negotiating happens out of their sight. While there were a few times Gertie feared for her life, a lot of time was spent examining the characters of the people she was imprisoned with or contemplating the availability of food.
Secondly, her escape was anticlimactic from what I expected, based on the subtitle. The escape took place four pages. It was spur-of-the-moment, with very little planning.
I did find this book an excellent depiction of the World War II era. The book was well written and easy to read. A good book if you’re interested in that era of history.
April 22, 2020
Rarely do I finish a book I dislike so much, but here we are. I can’t imagine how scary it would have been to be captured by the Nazis during wartime, but frankly it’s hard to separate what a selfish and entitled person Gertie was from her experience (the only reason she was caught was because she treated her OSS work overseas like one big luxury vacation and made someone drive her to THE WESTERN FRONT for some battle photos to share at cocktail parties). Her wealth and socialite standing made her captivity basically a hotel stay for the majority of the time and quite frankly an insult to the millions of Allied servicemen who laid their lives down and suffered much worse. It also pains me to read that her driver and fellow passengers who had legitimate destinations to arrive at were all either killed as POWs or formally reprimanded for being caught. I kept reading because this woman’s life is BONKERS and out of morbid curiosity for the descriptions of late war Germany. Blechhhhh.
October 14, 2019
A very bizarre storyline. Spoiled rich woman endangers the lives of 3 U.S. soldiers because she wants to see the war up close. Couldn't feel anything for her experience, and found myself just waiting for the end of the book. Luckily it was only 200 pages. Plus, there were several typos the editors and proof readers missed.
December 2, 2019
This exceptionally well written book is an account of New York heiress Gertie Legandre's capture and imprisonment by the Third Reich. With the outbreak of the war Gertie finds her way to the newly founded OSS. Initially assigned to the DC office, Gertie’s need to be in the thick of things leads her to London and ultimately liberated Paris. It is there she conceives the trip that takes her and the soldiers who accompany her to the front, ending up behind enemy lines. Gertie’s captivity tracks the destruction of the Nazi war machine and is told in vivid detail, thanks to the journals she kept at the time.
Gertie's a prickly character, one who neglects her children, spouts bigotry, and uses her connections to get what she wants, with little regard for the consequences. But she is also skilled, tenacious and intelligent, garnering praise from her superiors for performing her duties just “like a man,” a phrase familiar to many women of consequence. Her rejection of gender norms, the courage she exhibits during Nazi interrogation, and the circumstantial account of her imprisonment make for one compelling story.
Gertie's a prickly character, one who neglects her children, spouts bigotry, and uses her connections to get what she wants, with little regard for the consequences. But she is also skilled, tenacious and intelligent, garnering praise from her superiors for performing her duties just “like a man,” a phrase familiar to many women of consequence. Her rejection of gender norms, the courage she exhibits during Nazi interrogation, and the circumstantial account of her imprisonment make for one compelling story.
December 12, 2019
Well, frankly my dear, I found the life of Gertrude Legendre very fascinating. Gertie was a high society girl born in 1904, who loved to go on adventures to collection exotic animals specimens for American museums (and maybe a cheetah skin coat). I am absolutely smitten with this generation, as it is such a departure from today’s world. Not to mention, the world had not been completely explored yet and new inventions seemed to pop up almost daily. Such exciting times!
.....back on track here. Gertie was physically fit and did much hiking and hunting. Using these attributes, she was able to get a job with a U.S. spy organization during WWII and was eventually captured by the Germans. After some initial poor accommodations, she was shuttled around in Germany until she finally escaped.
Personally, I feel that if I have ever lived a past life, that I must have lived about the same time Gertie did because I am so fascinated by this era. Yes, Gertie comes from high society and was a bit spoiled by her travels and adventures, but she had to be somewhat down to earth in many ways to have gotten by so long when captured by the Nazis.
.....back on track here. Gertie was physically fit and did much hiking and hunting. Using these attributes, she was able to get a job with a U.S. spy organization during WWII and was eventually captured by the Germans. After some initial poor accommodations, she was shuttled around in Germany until she finally escaped.
Personally, I feel that if I have ever lived a past life, that I must have lived about the same time Gertie did because I am so fascinated by this era. Yes, Gertie comes from high society and was a bit spoiled by her travels and adventures, but she had to be somewhat down to earth in many ways to have gotten by so long when captured by the Nazis.
July 25, 2019
Gertrude Legendre was a wealthy adventuress who loved spending time on hunting trips. She was an accomplished marksman and after she married both she and her husband, Sidney, traveled the world fulfilling their love of the adventurous life. The war changed everything and of course Gertie had to be involved. She was stationed in Europe while her husband was in the Navy in Hawaii. On a harebrained idea to see the front, she a some companions drove to Wallendorf which they assumed was under British control. It was not and she was captured and thus began her adventure as a German prisoner. This is a great story and I throughly enjoyed it.
October 27, 2019
Interesting read. While not what I was expecting (the capture and escape in the subtitle was anticlimactic), still a true story of a fascinating and at times foolish woman. A good read for those interested in WWII, but dragged a bit too much to hold my attention.
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January 12, 2020Honestly could have cared less for this white rich privileged woman who kept getting people maimed because she was bored.
February 20, 2020
Hmmm, when I heard that this woman was the model for the character played by Katherine Hepburn in the movie "Holiday", I thought, wow, I can't wait to read about her. Although the book is well written, she actually not a very likeable character. Maybe if I'd skipped the chapter on her big game hunting trips, but no, there are too many other places in the story where she just comes across as too self centered and spoiled. Interesting story of what happened to her, and she comes across much more likeable in the epilogue.
June 5, 2025
I really enjoyed this. i have seen some reviews saying that Gertie is annoying and spoiled and while I do hold those views I do think Finn has provided a detailed account of the fall of Nazi Germany. I did not read this book to judge whether or not I thought Gertie was a good person thats not Finns focus. So while she is entitled she's an heiress! what did you expect! Read this if you want an interesting perspective during the last few months of the Third Reich
December 22, 2019
Oh, my. I was a little over-whelmed by such a tale of the OSS and the workings of the Reich. This woman was lucky beyond reason to have survived the War.
April 13, 2020
My main problem with this biography is that Gertrude Legendre makes an off-putting protagonist. I should have been suspicious when the book became a featured library title just in time for "International Women's Day," but I've had a keen interest in World War Two for many years. An American socialite who worked for the OSS, was captured by Germans, and eventually escaped Nazi clutches would seem to have an exciting story to tell. Throw in the big-game hunting and museum expeditions for which Legendre was also known, and you'd think she'd be the real-life version of Amy Adams' turn as Amelia Earhart in Night at the Museum. Alas, the Amy Adams character was warmer and more interesting.
Legendre and her husband left their two young children in the care of a nurse and governess while pursuing their own interests, not least because Gertrude herself had greater affinity for her own pastimes than for motherhood, although we're assured that late in life, she became a doting grandmother.
Through no fault of her own, Legendre was born into money, but her capture and captivity came about when she talked colleagues into joy-riding near the front lines just so she could feel like she'd left her office job for something closer to the action. Even Peter Finn's sympathetic portrayal of her escapades notes that she was never one for introspection, and her diary entries reek of class bias.
Legrendre seems daring and smart, but also spoiled and self-absorbed. Her escape, when it happens, offers a few pulse-quickening moments without ever rising to heights of courage or ingenuity. I was hoping for something akin to the legendary "Bird Man of Alcatraz," or the East German family who secretly built a hot-air balloon in a daring bid to escape over the Berlin Wall to freedom, but those hopes were dashed. Even in captivity, she was more "guest of the Reich" than "prisoner of the Reich." There are more exciting testaments to "Grrl Power" out there.
Legendre and her husband left their two young children in the care of a nurse and governess while pursuing their own interests, not least because Gertrude herself had greater affinity for her own pastimes than for motherhood, although we're assured that late in life, she became a doting grandmother.
Through no fault of her own, Legendre was born into money, but her capture and captivity came about when she talked colleagues into joy-riding near the front lines just so she could feel like she'd left her office job for something closer to the action. Even Peter Finn's sympathetic portrayal of her escapades notes that she was never one for introspection, and her diary entries reek of class bias.
Legrendre seems daring and smart, but also spoiled and self-absorbed. Her escape, when it happens, offers a few pulse-quickening moments without ever rising to heights of courage or ingenuity. I was hoping for something akin to the legendary "Bird Man of Alcatraz," or the East German family who secretly built a hot-air balloon in a daring bid to escape over the Berlin Wall to freedom, but those hopes were dashed. Even in captivity, she was more "guest of the Reich" than "prisoner of the Reich." There are more exciting testaments to "Grrl Power" out there.
April 7, 2020
The main problem with this book is its deeply unsympathetic subject. Gertrude "Gertie" Legendre was an American socialite connected to the SOS, (wartime intelligence agency that was the forerunner of the CIA), held captive by the Nazis for several months before escaping to Switzerland. Similar in some ways to Erik Larsen's In the Garden of Beasts about the US ambassador to Germany in the 30s and his flighty daughter Martha.
From a wealthy, immensely privileged Southern background, Gertie was a renowned big-game huntress, inspired a Hollywood movie starring Katherine Hepburn, and lived a glamorous, glittering lifestyle across several continents during the 1920s and early 30s. Married with two young daughters and a husband in the US military serving in Hawaii after Pearl Harbor, Gertie used her connections to secure a desk job in Paris just after Liberation in 1944. A fateful decision to make a trip to the front line to hear gunfire, and possibly to drop in on old friend General Patton, led to Gertie and the men who accompanied her falling into the hands of the Germans, treated as potential spies and possible bargaining chips. She spent the next several months being moved around various locations in fairly genteel confinement as a special prisoner almost like a celebrity, until right at the end of the war making an escape over the Swiss border.
Gertie had an interesting life, for sure, definitely the stuff of adventure novels and movies, but she was not a very nice person and that (unfairly?) influenced my reaction to her story. It is telling that when she died at the ripe old age of 98 her eldest daughter refused to attend the funeral. Gertie's love all went to husband Sidney and she had little time or aptitude for her children, though by accounts she was a doting grandmother. Her reckless excursion to the front line cost lives, though she escaped serious consequences. A German officer who interrogated her became a sort of friend she helped after the war, and she left a letter to US forces exonerating her hosts from any notion of ill-treatment during her confinement in their luxurious villa. All very cosy and far removed from most people's experiences of Nazi imprisonment.
The section dealing with Gertie's life as a big-game hunter, told in great detail, is utterly repulsive, for eg. a strip from the back of a rhino becomes a table top. Gertie has all the prejudices you'd expect of someone of her background in that time, so racism, anti-Semitism, and enormous entitlement. However, the book is well-written though Gertie's story reads more like a wartime action adventure novel than true life, with an eye-witness account of war-damaged German cities and the collapse of the regime. She undoubtedly had courage and determination, one of those big personalities who draw all the attention, but I felt so sorry for her daughters. When Gertie went home to America she was quickly bored of domestic life and tried desperately to secure a posting to join Sidney in Hawaii. Yet, what a life she had!
From a wealthy, immensely privileged Southern background, Gertie was a renowned big-game huntress, inspired a Hollywood movie starring Katherine Hepburn, and lived a glamorous, glittering lifestyle across several continents during the 1920s and early 30s. Married with two young daughters and a husband in the US military serving in Hawaii after Pearl Harbor, Gertie used her connections to secure a desk job in Paris just after Liberation in 1944. A fateful decision to make a trip to the front line to hear gunfire, and possibly to drop in on old friend General Patton, led to Gertie and the men who accompanied her falling into the hands of the Germans, treated as potential spies and possible bargaining chips. She spent the next several months being moved around various locations in fairly genteel confinement as a special prisoner almost like a celebrity, until right at the end of the war making an escape over the Swiss border.
Gertie had an interesting life, for sure, definitely the stuff of adventure novels and movies, but she was not a very nice person and that (unfairly?) influenced my reaction to her story. It is telling that when she died at the ripe old age of 98 her eldest daughter refused to attend the funeral. Gertie's love all went to husband Sidney and she had little time or aptitude for her children, though by accounts she was a doting grandmother. Her reckless excursion to the front line cost lives, though she escaped serious consequences. A German officer who interrogated her became a sort of friend she helped after the war, and she left a letter to US forces exonerating her hosts from any notion of ill-treatment during her confinement in their luxurious villa. All very cosy and far removed from most people's experiences of Nazi imprisonment.
The section dealing with Gertie's life as a big-game hunter, told in great detail, is utterly repulsive, for eg. a strip from the back of a rhino becomes a table top. Gertie has all the prejudices you'd expect of someone of her background in that time, so racism, anti-Semitism, and enormous entitlement. However, the book is well-written though Gertie's story reads more like a wartime action adventure novel than true life, with an eye-witness account of war-damaged German cities and the collapse of the regime. She undoubtedly had courage and determination, one of those big personalities who draw all the attention, but I felt so sorry for her daughters. When Gertie went home to America she was quickly bored of domestic life and tried desperately to secure a posting to join Sidney in Hawaii. Yet, what a life she had!
November 30, 2020
The writing of this book was good and well paced but it suffered from the fact that the person at the center is completely unlikable and mostly unredeemed. It tells the story of a privileged dilatant who sees the war as a good time to live up a fantasy using her wealthy connections while people around her suffer. Her capture comes because she thought it would be a lark to see the front and this puts other people's lives in danger. She is racist and anti-sematic and shows little to no concern for those around her, including her own children. It was hard to muster much sympathy for her as she does not even show any self-reflection after the experience.
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August 25, 2020Gertie Legendre was a civilian captured behind enemy lines in 1944 because she wanted to visit the front. She was held and moved around Germany until just prior to the end of the war.
The author takes us through all of Gertie's various prisons as well as providing information about others who were also held captive. In fact, Gertie's experience sometimes feels like filler when weighed against the realities of the collapse of the Reich.
Ultimately, I found Gertie to be immature and self-centered. Because of her desire for adventure two men were killed. Even after her escape, she wanted 10 days in Paris to vacation rather than returning to her young children who were being raised by strangers.
The author takes us through all of Gertie's various prisons as well as providing information about others who were also held captive. In fact, Gertie's experience sometimes feels like filler when weighed against the realities of the collapse of the Reich.
Ultimately, I found Gertie to be immature and self-centered. Because of her desire for adventure two men were killed. Even after her escape, she wanted 10 days in Paris to vacation rather than returning to her young children who were being raised by strangers.
January 7, 2020
Meh. I can’t remember where I saw this book recommended (maybe the Economist?) but I’m disappointed in the recommendation. It’s an interesting story but not worth a book. Maybe an essay. Rich woman grows up in privilege, does a bunch of trips to Africa and elsewhere, shows penchant for racism, anti-semitism, a war starts and she uses her connections to become a spy, ends up captured by the Nazis and is generally treated very well while millions of others are murdered...not really the story I want to read (or in this case listen to through Libby).
November 18, 2019
you know online when you see a shocking headline and click on the article...only to find the article not at all what you thought it was going to be? and voila, the writer got you to click!
This is the same.
#1 the protagonist drove to the front lines for no reason other than "seemed exciting and something to see"
#2 she was forced, while imprisoned to be bored and play cards with other aristocrats and often had to demand her red cross allocation of cigarettes.
This is the same.
#1 the protagonist drove to the front lines for no reason other than "seemed exciting and something to see"
#2 she was forced, while imprisoned to be bored and play cards with other aristocrats and often had to demand her red cross allocation of cigarettes.
April 3, 2020
The author tells us in the epilogue that Gertie couldn’t drum up any interest in her story after the war, and her subsequent book sold poorly. Small wonder. There is no story here, unless you’re particularly interested in a snobby, obtuse, spoiled, stupid, shallow woman who was also a horrible mother and “spy”.
July 23, 2020
The story of captivity was interesting enough, but good lord, Gertie was a terrible, spoiled human who ruined several people’s lives (really, she got them killed) simply because she was bored and wanted an adventure. I don’t know why I bothered reading this, let alone why I actually finished it. I kept hoping for terrible things to happen to her.
June 21, 2020
The issue I had with this book is not with the writing or the author, it's with the woman who is the main subject. She was, to me, absolutely self centered-white privilege-not in touch with her world-frustrating, gross person.
April 5, 2020
She was a pretty selfish individual, and a non existent mother.
February 22, 2024
Born Gertrude Sandford in 1902 in Aiken, South Carolina, Gertie was raised in a world of fabulous wealth. Her father inherited "an estate estimated at $40 million - close to $1 billion in today's dollars" (26). Her family had numerous homes and travelled extensively, and her family were closely connected with many famous and well-known individuals. In fact, Gertie was apparently "the inspiration for the character Katharine Hepburn played in the movie Holiday, based on the 1928 Broadway play by Gertie's friend Philip Barry" (6). Rather than being content with staying at home, Gertie was thrilled by exotic hunting trips. After an African trip that resulted in countless animals slain at her hand, she went again, this time on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History, in pursuit of animals to be staged "among a series of planned dioramas in the new Hall of African Mammals" in the museum (25). In 1929, Gertie married Sidney Legendere, to whom she was very devoted. The two purchased a plantation outside of Charleston and had two daughters - who received almost none of their time or attention.
When World War II broke out, Sidney ended up stationed in Hawaii. Gertie was not content to stay at home with her children and signed on with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the intelligence agency at the time. While serving abroad with the OSS, along with some companions, Gertie decided to take a little scenic drive that ended up in Nazi occupied territory. After two in the party were shot and wounded, they had to surrender to the Nazis. "Gertrude Legendre had just become the first American woman in uniform captured by the Nazis" (22). Such a foolish way to get captured. She was shuffled around and held in different cities until she finally escaped to Switzerland on foot. She was considered a prominent prisoner of war so was relatively well treated and still ate relatively well, given the wartime deprivations and also considering the horrible death camps that others were sent to.
Gertie was not a particularly likable person. She was extremely privileged and sort of callous about people as well. Her recount of her mother's death seems very unfeeling. And she certainly didn't seem particularly attached or caring to either of her children. She didn't seem bothered by the suffering during the Great Depression since she wasn't personally impacted by it. She was also racist and classist in her thinking: "For all her swashbuckling, Gertie was in some of her attitudes a creature of her country and class - casual with her prejudice in her private correspondence, comfortable in a segregated America where Jews, blacks, and other outsiders knew who sat, and who didn't, at the head table" (49).
I thought this was well written and explored an interesting if very hard to like character from history. I do wish the book had a been a bit more comprehensive. I would have loved more details on her family's background and wealth, her husband's family, and her life after the war. But the author did choose to mostly focus on her war exploits, which I understand. An unusual World War II biography that I enjoyed.
When World War II broke out, Sidney ended up stationed in Hawaii. Gertie was not content to stay at home with her children and signed on with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the intelligence agency at the time. While serving abroad with the OSS, along with some companions, Gertie decided to take a little scenic drive that ended up in Nazi occupied territory. After two in the party were shot and wounded, they had to surrender to the Nazis. "Gertrude Legendre had just become the first American woman in uniform captured by the Nazis" (22). Such a foolish way to get captured. She was shuffled around and held in different cities until she finally escaped to Switzerland on foot. She was considered a prominent prisoner of war so was relatively well treated and still ate relatively well, given the wartime deprivations and also considering the horrible death camps that others were sent to.
Gertie was not a particularly likable person. She was extremely privileged and sort of callous about people as well. Her recount of her mother's death seems very unfeeling. And she certainly didn't seem particularly attached or caring to either of her children. She didn't seem bothered by the suffering during the Great Depression since she wasn't personally impacted by it. She was also racist and classist in her thinking: "For all her swashbuckling, Gertie was in some of her attitudes a creature of her country and class - casual with her prejudice in her private correspondence, comfortable in a segregated America where Jews, blacks, and other outsiders knew who sat, and who didn't, at the head table" (49).
I thought this was well written and explored an interesting if very hard to like character from history. I do wish the book had a been a bit more comprehensive. I would have loved more details on her family's background and wealth, her husband's family, and her life after the war. But the author did choose to mostly focus on her war exploits, which I understand. An unusual World War II biography that I enjoyed.
January 6, 2026
A Guest of the Reich isn't just another World War II history book. It is a cinematic, pulse pounding narrative that reads like a thriller, with one crucial difference: every astonishing word of it is true. This is the story of Gertrude “Gertie” Legendre, and it is guaranteed to be one of the most captivating, stranger than fiction biographies you will encounter this year.
Imagine a life straight out of Fitzgerald: a Charleston heiress, a bold big game hunter, a glittering socialite of the Jazz Age. Now imagine that woman, driven by a profound sense of duty after Pearl Harbor, trading her life of luxury for the shadowy world of espionage with the OSS. Gertie Legendre was not a fictional heroine; she was the real deal, and her journey is the stuff of legend.
The heart of Finn’s masterfully researched account is Gertie’s incredible capture. While on leave in 1944, a simple wrong turn near the Luxembourg border sent her careening across Nazi front lines. In an instant, the OSS operative became a prisoner of the SS. But here’s where her story becomes utterly unique. She wasn’t thrown into a concentration camp; she was treated as a “special prisoner”, a high value American curiosity. This bizarre status granted her a terrifying, front-row seat to the violent, chaotic collapse of the Third Reich from inside its dying heart.
Finn’s prose is propulsive and immersive. He transports you into the back of the Gestapo car, into the makeshift prison cells in grand hotels, and onto the desperate roads clogged with refugees and fleeing Nazis. Through Gertie’s privileged yet perilous lens, we witness the paranoia, the infighting, and the sheer disintegration of Hitler’s regime in a way few firsthand accounts have ever captured. The tension is relentless, because her “special” status was always tenuous, a whim away from execution.
Yet, this book is more than a chronicle of captivity. It is a brilliant portrait of an extraordinary woman. Gertie Legendre’s charm, cunning, resilience, and almost preternatural cool under pressure become her greatest weapons. Her eventual escape into Switzerland is a climax worthy of the finest adventure novels, leaving you breathless with admiration.
A Guest of the Reich succeeds magnificently on two levels. First, as a meticulously detailed slice of history, shedding light on the obscure world of high level Nazi prisoners and the OSS. Second, and most powerfully, as a deeply human story of survival. It reminds us that heroes come in unexpected packages, and that grace under pressure can be the most powerful form of defiance.
For readers of The Woman Who Smashed Codes, A Train in Winter, or anyone who loves a story where a remarkable woman defies every expectation, this book is an absolute must read. Prepare to be amazed, educated, and utterly enthralled. Peter Finn has recovered a lost gem of WWII history and polished it into a narrative diamond. Don’t miss it.
Imagine a life straight out of Fitzgerald: a Charleston heiress, a bold big game hunter, a glittering socialite of the Jazz Age. Now imagine that woman, driven by a profound sense of duty after Pearl Harbor, trading her life of luxury for the shadowy world of espionage with the OSS. Gertie Legendre was not a fictional heroine; she was the real deal, and her journey is the stuff of legend.
The heart of Finn’s masterfully researched account is Gertie’s incredible capture. While on leave in 1944, a simple wrong turn near the Luxembourg border sent her careening across Nazi front lines. In an instant, the OSS operative became a prisoner of the SS. But here’s where her story becomes utterly unique. She wasn’t thrown into a concentration camp; she was treated as a “special prisoner”, a high value American curiosity. This bizarre status granted her a terrifying, front-row seat to the violent, chaotic collapse of the Third Reich from inside its dying heart.
Finn’s prose is propulsive and immersive. He transports you into the back of the Gestapo car, into the makeshift prison cells in grand hotels, and onto the desperate roads clogged with refugees and fleeing Nazis. Through Gertie’s privileged yet perilous lens, we witness the paranoia, the infighting, and the sheer disintegration of Hitler’s regime in a way few firsthand accounts have ever captured. The tension is relentless, because her “special” status was always tenuous, a whim away from execution.
Yet, this book is more than a chronicle of captivity. It is a brilliant portrait of an extraordinary woman. Gertie Legendre’s charm, cunning, resilience, and almost preternatural cool under pressure become her greatest weapons. Her eventual escape into Switzerland is a climax worthy of the finest adventure novels, leaving you breathless with admiration.
A Guest of the Reich succeeds magnificently on two levels. First, as a meticulously detailed slice of history, shedding light on the obscure world of high level Nazi prisoners and the OSS. Second, and most powerfully, as a deeply human story of survival. It reminds us that heroes come in unexpected packages, and that grace under pressure can be the most powerful form of defiance.
For readers of The Woman Who Smashed Codes, A Train in Winter, or anyone who loves a story where a remarkable woman defies every expectation, this book is an absolute must read. Prepare to be amazed, educated, and utterly enthralled. Peter Finn has recovered a lost gem of WWII history and polished it into a narrative diamond. Don’t miss it.
December 15, 2019
An interesting, little-known WWII story of the first (and only) American woman captured in uniform and held as a prisoner of war by the Germans during the last gasp of the War. Gertie Legendre served in the OSS (precursor to the CIA) in Washington and then London, running the communications desk and itching to be closer to the front lines. Her wish was seemingly granted in September 1944, when she was assigned to the newly established Paris office as the Nazis were being forced out of France. On a lark, she and two other OSS officers decided to travel to a German town right across the border, which they thought was controlled by the Allies. They had bad information, and were captured before they even reached the village.
The Germans thought she may be a spy, but they became even more interested in her when they realized she was one of the wealthiest women in America, with many prominent social and military connections (e.g. General Patton). Because of her status and gender, she was classified as a "special prisoner," with high value for potential prisoner exchanges. She entered a bizarre parallel universe of repurposed castles, hotels, and even private homes, where such special prisoners were moved around to evade the advancing Allied armies. Other prisoners in this category included former French military officers and other notables, such as the sister of Charles DeGaulle.
The author uses Gertie's story to shine a light on life in Germany right before the fall of the Reich, when many in the regime had delusions of negotiating with the Allies and somehow using Gertie as a bargaining chip. Through her eyes, we see the destruction of the country by Allied bombing campaigns, and the desperation of the people--entirely deserved, in her view.
The story of her captivity in Germany was most interesting, along with the background on the OSS and their reaction to her capture. Less interesting to me was the rest of her life story, leading up to her war service. Born to great wealth, she was a known adventurer, explorer, and hunter, providing many specimens for natural history museums from all the animals she killed. I find it hard to identify with or connect to "lifestyles of the rich and famous," so I was glad that the bulk of the book is concerned with her wartime experience.
The Germans thought she may be a spy, but they became even more interested in her when they realized she was one of the wealthiest women in America, with many prominent social and military connections (e.g. General Patton). Because of her status and gender, she was classified as a "special prisoner," with high value for potential prisoner exchanges. She entered a bizarre parallel universe of repurposed castles, hotels, and even private homes, where such special prisoners were moved around to evade the advancing Allied armies. Other prisoners in this category included former French military officers and other notables, such as the sister of Charles DeGaulle.
The author uses Gertie's story to shine a light on life in Germany right before the fall of the Reich, when many in the regime had delusions of negotiating with the Allies and somehow using Gertie as a bargaining chip. Through her eyes, we see the destruction of the country by Allied bombing campaigns, and the desperation of the people--entirely deserved, in her view.
The story of her captivity in Germany was most interesting, along with the background on the OSS and their reaction to her capture. Less interesting to me was the rest of her life story, leading up to her war service. Born to great wealth, she was a known adventurer, explorer, and hunter, providing many specimens for natural history museums from all the animals she killed. I find it hard to identify with or connect to "lifestyles of the rich and famous," so I was glad that the bulk of the book is concerned with her wartime experience.
September 30, 2021
After reading an article in The Washington Post about this upcoming book, it sounded really good and I eagerly added it to my "To Read" list at the local library (where it had already been ordered). Well, one reason the Post was so enthusiastic about this book is because it is written by one of their editors. I'm glad it was less than 200 pages (the story itself), as I didn't find it as riveting or interesting as I'd thought. The story picked up and piqued my interest as the book's subject, Gertie, got closer to being free of her Nazi captors (in the final few short chapters--all of them were short, so that was a plus). Before that, though, it was simply an account of her experiences of being moved from place to place. The photographs and the map on the end pages were a big help in aiding me in following her movements and her story, and keeping all the players mentioned straight in my mind as I read along. I could have done without the sometimes vivid descriptions of her many successful big-game hunting exploits, even though it sets up what a capable and remarkable woman she was. She doesn't come across as a very likeable person, and how she got herself and her traveling party captured by the Germans is her own, unconsidered fault--as she admits. I guess I'm glad I read this, but I can't help but come away with the feeling that I wasted my time on it. Oh well, what's done is done and I can move on. One final thought I had regarding this type of researched account was how difficult it will be for modern researchers in our time to ever put together such an account, since people no longer write letters to each other--or take photographs any way except digitally on their phones. Books like this will become a lost art, sadly.
November 24, 2019
This in many ways is a fascinating true story of WWII. Peter Finn tells the story of Gertrude Legendre, a rich woman from the New York area who travels the world and has many adventures,including a number of hunting trips to faraway places. As interesting a story that I have ever read about WWII but I could not identify with ' Gertie '....her view of the world from up at the pinnacle of society doesn't allow her to accept people of Latino or African-American backgrounds. It is a pompous view which detracts from her value as a decent person.
However the story she tells of her exploring France after the Americans and the British liberated Paris in late 1944 is fascinating. She travels eastward from Paris where she and 2 friends are captured by the Germans. Until she is released , she tells an accurate tale of what Eastern France was like in the late 1944s and into 1945. After she is captured, she is brought through a number of German cities ending up in Berlin. The German Army keeps her secure and safe because they think she may be a valuable asset in their resistance to the approaching British and American forces. Gertie keeps a diary and this helps in recreating her story when the war ends and she survives and is able to tell her tale.
It is a remarkable detailed story which Peter Finn brings to life. The research that Finn has done to bring this story to life is amazing. As a history buff of WWII, I thoroughly enjoyed this story.
However the story she tells of her exploring France after the Americans and the British liberated Paris in late 1944 is fascinating. She travels eastward from Paris where she and 2 friends are captured by the Germans. Until she is released , she tells an accurate tale of what Eastern France was like in the late 1944s and into 1945. After she is captured, she is brought through a number of German cities ending up in Berlin. The German Army keeps her secure and safe because they think she may be a valuable asset in their resistance to the approaching British and American forces. Gertie keeps a diary and this helps in recreating her story when the war ends and she survives and is able to tell her tale.
It is a remarkable detailed story which Peter Finn brings to life. The research that Finn has done to bring this story to life is amazing. As a history buff of WWII, I thoroughly enjoyed this story.
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