An Epic of the Gestapo

by Paul Henry Dukes

284 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1940

Reviews

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1940, this is an interesting combination of memoir and mystery based on the author's own on-site investigation into the death of a prominent Czech business man who was attempting to flee Czechoslovakia in April 1939. Written in a first person style that is similar to 'Red Dusk and the Morrow', the book is somewhat slow-paced but holds one's interest throughout. As might be expected in a work by Paul Dukes, the book also includes the author's views on authoritarianism, the National Socialist movement in Germany, the Gestapo and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. Fans of Paul Dukes might enjoy this one... even though it's not a page-turner.

[Chris Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary true account of the author's investigation in 1939 of the disappearance of Alfred Obry (not his real name), a Czechoslovakian businessman attempting to flee Prague after falling out with the occupying Nazis. The extraordinary aspect of the story is the way in which the author both cooperates with and threatens the Gestapo in seeking access to information and evidence about Obry's ultimate fate. This is not the Gestapo of post war films or comedy programmes but the real everyday intelligence service implementing a brutal regime in an occupied country. Gestapo officials are presented as human beings with the normal vanities and also redeeming features and yet the sense of terror and menace is everywhere.
The story itself is interesting and takes us through Prague, Vienna, Berlin and London in the immediate pre war months showing something of public attitudes and fear of the Nazis. We hear about the economic controls and the limits on personal freedom. We hear something of German attitudes to the English.
The bigger story told in the book is about what it's like to live in a totalitarian society with control and surveillance everywhere. That Russian State Communism and Nazism are just two routes to the same totalitarian type of society is a recurring theme, emphasised by the agreement of the German-Russian Pact which takes everyone by surprise and opens the way to Germany's invasion of Poland.
The book is sub-titled "The Story of a Strange Search" and it certainly is! Well worth reading.

[Poppy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Men like this are few and far between. I've read Red Dusk and the Morrow (the author's adventures in Russia during the time of revolution): that alone highlights the high-standing of Sir Paul Dukes.

Twenty years later, whilst comfy in London, alone, without support and for no other reason than to quell the concerns of the parents of a young man who has disappeared in Czechoslovakia, he sets out to face and outwit the Gestapo. He does, who would doubt him, run circles around the thugs and return to London.

Sir Paul Dukes was an incredible man: this is an incredible story.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you, Mary, for this:

I doubt there are words to adequately describe this man's integrity. This 'adventure' 'dangerous undertaking' happened years on from his time in Russia during the revolution; a time for which he was knighted (the only man ever knighted for his efforts on behalf of the intelligence services), I must point you to:
Red Dusk and the Morrow (Paul's account of that time). It really is worth reading before you read this; not that this is too easy to get your hands on.

Safely stationed in London, Sir Paul Dukes is approached by the parents of a young man who it seems has disappeared whilst in Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia. Sit quietly with the thought of that for a brief moment: would you put your life on the line and undertake an incredibly risky foray for people you have never met just so they might get some closure on the fate of their boy?

I don't feel I need to say anymore; I am in awe of this man. I have his framed picture on my bedside table.