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The Shadow War Against Hitler: The Covert Operations of America's Wartime Secret Intelligence Service
Surveying the expanding conflict in Europe during one of his famous fireside chats in 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt ominously warned that "we know of other methods, new methods of attack. The Trojan horse. The fifth column that betrays a nation unprepared for treachery. Spies, saboteurs, and traitors are the actors in this new strategy." Having identified a new type of war―a shadow war―being perpetrated by Hitler's Germany, FDR decided to fight fire with fire, authorizing the formation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to organize and oversee covert operations. Based on an extensive analysis of OSS records, including the vast trove of records released by the CIA in the 1980s and '90s, as well as a new set of interviews with OSS veterans conducted by the author and a team of American scholars from 1995 to 1997, The Shadow War Against Hitler is the full story of America's far-flung secret intelligence apparatus during World War II.
In addition to its responsibilities generating, processing, and interpreting intelligence information, the OSS orchestrated all manner of dark operations, including extending feelers to anti-Hitler elements, infiltrating spies and sabotage agents behind enemy lines, and implementing propaganda programs. Planned and directed from Washington, the anti-Hitler campaign was largely conducted in Europe, especially through the OSS's foreign outposts in Bern and London. A fascinating cast of characters made the OSS William J. Donovan, one of the most decorated individuals in the American military who became the driving force behind the OSS's genesis; Allen Dulles, the future CIA chief who ran the Bern office, which he called "the big window onto the fascist world"; a veritable pantheon of Ivy League academics who were recruited to work for the intelligence services; and, not least, Roosevelt himself. A major contribution of the book is the story of how FDR employed Hitler's former propaganda chief, Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstengl, as a private spy.
More than a record of dramatic incidents and daring personalities, this book adds significantly to our understanding of how the United States fought World War II. It demonstrates that the extent, and limitations, of secret intelligence information shaped not only the conduct of the war but also the face of the world that emerged from the shadows.
In addition to its responsibilities generating, processing, and interpreting intelligence information, the OSS orchestrated all manner of dark operations, including extending feelers to anti-Hitler elements, infiltrating spies and sabotage agents behind enemy lines, and implementing propaganda programs. Planned and directed from Washington, the anti-Hitler campaign was largely conducted in Europe, especially through the OSS's foreign outposts in Bern and London. A fascinating cast of characters made the OSS William J. Donovan, one of the most decorated individuals in the American military who became the driving force behind the OSS's genesis; Allen Dulles, the future CIA chief who ran the Bern office, which he called "the big window onto the fascist world"; a veritable pantheon of Ivy League academics who were recruited to work for the intelligence services; and, not least, Roosevelt himself. A major contribution of the book is the story of how FDR employed Hitler's former propaganda chief, Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstengl, as a private spy.
More than a record of dramatic incidents and daring personalities, this book adds significantly to our understanding of how the United States fought World War II. It demonstrates that the extent, and limitations, of secret intelligence information shaped not only the conduct of the war but also the face of the world that emerged from the shadows.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
22 people want to read
About the author
Christof Mauch
41 booksChristof Mauch is a German historian, presently director of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich, and since 2007 professor of American Cultural History and Transatlantic Relations at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich.
He received his doctorate in Modern German Literature from the University of Tübingen in 1990, and his Dr. phil. in Modern History in 1998 from the University of Cologne. He has published and edited many books in the fields of U.S. and German History and Environmental History. From 1999 to 2007, he was the director of the German Historical Institute in Washington D.C.. From 2009 to 2011, he was Chair of the Board of Director of the International Consortium of Environmental History Organizations (ICEHO) and from 2011-2013 President of the European Society for Environmental History. In May 2013, he was appointed Honorary Professor at Renmin University, Beijing.
He received his doctorate in Modern German Literature from the University of Tübingen in 1990, and his Dr. phil. in Modern History in 1998 from the University of Cologne. He has published and edited many books in the fields of U.S. and German History and Environmental History. From 1999 to 2007, he was the director of the German Historical Institute in Washington D.C.. From 2009 to 2011, he was Chair of the Board of Director of the International Consortium of Environmental History Organizations (ICEHO) and from 2011-2013 President of the European Society for Environmental History. In May 2013, he was appointed Honorary Professor at Renmin University, Beijing.
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