So startling and dramatic are these memoirs, the entire history of World War II will have to be rewritten because of them. Gehlen's revelations cannot fail to embarrass governments, cast doubts on famous leaders and causes, frighteningly underscore the fantastic power of espionage in world affairs. The Service is the memoir of General Reinhard Gehlen, legendary spymaster-in-chief, Hitler's head of military espionage in Russia who, as the war ended, transferred his mammoth files and network of spies to the service of the United States, ultimately to become chief of the official West German intelligence agency.

“An extraordinary account of a young boy caught up in the middle of a war . . . frank and even funny at times . . . utterly absorbing” (Books Monthly). This is the wartime memoir of a boy named Will, who happened to be the nephew of the head of Nazi Germany’s intelligence agency. The author, only ten years old when the war began, became a helper at the local Luftwaffe flak battery, fetching ammunition. It was exciting work for Will, a member of the “Jungvolk,” and by the end of the war, he had become expert at judging attacks. As fighter raids increased in frequency, he noted that the pilots became less skilled. Gehlen’s town was repeatedly bombed, and he often had to help with the wreckage or to pull survivors from basements. He witnessed more death than a child ever should; nevertheless, his flak battery continued firing until US tanks were almost on top of the position. In this book, Gehlen provides an intimate glimpse of the chaos, horror, and black humor of life just behind the front lines. As seen through the eyes of a child who was expert in aircraft identification and bomb weights, food-rationing and tank types, one encounters a view of life inside Hitler’s wartime Reich that is both fascinating and rare. “Although the memories Gehlen shares are narrow, and offer little insight into the Reich itself, they’re remarkable for the child’s perspective they bring to bear on a warring country’s ferocious struggle.” —Publishers Weekly “A real gem, a quiet tour de force . . . Despite its serious subject matter the book reads as an adventure story from start to finish.” —Military Modelling

A “candid and revealing memoir shows a normal boy and a family at war and in its aftermath, determined to do what it took to survive . . . fascinating” (The Great War). When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came into power in 1933, he promised the downtrodden, demoralized, and economically broken people of Germany a new beginning and a strong future. Millions flocked to his message, including a corps of young people called the Hitlerjugend—the Hitler Youth. By 1942 Hitler had transformed Germany into a juggernaut of war that swept over Europe and threatened to conquer the world. It was in that year that a nine-year-old Wilhelm Reinhard Gehlen, took the ‘Jungvolk’ oath, vowing to give his life for Hitler. This is the story of Wilhelm Gehlen’s childhood in Nazi Germany during World War II and the awful circumstances which he and his friends and family had to endure during and following the war. Including a handful of recipes and descriptions of the strange and sometimes disgusting food that nevertheless kept people alive, this book sheds light on the truly awful conditions and the twisted, mistaken devotion held by members of the Hitler Youth—that it was their duty to do everything possible to save the Thousand Year Reich.

This chronicle of espionage, drug smuggling, and elitism in Yale University's Skull & Bones society offers rare glimpses into this secret world with previously unpublished documents, photographs, and articles that delve into issues such as racism, financial ties to the Nazi party, and illegal corporate dealings. Contributors include Anthony Sutton, author of America's Secret Establishment; Dr. Ralph Bunch, professor emeritus of political science at Portland State University; Webster Griffin Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin, authors and historians. A complete list of members, including George Bush, George W. Bush, and John F. Kerry, and reprints of rare magazine articles are included.

In the Allies' post-war analyses of the Nazis' defeat, the "weakness and incompetence" of the German intelligence services figured prominently. And how could it have been otherwise, when they worked at the whim of a regime in the grip of "ignorant maniacs"? But what if, Robert Hutchinson asks, the worldviews of the intelligence services and the "ignorant maniacs" aligned more closely than these analyses—and subsequent studies—assumed? What if the reports of the German foreign intelligence services, rather than being dismissed by ideologues who "knew better," instead served to reinforce the National Socialist worldview? Returning to these reports, examining the information on enemy nations that was gathered, processed, and presented to leaders in the Nazi state, Hutchinson's study reveals the consequences of the politicization of German intelligence during the war—as well as the persistence of ingrained prejudices among the intelligence services' Cold War successors. Closer scrutiny of underutilized and unpublished reports shows how during the World War II the German intelligence services supported widely-held assumptions among the Nazi elite that Britain was politically and morally bankrupt, that the Soviet Union was tottering militarily and racially inferior, and that the United States' vast economic potential was undermined by political, cultural, and racial degeneration. Furthermore, Hutchinson argues, these distortions continued as German intelligence veterans parlayed their supposed expertise on the Soviet Union into positions of prominence in Western intelligence in the early years of the Cold War. With its unique insights into the impact of ideology on wartime and post-war intelligence, his book raises important questions not only about how intelligence reports can influence policy decisions, but also about the subjective nature of intelligence gathering itself.

In 1955, after assignments at the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and on board a destroyer, Marvin Durning arrived at ONI's office in Munich, Germany. During this year, he participated in the final stages of transforming Germany from a defeated enemy into a respected democracy, reestablishing its sovereignty, and shepherding its membership in NATO, which also involved rearming America's erstwhile foe. At that time, Munich, like Berlin, was a nerve center for the Cold War. It was crowded with U.S. troops and German and Slav refugees. Radio Free Europe called it home. The city was, Durning writes, "a jungle of competing secret intelligence organizations: British, French, American, Russian, West and East German, Czech, Polish, and others." Beneath the calm surface of everyday life in Munich roamed agents and double agents who witnessed defections, kidnappings, interrogations that ended in death, and assassinations by bomb explosions and by poison dart. World Turned Upside Down is Durning's account of such activities. Durning served as the de facto executive officer of a small office of German intelligence specialists tasked with routine navy issues. But much more was underway. Known only to his commander, himself, and the yeoman who typed the reports, former admirals of the defunct German Kriegsmarine attended secret meetings at his commander's house in the suburbs of Munich, where they worked to plan and create a future West German Navy. In addition, Durning served as a liaison officer to the Gehlen Organization, the supersecret German intelligence and espionage organization, and he recounts their activities here.