Research Catalog

Title

Return to the Reich : a Holocaust refugee's secret mission to defeat the Nazis / Eric Lichtblau.

Author

Lichtblau, Eric

Publication

• Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019.
• ©2019

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiii, 288 pages, 8 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"The remarkable story of Fred Mayer, a German-born Jew who escaped Nazi Germany only to return as an American commando on a secret mission behind enemy lines. Growing up in Germany, Freddy Mayer witnessed the Nazis' rise to power. When he was sixteen, his family made the decision to flee to the United States--they were among the last German Jews to escape, in 1938. In America, Freddy tried enlisting the day after Pearl Harbor, only to be rejected as an "enemy alien" because he was German. He was soon recruited to the OSS, the country's first spy outfit before the CIA. Freddy, joined by Dutch Jewish refugee Hans Wynberg and Nazi defector Franz Weber, parachuted into Austria as the leader of Operation Greenup, meant to deter Hitler's last stand. He posed as a Nazi officer and a French POW for months, dispatching reports to the OSS via Hans, holed up with a radio in a nearby attic. The reports contained a goldmine of information, provided key intelligence about the Battle of the Bulge, and allowed the Allies to bomb twenty Nazi trains. On the verge of the Allied victory, Freddy was captured by the Gestapo and tortured and waterboarded for days. Remarkably, he persuaded the Nazi commander for the region to surrender, completing one of the most successful OSS missions of the war. Based on years of research and interviews with Mayer himself, whom the author was able to meet only months before his death at the age of ninety-four, Return to the Reich is an eye-opening, unforgettable narrative of World War II heroism"--

Subject

• Mayer, Frederick, 1921-2016
• United States. Office of Strategic Services > Officials and employees > Biography
• United States. Office of Strategic Services
• World War (1939-1945)
• 1900-1999
• Spies > United States > Biography
• Jews > Germany > Freiburg im Breisgau > Biography
• World War, 1939-1945 > Secret service > United States
• World War, 1939-1945 > Underground movements > Austria
• Espionage, American > Europe > History > 20th century
• HISTORY / Military / World War II
• HISTORY / Holocaust
• Employees
• Espionage, American
• Jews
• Secret service
• Spies
• Underground movements, War
• Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany) > Biography
• Austria
• Europe
• Germany > Freiburg im Breisgau
• United States

Genre/Form

• Biographies.
• History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Introduction -- Prologue -- A German boy -- Enemy alien -- The cloak-and-dagger brigade -- The third man -- The drop -- The glacier -- "Franz Weber sent me" -- The Führer's bunker -- The birth of a Frenchman -- "Take Innsbruck" -- The water treatment -- A white flag -- Epilogue: After the fall.

Call Number

JFE 20-1449

ISBN

• 9781328528537
• 1328528537

LCCN

• 2019009834
• 40029464979

OCLC

1080245757

Author

Lichtblau, Eric, author.

Title

Return to the Reich : a Holocaust refugee's secret mission to defeat the Nazis / Eric Lichtblau.

Publisher

Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019.

Copyright Date

©2019

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Chronological Term

1900-1999

Other Form:

Online version: Lichtblau, Eric, author. Return to the Reich Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019 9781328529909 (DLC) 2019011526

Other Standard Identifier

40029464979

Research Call Number

JFE 20-1449