The Infiltrators

by Norman Ohler

Atlantic 320pp £20

The Week Bookshop £15.99

Subtitled The Lovers Who Led Germany’s

Resistance Against the Nazis, this book will appeal to anyone who relishes wartime tales of “terrifying risk, desperate courage and double-dealing”, said Rupert Christiansen in The Daily Telegraph. Its central figure is Harro Schulze-Boysen, a student journalist who, after being beaten up by Brownshirts, joined Germany’s air ministry to gain access to classified documents and pass them on to the Russians. He and his wife, Libertas Haas-Heye, went on to build an effective but doomed network which, unusually, was glued together by friendship rather than ideology. Ohler’s account of it is both enthralling and diligently researched: “great heroism is properly honoured here”.

German historians usually write about such resistance heroes with “capdoffing reverence”, so it’s refreshing to have them shown as flawed and sensual, said Roger Boyes in The Times. Schulze-Boysen came from a smart Prussian family, but was a bohemian at heart; he and Haas-Heye gave wild parties to collect information and work out – “in between the very active sexual activities of their circle” – who could be trusted. Ohler, however, never sensationalises or trivialises their work: this is a carefully annotated and precisely sourced record. It’s also a brilliantly told story of love, courage and the balance of a relationship, said Philippe Sands in The Spectator, with the couple’s own letters forming the “beating heart” of the narrative. The risks they took were enormous: SchulzeBoysen even got his hands on early plans for the invasion of Russia. “Please do not worry on my behalf,” he told his parents. “The length of a life is no measure.” Ohler’s book is a vital reminder of the courage people have to muster when faced with the kind of autocracy that “once again haunts our times”.