THE INFILTRATORS THE LOVERS WHO LED GERMANY’S RESISTANCE AGAINST THE NAZIS

NORMAN OHLER, TRANS TIM MOHR AND MARSHALL YARBROUGH Atlantic, 292pp, £20

‘We may think we live in dark times,’ Rupert Christiansen wrote in the

Telegraph, ‘but here is black barbarity beyond imagining.’ ‘It’s a filthy world,’ Philippe Sands agreed in the Spectator. ‘That’s what makes the resisters so rare and so fascinating.... Their story is a timely reminder of what some citizens are willing to do in the face of autocracy and oppression that once again haunts our times.’

‘This is a book that will appeal to anyone who relishes Ben Macintyre’s tales of wartime espionage and cryptic codes, underpinned by terrifying risk, desperate courage, and double dealing,’ Christiansen enthused.

This story of two Berlin intellectuals, Libertas Haas-heye and Harro Schulze-boysen, who fell in love and worked to undermine the Nazi war effort, ‘is deeply engaging, enticingly written and extremely affecting’, Sands wrote, noting that Ohler uses a prodigious amount of ‘original and fascinating material’, including letters, to great effect.

Schulze-boysen, a former student rebel badly beaten by the Nazis, pretended remorse and infiltrated the system in order to sabotage the regime. He and Haas-heye, whose youthful membership of the Nazi party provided useful camouflage, drew into their orbit a fluid and amorphous group of people from across the social spectrum opposed to the Nazis. As a Luftwaffe officer he received valuable material, including the invasion plans for Russia. ‘All this was passed on and was, potentially, his most valuable blow against Hitler and the Nazis,’ Roger Boyes noted in the Times. Unfortunately, Stalin dismissed the intelligence as disinformation. The couple were guillotined.

‘Great heroism is properly honoured here,’ Christiansen concluded: ‘Ohler has done his research diligently and he has an enthralling story to tell.’