The Secret War with Germany: Deception, Espionage, and Dirty Tricks 1939-1945
by William B. Breuer
Presidio (1 January 1988)
What’s it about?: Soldier, journalist, and military historian William Breuer‘s account of espionage and counter-espionage between the Allied and Axis powers during World War II. Not war fought on the battlefield, but behind the scenes.
My opinion: Not bad at all. Another work on the topic of intelligence and counterintelligence in World War II, sitting nicely alongside Anthony Cave Brown’s Bodyguard of Lies. Breuer was prolific in his works on military history, and The Secret War with Germany provides all manner of stories on sabotage, subversion, kidnapping, assassination, and the patriotism and treachery behind it all. And not just these various acts, but how espionage evolved as a practice over the course of the war.
This was another text that I thoroughly enjoyed for all of its “dirty secrets exposed.” It’s not as violent or graphic as other historical texts, it just gets into how each group approached their missions, their methods of intelligence, and the constant struggle to keep on top of the enemy. It’s that kind of military history, which is more than fine by me.
But unlike other authors on military history and strategy, Breuer kept his writing as short and as terse as possible. Each entry is half a page to two pages in length. Not to gloss over events and how we understand them, but to convey what happened to the reader without bogging them down in excessive detail. History buffs can debate whether a text like this should be denser and more thorough, but I found The Secret War with Germany to be a refreshing change of pace in this regard.
Whether you’re going from start to finish or just pulling up the occasional chapter or passage, The Secret War with Germany is definitely worthy. It might not be the most thorough, but you can do far worse.
Lawrence Deveney 