Codeword: Direktor: the story of the Red Orchestra; [German]

by Heinz Hohne

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: German
• ISBN: 0436200678
• ISBN13: 9780436200670
• Release Date: January 1971
• Publisher: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan
• Length: 295 Pages
• Weight: 2.15 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The work of a true historian

During the second world war, the communists did set a very large spy ring operating against the Nazis which the head of the Gestapo Heydrich gave the name of Red Orchestra. The French group of Trepper got liquidated between the autumn 1941 and August 1942, the Belgium group of Victor "Kent" Sukulov in December 1941 and the "Bordo" group in July/August 1942. The "Hilda" Dutch ring fell in August 1942, and the German ring of Harro Schulze-Boysen 'Choro" was exterminated at about the same period and just before the "Arwid" group of Arvid Harnak. The Swiss Dora group of Sandor Rado, ALexander Foote, and Rudof Roessler was stopped for some time as from 1943 by Masson the head of Swiss Intelligencce Service.Nowadays the incredible history of the Red Orchestra, which surpasses fiction, is twisted by politics (communists, ex-nazis, democrats...), by nationalistic aspects (Russians, French, Swiss, Belgians, Germans) and by the Allied victors. There are accounts by surviving actors (Trepper, Rado, Roeder, Foote, Puenter, Sudoplatov...) There are however, to this day, only three serious purely historical relations: the CIA report, V. E. Tarrant's book and Heinz Hoehne's account. The German historian has supplied the most accurate and exhaustive account on this incredible spy ring. Pierre Accoce and Pierre Quet's book made romantic assumptions which were demonstrated ot be false and the author had to admit their fabrications. K. Bienal and L. Krausher focused on the German branch of the spy ring. Louis Kilzer's work is fascinating but it makes an assumption it doesn't succeed sustaining. Gilles Perrault is too focused on the Franco-Belgium part of the Orchestra. Anthony Read and David Fisher are trying to recuperate the Red Orchestra for Ultra which for some British writers was the second world war "deus ex machina". Some other interesting books are written in German or in French and are not translated.Heinz HOEHNE'S book is the most accurate of the books on the Red Orchestra. Read it first, and then read some books by the actors: first Leopold Treper, then Sandor Rado, then Alexander Foote and then Otto Puenter. After that, if you still have question, you can go for details in the CIA and Tarrant books. We are taught that this the network illustrates a great victory for the allies, but reading through these books tend to show that it was a drama for us and a great victory for Walter Schellenberg's Nazi counter-espionage, and Heinrich Mueller's Gestapo boutchers. With Kilzer and Perrault's books, this is the most pleasant book to read on the subject. Don't miss it.