Nazi Spies in America: Hitler's Undercover War

Despite it's choppiness and a tendency to fall into clichéed prose, this book is a remarkable recounting on Nazi espionage efforts in the United States, during, and well before WWII. Beginning in the 1920s, and proceeding in brief, 5-10 page, chapters, the book provides an exhaustive overview of the individual spies and their methods, as well as the American response. From the very start, modern readers will be amazed at how unsecured American industrial and military sites were at the time. Throughout the book, virtual amateur agents are able to bluff their way onto military bases, aviation plants, and the like, and are able to extract the most detailed information to pass along to Germany. Not until the FBI got fully organized in counterespionage and the U.S. entered the war, were such transparent ploys regularly detected and thwarted. A simple, but effective ploy was for the Gestapo to pick up a German-American visiting in Germany and threaten the safety of his family still in Germany unless he returned to the US and acted as a spy. Often, these unwilling agents were men who worked in industries vital to war efforts, and would thus have access to valuable data. Another avenue for espionage was through the main Germanic cultural organization in the US, the German-American Bund. Bruer recounted how the Bund was a ready-made support apparatus for Nazi espionage. More alarming is his detailing of covert Nazi propaganda efforts in the US domestic debate to keep America out of the war for as long as possible and portray Roosevelt as a warmongering lackey of the British. Another somewhat surprising revelation (to this reader at least), is the prominent role Nazi agents had in supplying information to Japanese intelligence about Pearl Harbor as far back as 1938. In addition to the exploits in America, the book does a decent job at explaining how different elements within the Third Reich had their own spymasters, agents and agendas for espionage in America. Bruer does admirably in drawing from FBI files, but certain episodes too often feel like condensations of other people's material. Former FBI agent Leon Turrou's 1969 book, "The Nazi Spy Conspiracy in America" and Ladislas Farago's 1971 book "The Game of Foxes" being two such examples. And while the writing moves things along at a rapid pace, one wishes for a bit more of a rigorous historical and social framework. Many of the episodes recounted would be interesting in greater detail, and there's fodder for many an article or movie in these pages. Well worth the time of any reader with an interest in WWII.