The Secret Front. By Wilhelm Hoettl. (Weidenfeld and Nicholson. 21s.)
Ir anyone still believes that the German war effort was a well co-ordinated whole, or that her eastern satellites ever acted in effective concert, except, at times, against Russia— this book should disabuse them. Its sole Interest is in the subject-matter, on which the author, who held high rank in the German Secret Service, had rare facilities for know- ledge, and which, being Austrian-born, he is Well placed to interpret without prejudice (except against the axiomatic enemy, Russia). Some of his episodes are explosively contro- versial, notably Tito's offer, inspired by Stalin, to join the Germans in repelling any attempted Allied landing on the Dalmatian coast; some—like the spectacle of the Italian partisans selling their British arms to the Germans, who paid for them in forged Pound notes and used them against the Partisans themselves—are fadedly grotesque. Mussolini emerges feebly in his so-called Pontine Musings; indeed all the major Axis paladins, except the unspeakable IleVdrich, exhibit a weakness of brain and !yin-power that even now seems vaguely unprobable, though hard to disprove.
The dominant note is of confusion, divided loyalties and universal bewilderment at the Anglo-American refusal to protect their enemies from Russia.
H. M. C.
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