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From Spain to Syria, the thrilling, untold history of Nazi
fugitives turned postwar agents-for America, the Soviets, the Third
World, or themselves. After the Second World War, the Allies vowed
to hunt Nazi war criminals "to the ends of the earth." Yet many
slipped away-or were shielded by the West, in exchange for
cooperation in the unfolding confrontation with Communism. Reinhard
Gehlen, founder of West German foreign intelligence, welcomed SS
operatives into the fold, overestimating their supposed
capabilities. This shortsighted decision nearly brought down his
cherished service, as the KGB found his Nazi operatives easy to
turn or expose. However, Gehlen was hardly alone in this cynical
strategy; the American, Soviet, French and Israeli secret
services-and nationalist organisations and independence
movements-all used former Nazi operatives in the early Cold War.
Nazi fugitives became freelance arms traffickers, spies, and
assassins, playing crucial roles in the clandestine contest between
the superpowers. From posh German restaurants, smuggler-infested
Yugoslav ports, and fascist holdouts in Franco's Spain to Damascene
safehouses and Egyptian country clubs, these spies created a busy
network of influence and information, a uniquely combustible
ingredient in the covert struggles of the postwar decades.
Unearthing newly declassified revelations from Mossad and other
archives, historian Danny Orbach reveals this long-forgotten arena
of the Cold War, and its colourful cast of characters. Shrouded in
official secrecy, clouded by myth and propaganda, the extraordinary
tale of these Nazi agents has never been properly told-until now.
Imperial Japanese soldiers were notorious for blindly following
orders, and their enemies in the Pacific War derided them as
"cattle to the slaughter." But, in fact, the Japanese Army had a
long history as one of the most disobedient armies in the world.
Officers repeatedly staged coups d'états, violent insurrections,
and political assassinations; their associates defied orders given
by both the government and the general staff, launched independent
military operations against other countries, and in two notorious
cases conspired to assassinate foreign leaders despite direct
orders to the contrary.In Curse on This Country, Danny Orbach
explains the culture of rebellion in the Japanese armed forces. It
was a culture created by a series of seemingly innocent decisions,
each reasonable in its own right, which led to a gradual weakening
of Japanese government control over its army and navy. The
consequences were dire, as the armed forces dragged the government
into more and more of China across the 1930s—a culture of
rebellion that made the Pacific War possible. Orbach argues that
brazen defiance, rather than blind obedience, was the motive force
of modern Japanese history.Curse on This Country follows a series
of dramatic events: assassinations in the dark corners of Tokyo,
the famous rebellion of Saigō Takamori, the "accidental" invasion
of Taiwan, the Japanese ambassador’s plot to murder the queen of
Korea, and the military-political crisis in which the Japanese
prime minister "changed colors." Finally, through the sinister
plots of the clandestine Cherry Blossom Society, we follow the
deterioration of Japan into chaos, fascism, and world war.
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