02870cam a2200361 i 4500 391821827 TxAuBib 20191025120000.0 190307s2019||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2019009834 9781328528537 28.00 1328528537 28.00 eng rda TxAuBib rda Lichtblau, Eric. Return to the Reich [BOOK] : a Holocaust refugee's secret mission to defeat the Nazis / Eric Lichtblau. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019. xiii, 288 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references and index. Growing up in Germany, Freddy Mayer witnessed the Nazis' rise to power. When he was sixteen, his family made the decision to flee to the United States-they were among the last German Jews to escape, in 1938. In America, Freddy tried enlisting the day after Pearl Harbor, only to be rejected as an “enemy alien” because he was German. He was soon recruited to the OSS, the country's first spy outfit before the CIA. Freddy, joined by Dutch Jewish refugee Hans Wynberg and Nazi defector Franz Weber, parachuted into Austria as the leader of Operation Greenup, meant to deter Hitler's last stand. He posed as a Nazi officer and a French POW for months, dispatching reports to the OSS via Hans, holed up with a radio in a nearby attic. The reports contained a goldmine of information, provided key intelligence about the Battle of the Bulge, and allowed the Allies to bomb twenty Nazi trains. On the verge of the Allied victory, Freddy was captured by the Gestapo and tortured and waterboarded for days. Remarkably, he persuaded the Nazi commander for the region to surrender, completing one of the most successful OSS missions of the war. Based on years of research and interviews with Mayer himself, whom the author was able to meet only months before his death at the age of ninety-four, Return to the Reich is an eye-opening, unforgettable narrative of World War II heroism. Provided by publisher. 20191025. Mayer, Frederick 1921-2016. United States Office of Strategic Services Officials and employees Biography. Jews Germany Freiburg im Breisgau Biography. Espionage, American Europe History 20th century. World War, 1939-1945 Secret service United States. World War, 1939-1945 Underground movements Austria. Spies United States Biography. Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany) Biography. Biographies.