By a world renowned specialist in intelligence history. The best and definitive book on the subject.

When the curtains fell on the 'Thousand-Year Reich', in May 1945, SS-Brigadefuhrer Walter Schellenberg left for neutral Stockholm, only to be takn shortly thereafter to Frankfurt and London for interogating. The 'Final Report' on the Case of Walter Schellenberg is the revealing product of those Allied interogations. Reinhard R Doerries has written the first scholarly appraisal of Schellenberg as a Nazi leader and Hitler's final head of foreign intelligence.

'Whenever I was on missions abroad I was under standing orders to have an artificial tooth inserted which contained enough poison to kill me within thirty seconds if I were captured. To make doubly sure, I wore a signet-ring in which, under a large blue stone, a gold capsule was hidden containing cyanide.' - Walter Schellenberg.

A remarkable tale of espionage and intrigue—the true story of Hitler’s intelligence chief and his role in the conspiracy to assassinate the Führer. Admiral Wilhelm Canaris was appointed by Adolf Hitler to head the Abwehr (the German secret service) eighteen months after the Nazis came to power. But Canaris turned against the Fu¨hrer and the Nazi regime, believing that Hitler would start a war Germany could not win. In 1938 he was involved in an attempted coup, undermined by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. In 1940 he sabotaged the German plan to invade England, and fed General Franco vital information that helped him keep Spain out of the war. For years he played a dangerous double game, desperately trying to keep one step ahead of the Gestapo. The SS chief, Heinrich Himmler, became suspicious of Canaris and by 1944, when Abwehr personnel were involved in the attempted assassination of Hitler, he had the evidence to arrest Canaris himself. Canaris was executed a few weeks before the end of the war. In a riveting true story of intrigue and espionage, Richard Bassett reveals how Admiral Canaris’s secret work against the German leadership changed the course of World War II.

This unique account of Hitler's corrupt regime illuminates more vividly than any other the deepening atmosphere of terror and unreality in which the Nazi leadership lived as the war progressed. Schellenberg recounts with firsthand knowledge the motivations and machinations surrounding the Nazi Army's every move in Poland, Austria, and Russia. But this remarkable inside account is perhaps most memorable for its riveting portraits of Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler, Heinrich Mueller, Ernst Kaltenbrunner—men whom Schellenberg calls, with stunning lack of irony, ”Hitler's willing executioners.”

Gaining a foothold -- Rising star -- Intelligence man -- Office VI and its forerunner -- Competing visions: Office VI and the Abwehr -- Doing intelligence: Italy as an example -- Alternative universes: Office VI and the Auswärtige Amt -- Schellenberg, Himmler, and the quest for "peace"--Postwar