Nazi Princess

Born to a middle-class Viennese family and of partly Jewish descent, after marriage to (and divorce from) a German prince Stephanie von Hohenlohe became a close confidante of Hitler, Göring, Himmler (who declared her an 'honorary Aryan') and von Ribbentrop. After arriving in London in 1932, she moved in the most exclusive circles, arranging the visits of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Lord Halifax to Germany in 1937. Most notoriously, she was paid a retainer of £5,000 per year by Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror, who was an open supporter of the Nazi regime. In 1939 she fled to the USA; a memo to President Roosevelt described her as a spy 'more dangerous than ten thousand men.' In this new biography, Jim Wilson uses recently declassified MI5 files and FBI memos to examine what motivated both Stephanie and Rothermere, shedding light on the murky goings-on behind the scenes in Britain, Germany and the USA before and during the Second World War.

‘Hold on to this letter, so that it will be evidence of how accurately I have kept you informed. I’m serious; don’t throw this letter away.’ BORN the illegitimate daughter of Jewish parents, Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe would rise to dizzying heights in international politics, hobnobbing with European royalty, British aristocracy – and high-ranking Nazis. She was the unofficial go-between for some of the most important people of the era, conveying secret messages and organising meetings between Adolf Hitler, Lord Rothermere, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and more than one US president. She would even be one of only a handful of women to be awarded the Nazi Party’s Gold Medal for ‘outstanding service to the National Socialist movement’. But then the Second World War began, and everything changed. Hitler’s Spy Princess is a tale of lovers and manipulation, cleverness and deceit in the remarkable life of the woman Hitler called his ‘dear princess’.

"Princess Marie Adelheid of Lippe-Biesterfeld was a rebellious young writer who became a fervent Nazi. Heinrich Vogeler was a well-regarded artist who was to join the German Communist Party. Ludwig Roselius was a successful businessman who had made a fortune from his invention of decaffeinated coffee. What was it about the revolutionary climate following World War I that induced three such different personalities to collaborate in the production of a slim volume of poetry -- entitled Gott in mir -- about the indwelling of the divine within the human? Lionel Gossman's study situates this poem in the ideological context that made the collaboration possible. The study also outlines the subsequent life of the Princess who, until her death in 1993, continued to support and celebrate the ideals and heroes of National Socialism"--Publisher's description.

About the participation of German women in World War II and in the Holocaust.

The link between Hitler's Third Reich and European royalty has gone largely unexplored due to the secrecy surrounding royal families. Jonathan Petropoulos uses unprecedented access to royal archives to tell the fascinating story of the Princes of Hesse and the important role they played in the Nazi regime.

• Four months pregnant, Vera Wohlauf, wife of a serving SS officer, took sadistic pleasure in rounding up victims for Treblinka. • Like creatures from a Grimms' fairytale, female members of a Nazi 'welfare' organization scoured the towns and villages of Poland and Slovenia, luring blond children out of hiding with bread and sweets. They were abducted to be raised as Germans by 'Aryan' families who told them their parents were dead. • Test pilot Hanna Reitsch flew on a suicide mission to rescue Hitler from his bunker. • Not even Hitler could resist the charms of Princess Stephanie, a femme fatale and Nazi agent who smoked cigars which she lit by striking a match on the heel of her shoes. The Nazis had no doubts about a woman's place in the Third Reich. Hermann Goering urged every woman to 'take a pot, a dustpan and brush, and marry a man.' Many women welcomed the arrival of Hitler's regime with childlike enthusiasm believing that the dictatorship would make Germany master of Europe, but as the war dragged on, their blind faith in Hitler was betrayed.

Have you ever heard of a Jew who saved a Nazi's life? Who evaded capture by pretending to be a Polish peasant, a Communist spy, a partisan, and a Rabbi? Who spent months starving in the woods, sleeping in haystacks in the freezing cold, only to finish off the war in a luxurious palace as the guest of a Polish princess? Over 30 years in the making, this unique and extraordinary account was recreated from cassette tapes which were recorded in the early 1980s and later found in the bottom of a closet, as well as videotaped interviews by Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation. The book describes Binem's Holocaust experience in harrowing detail, from its lows, including a suicide attempt in the Jewish graveyard where his parents were buried, to its highs, such as finishing off the war as an honored guest at the Osten-Sacken mansion, and his celebratory speech to the Russian Jewish officers who liberated him.

In New York City, in the year 1985, a person thought to be dead for the last forty years walked into the life of my friend, Kevin Lyons. During their ten-year love affair, thinking she was to die without another soul knowing, she confessed to Kevin that she was Heidi Goebbels-the youngest child of Joseph Goebbels. It comes to light that the master of deceit, himself, and father of Nazi propaganda, had pulled off his final deception. Through an intricate web of lies and deception, he successfully convinced the world of the demise of his six children. This book exposes a Nazi secret which was, until today, masterfully hidden from the world and points out the overwhelming evidence of the final deception of Joseph Goebbels.

Born into one of 19th century Europe's more powerful families, Archduchess Marie Valerie was the favorite daughter of Austria's Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth. Determined to marry for love, in 1890 she wed her cousin, Franz Salvator of Tuscany and bore him 10 children. The dashing Archduke was not faithful. His affair with Stephanie Richter, a young, middle-class Jewish woman with a knack for flattering powerful men, led to an illegitimate child, a royal title of her own and a career as a double-agent in the prelude to World War II. Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe became vital to Adolf Hitler, betraying the German Jews, the British government, and her home country of Austria--until Hitler betrayed her, leaving her without allies or protectors.

This is the riveting story of Noor Inayat Khan, a descendant of an Indian prince, Tipu Sultan (the Tiger of Mysore), who became a British secret agent for SOE during World War II. Shrabani Basu tells the moving story of Noor's life, from her birth in Moscow – where her father was a Sufi preacher – to her capture by the Germans. Noor was one of only three women SOE agents awarded the George Cross and, under torture, revealed nothing, not even her real name. Kept in solitary confinement, her hands and feet chained together, Noor was starved and beaten, but the Germans could not break her spirit. Ten months after she was captured, she was taken to Dachau concentration camp and, on 13 September 1944, she was shot. Her last word was 'Liberté.'