Hitler's Traitor: Martin Bormann and the Defeat of the Reich

""Red Orchestra"" (Rote Kapelle) is the label given to spy networks operated in Germany and Europe by the Red Army during WWII. Many of these operations were very successful, particularly the ""Lucy"" net, which targeted the highest German command circles. Kilzer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, revisits this arena with an entertaining synthesis of evidence about the activities of these spies, extensive accounts of relevant military history, and informed speculations about causes and effects, motives and behaviors. He offers some startling conclusions, based on declassified U.S. archival material and published disclosures and analyses accumulated over 50 years. While Kilzer shows that most of Hitler's senior compatriots were traitors in some sense, still subservient to Hitler but devoted to their own views of German interests, Kilzer reasons that two of the highest placed officials must have also functioned as Red Army agents: Martin Bormann, secretary and second in command to Hitler and head of the Nazi chancellery, and Heinrich M ller, commandant of the Gestapo. The book's title encapsulates Kilzer's claim that Bormann was the chief informant whose existence has been posited for some time, but whose identity has been a mystery. The text is fluent, comprehensive and annotated, but not without a few disappointments: occasional lapses into hyperbole, and inattention to sorting the hypothetical from the demonstrable when sourcing conclusions. The narrative is multidimensional, however, showing the under-appreciated significance of Rote Kapelle and winningly conveying the author's fascination with a challenging historical puzzle. Illus. not seen by PW. (June)