Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A necessary book, 6 Aug 2007
This is a well-written and thoroughly researched account of the subject. The individual stories are extremely interesting and give an excellent insight into the many different ways in which these "enemy aliens" assisted the war effort. Their story is not widely known, and the author has to be congratulated on deciding to write the book before it is too late because the people involved are no longer alive. It is to be hoped that a wider public will read this book, which demonstrates how much this country can gain from people who earlier were often referred to as "bloody foreigners". An excellent selection of well-reproduced photographs is included, and not only people interested in the history of Wold War II should read the book.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting but hardly "deep" or scholarly, 15 Jun 2008
The key to the content of this book lies in the word "Germans" in the subtitle. In other words, it contains very many of the individual "stories" of the "Germans" [it should also include "Austrians"] who fought in Britain's armed forces during the Second World War against their original homelands of Germany and Austria. As such, readers should not expect to find any great historical depth or even scholarship in this book. What they will find will be of interest to the general reader, especially since most of the author's interviewees provide extraordinarily interesting glimpses of their wartime experiences in Britain's armed forces. However, it really needs to be pointed out that this present reviewer had previously published in 1992 and 1995 two carefully researched and - dare one say it?, scholarly - contributions to the subject [glaringly not included in this volume's bibliography], including having interviewed and received "memoir" materials from the participants. More importantly, those two contributions detail what Helen Fry has not, which is the key and important role of the British government in the subject: in its differing recruitment policies with regard to such enemy aliens, and more importantly the whole question (a background issue throughout the war) of their eventual "nationality" at the end of the war. This important subject is touched upon in a couple of sentences only by Helen Fry. For those who would wish to investigate the whole of this subject further, they really need to read the following: John P Fox, "German and Austrian Jews in Britain's Armed Forces and British and Germany Citizenship Policies 1939-1945" (Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, XXXVII, 1992, pp. 415-59); and, John P Fox, "German and Austrian Jewish Volunteers in Britain's Armed Forces 1939-1945" (Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, 1995, Volume XL, pp. 21-50).
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A fascinating and inspiring history, 7 Oct 2008
Many years ago, I saw a film called `Tobruk' on tv, when the longeurs of wet Sunday afternoons were filled with a blood and guts war film on television. This one was pretty ropey, but the one thing that stood out was that it featured a group of German and Austrians commandos fighting for the Allies. I thought it seemed a far-fetched element at the time.
Years later I vaguely heard about `No 10 (Inter Allied) Commando' an allied unit consisting of of German-speaking men who did indeed fight the Nazis. Many of them were Jewish, others were not. All were either fleeing persecution or anti-Nazis, prepared to take the ultimate risk of fighting the country of their birth - but a country that had either denied their rights as citizens or sought to persecute and butcher them. The bravery of these young men, many of them in their late teens is astounding.
This book was launched with a series of talks at the Imperial War Museum, and I was lucky enough to attend and meet some of these amazing veterans.
Helen Fry's engaging history is about the men and women who fled Nazi Germany and were involved in the fight against fascism. Overcoming the suspicions and internment as `Enemy Aliens', Fry recounts the stories of this group of very brave (and as the writing attests to, modest) people. A large number involved were transferred from the original non-combatant role in the Pioneer Corps into special forces, intelligence and S.O.E., where their language skills were put to great use. An interesting participant is Sir Ken Adam, the award winning film set designer, who has worked on many of the Bond films and Dr Strangelove. He fled Nazi Germany and enlisted in the RAF, flying tank-busting Typhoons.
In our rather cozy and pampered lives, it is very easy to take for granted what our parents and grandparents went through. It is truly humbling to have met the veterans who have probably seen and done things I would never want to witness in my life. But their humility and their bravery is something else, and Fry's excellent book captures the essence of these ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
A breed of heroes and heroines apart.
Thoroughly recommended.
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