Family of Spies
A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
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4.7 • 28 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
"An amazing and gripping tale, full of suspenseful twists and cinematic details" —New York Times Book Review
A propulsive, never-before-told story of one family’s shocking involvement as Nazi and Japanese spies during WWII and the pivotal role they played in the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
It began with a letter from a screenwriter, asking about a story. Your family. World War II. Nazi spies. Christine Kuehn was shocked and confused. When she asked her seventy-year-old father, Eberhard, what this could possibly be about, he stalled, deflected, demurred, and then wept. He knew this day would come.
The Kuehns, a prominent Berlin family, saw the rise of the Nazis as a way out of the hard times that had befallen them. When the daughter of the family, Eberhard’s sister, Ruth, met Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels at a party, the two hit it off, and they had an affair. But Ruth had a secret—she was half Jewish—and Goebbels found out. Rather than having Ruth killed, Goebbels instead sent the entire Kuehn family to Hawaii, to work as spies half a world away. There, Ruth and her parents established an intricate spy operation from their home, just a few miles down the road from Pearl Harbor, shielding Eberhard from the truth. They passed secrets to the Japanese, leading to the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor. After Eberhard’s father was arrested and tried for his involvement in planning the assault, Eberhard learned the harsh truth about his family and faced a decision that would change the path of the Kuehn family forever.
Jumping back and forth between Christine discovering her family’s secret and the untold past of the spies in Germany, Japan, and Hawaii, Family of Spies is fast-paced history at its finest and will rewrite the narrative of December 7, 1941.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Imagine learning as an adult that your family only lives in the United States because they were sent there to spy for the Axis—that’s the story in this remarkable historical memoir. Author Christine Kuehn uncovered her grandfather’s shocking history: Part of a half-Jewish family spared by a high-ranking Nazi and exiled to Hawaii in the 1930s, he and other family members spied for the Japanese in the lead-up to the Pearl Harbor attack. Kuehn smoothly stitches together two stories. Her ancestors’ spy work is a fascinating centerpiece made even stronger by intimate and personal scenes like when Kuehn interrogates her own father about the family’s dark history and tries to understand why he hid it. Kuehn also has an eye for the quirky details of her family’s lavish lifestyle in Hawaii, handsomely funded by the Japanese government. If you’re intrigued by little-known histories, Family of Spies will captivate you.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An ordinary woman in suburban Maryland unearths the horrifying secret of her family's impact on the events of WWII in this page-turning debut memoir. Kuehn recalls receiving an inquiry in 1994 from a screenwriter about her German American immigrant family's role as spies for the Axis powers in Oahu ahead of WWII, a bombshell revelation that sent her on a decades-long investigation into her family's secrets. Not only did she discover that her grandfather Otto was an SS officer turned covert agent, but that Otto's daughter Ruth (the author's aunt) had been a mistress of Joseph Goebbels, and that part of the reason the family was stationed in Hawaii was that Ruth, the child of a previous relationship of Otto's wife Friedel, was half Jewish, and Goebbels wanted to avoid that truth from being exposed. During the family's six-year stay in Oahu, which began in 1935, they were paid by the Japanese government to throw lavish parties, infiltrating Hawaii's "upper crust" and gathering intel about ship movements ahead of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Kuehn weaves this sensational story—which includes the FBI's cat-and-mouse attempts to uncover the spy ring—with her own personal journey from disbelief to reckoning with her family's Nazi past. It's a propulsive and disturbing tale.
Customer Reviews
Family of Spies
Fabulous true story of a German family who emigrated to the US before the second World War, moved to Hawaii and became spies for the Japanese prior to Pearl Harbor. Unknown history and fascinating reading. I loved it.
Thank you.
Thank you for taking us on this cathartic journey with you. I knew the facts, but this book gave me a whole new perspective.