A Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn

A FAMILY OF SPIES by Christine Kuehn is a significant work of non-fiction that reads like a fictional story. Readers will be enthralled and surprised at the real-life twists in this “World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor.” In 1994, Christine receives a letter from a screenwriter asking about her paternal grandfather, Otto Kuehn, implying that he had been a Nazi agent stationed in Hawaii just prior to the attacks in Pearl Harbor. What follows is Christine’s account of her research, including a confrontation with her own father, and subsequent discoveries about her own family history. She learns about her father’s older stepsiblings: Leopold, who worked in Germany as a deputy to Hitler’s propaganda minister and Ruth, who had an affair with Goebbels until (the author believes) he found out that she was Jewish and arranged for the family to emigrate to Hawaii where Ruth and her parents acted as spies, eventually appearing on an FBI watch list. It is a truly fascinating account.

I listened to portions of the audiobook which is narrated by Erin Bennett and very well presented. Recommend this unusual, but engrossing, title to WWII history buffs.