SOE's BONZOS Volume Two

The Special Operations Executive (SOE), Britain’s TOP SECRET subversive organisation during the Second World War, were informed before and after D-Day that some surrendered or captured German prisoners of war who had been brought to camps in England claimed not to be supporters of Hitler. They had been compelled to join the Wehrmacht, the German army, and, when asked, volunteered to be trained and infiltrated back into Germany by the Allies on sabotage, subversion and assassination missions. Bernard O’Connor’s four-volumed ‘SOE Bonzos’ has used recently released personnel files, country section correspondence, training reports and mission papers to tell for the first time the stories of over fifty anti-Nazis who were brave enough to return to Germany on secret operations. Volume Two includes the stories of Johann Hoch, Gerhard Taplick, Will Vonderheidt, Erich Klau, Horst Weber, Werner Porzig, Andreas Wiedemann, Heinrich Wellings, Valentin Raab and August Kunzig. Some succeeded in getting back to Britain. It provides details of the successes and failures of their missions and includes accounts of conditions in Germany towards the end of the war. There are also details of SOE’s German Section officers who planned the operations, having to negotiate with the Bayswater Interrogation Section, the Training, Camouflage, Forgery, Finance and Quartermaster Sections; officers in other country sections; the American Office of Strategic Services; the RAF who arranged parachute drops and the Special Forces operating with the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force operating in France, Belgium and Germany.