"...he recalled for the first time in years the words his father had told him to take with him on his life's journey: Do what is right and have no fear."
-Fritz Kolbe, from the novel
Over the years I have read numerous historical fictions set during World War II. I have learned from all and have been entertained, intrigued and/or horrified at times by some. The Honest Spy, a story of an anti-Nazi German diplomat, was no different. It was based on the biography of an actual hero, A Spy at the Heart of the Third Reich, The Extraordinary Story of Fritz Kolbe, America's Most Important Spy in World War II by Lucas Delattre, 2005.
The plot advances as Fritz Kolbe, a few years after the war, relates his story to journalists Martin Wegner and Veronika Hugel, who are interviewing him. Their queries are interspersed with Kolbe's longer narratives. I am rating the book a "3" because these transitions were not always smooth or even very clear.
In 1939, widower Fritz Kolbe is working in the German foreign ministry in Cape Town, South Africa, when he is ordered back to Berlin. Already fearing what is happening in Germany, he sadly leaves his 14-year-old daughter behind for her own safety. His hatred of Hitler and Nazism leads him into a dangerous double life, a trusted underling of Joachim von Ribbentrop in the Berlin Foreign Office who smuggles secret documents to Allen Dulles of the American Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) in Bern, Switzerland. When Fritz becomes romantically involved with Marlene Wiese, a surgeon's assistant at Charite' Hospital, the risk increases as he tries to both share his work with her and keep her safe. At one point, Fritz says, "There is a price to pay for doing what's right." (Note the beginning quote.) You will have to read the book to know "the price" he paid.
You might guess the story is intense and suspenseful but graphic description of violence is kept to a minimum. There is even a bit of humor here and there, for example Fritz remembers his father told him "as soon as someone abuses his position, even for a second, imagine him in pink underwear...whether a king, a general or anyone else: pink underwear." (I am borrowing this as my new look for President Trump!)
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