BOHEMIANS: The Lovers Who Led Germany's Resistance

An incredible true story of two idealistic young lovers who led Germany's largest anti-Nazi resistance group, right in the darkening heart of Berlin. Summertime 1935 and on a lake near the city a young man is out sailing when he glimpses a woman reclining in the prow of a passing boat. Harro Schulze-Boysen had already shed blood in the fight against Nazism by the time he and Libertas Hass-Heye began their whirlwind romance. She joined the cause and soon the two lovers were leading a network of anti-fascist fighters that stretched across Berlin's bohemian underworld. Poets, philosophers, workers and artists, they were all freethinkers united by a desire to bring down Hitler at any cost. Harro himself infiltrated German intelligence and began funnelling Nazi battle plans to the Allies, including the details of Hitler's surprise attack on the Soviet Union. Meanwhile Libertas used her position at the Propaganda Ministry to begin collecting evidence of the mass murder of Jews. They knew the stakes all too well, but nothing could prepare them for the betrayals they would suffer in this war of secrets - a struggle in which friend could be indistinguishable from foe. Drawing on unpublished diaries, letters and Gestapo files, Ohler spins an unforgettable tale of love, heroism and sacrifice where daily life was a minefield, and a mis-step could have fatal consequences. We meet not mythic heroes but flawed humans struggling for meaning in a time of terror - writers, artists, a fashion designer, a dentist - you will feel a little stronger and braver after reading about these remarkable men and women. Told with immediacy and encroaching terror. With coloured maps on the endpapers, 293pp, illus.