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Synopsis
Of the 10,000 men who landed at Arnhem, over nine days 1,400 were killed and more than 6,000 – about a third of them wounded – were captured. It wasa bloody disaster. The remarkable Louis Hagen, an ‘enemy alien’ who had escaped to England having been imprisoned and tortured in a Nazi concentration camp as a boy just a few years earlier, was one of the minority who made it back. What makes this book so unforgettable is not only the breathtaking drama of the story itself, it is the unmistakable talent of the writer. ‘Our huts had been locked and left just as they were when we left them on Monday morning. We took the keys, went in and sat down on our beds. The four of us looked round the hut. There were eighteen empty beds. It was very quiet now...The narrative was first published anonymously in 1945. 45 years later at a dinner party in Germany, Louis Hagen met Major Winrich Behr, Adjutant to Field Marshal Model at Arnhem. Louis added his side of the story to add even more insight to the original work.
LOUIS HAGEN, born into a Jewish banking family, was sent to Schloss Lichtenburg concentration camp for writing an ant-Nazi joke on a postcard to his sister. A high-ranking Nazi judge and friend of the family got him out and he escaped to England. He eventually became a glider pilot, fighting for the British at Arnhem. He is the author of several books, including Ein volk, ein Reich, a superb evocation of post-war Berlin. He went on to be a successful journalist and film producer. He died in 2000.
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