The remarkable story of a German-born Jew who escaped Nazi Germany only to return as an American commando on a secret mission behind enemy lines.

Growing up in Germany, Freddy Mayer witnessed the Nazis' rise to power. When he was sixteen, his family made the decision to flee to the United States -- they were among the last German Jews to escape, in 1938.



In America, Freddy tried enlisting the day after Pearl Harbor, only to be rejected as an "enemy alien" because he was German. He was soon recruited to the OSS, the country's first spy outfit before the CIA. Freddy, joined by Dutch Jewish refugee Hans Wynberg and Nazi defector Franz Weber, parachuted into Austria as the leader of Operation Greenup, meant to deter Hitler's last stand. He posed as a Nazi officer and a French POW for months, dispatching reports to the OSS via Hans, holed up with a radio in a nearby attic. The reports contained a goldmine of information, provided key intelligence about the Battle of the Bulge, and allowed the Allies to bomb twenty Nazi trains. On the verge of the Allied victory, Freddy was captured by the Gestapo and tortured and waterboarded for days. Remarkably, he persuaded the Nazi commander for the region to surrender, completing one of the most successful OSS missions of the war.

Based on years of research and interviews with Mayer himself, whom the author was able to meet only months before his death at the age of ninety-four, Return to the Reich is an eye-opening, unforgettable narrative of World War II heroism.

• We started tracking this book on October 21, 2019.
• This book was $15.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 70 times in the past 2,004 days.
• The current price of this book is $1.99 last checked 16 hours ago.
• The lowest price to date was $1.99 last reached on April 15, 2025.
• This book has been $1.99 4 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $15.99 last reached on January 3, 2020.
• This book has been $15.99 2 times since we started tracking it.
• This book is currently at its lowest price since we started tracking it.

• Biographies & MemoirsHistoricalMilitary & WarsBranchesArmy

• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 318 Pages
• File Size: 129 KB