Dans un imposant château gothique situé au sommet d'une colline au coeur de l'Allemagne nazie, un groupe improbable d'officiers faits prisonniers a passé la Seconde Guerre mondiale à préparer des évasions audacieuses sous l'oeil de leurs geôliers nazis.
Ravisseurs et prisonniers vivant pendant des années côte à côte dans un jeu passionnant du chat et de la souris... Macintyre tire de l'anonymat une remarquable galerie de personnages et met en lumière d'incroyables histoires humaines oubliées par l'histoire.
Ruser. Jongler sans cesse entre deux vérités. Contrôler la paranoïa...
Peu d'agents doubles, dans l'histoire de la guerre froide, ont été assez malins pour échapper à leurs maîtres. C'est le cas d'Oleg Gordievsky, l'espion préféré de Margaret Thatcher. Biberonné tout jeune à la maison KGB, le printemps de Prague fera basculer son coeur à l'Ouest. Ce passionné d'Histoire et de musique allemande deviendra alors la source la plus haut placée du MI6, le dernier rempart à une guerre nucléaire, et l'objet - en 1985 - de l'exfiltration de l'U.R.S.S. la plus périlleuse jamais entreprise par les services anglais : l'opération PIMLICO...
1945, dans le paisible village de Great Rollright, au sud-ouest de l'Angleterre, Mrs Burton habite une ferme avec son mari et ses trois enfants. Ils sont des gens aimables, sans histoires...
Mrs Burton - alias Sonya - est en réalité une espionne de haut rang au service de Moscou. Pour son plus grand bonheur, elle a vu le naufrage du Troisième Reich, mais déjà un nouveau conflit se profile entre les alliés d'hier. Sonya doit poursuivre son combat au service du camp soviétique.
Grâce à elle, Staline aura bientôt accès aux secrets atomiques anglo-américains.
Dans le monde du Renseignement, Sonya - de son vrai nom Ursula Kuczynski (1907-2000) - devient rapidement une légende. Avec le livre de Ben Macintyre, elle entre dans l'Histoire.
Un matin d'avril 1943, au large de l'Andalousie, un pêcheur espagnol repère un cadavre flottant sur la mer. C'est la dépouille d'un soldat britannique...
Ainsi débute l'opération Mincemeat, la mystification militaire qui permit de berner les espions nazis, de détourner les troupes de la Wehrmacht vers la Grèce et la Sardaigne pour permettre aux Alliés de débarquer en Sicile, et de sauver des milliers de vies.
À l'aide de documents privés inédits et d'archives du MI5, Ben Macintyre retrace brillamment l'histoire vraie, et paradoxalement totalement fictive, de la plus grande supercherie de la Seconde Guerre mondiale.
Quoique méconnu, Adam Worth est un personnage au destin hors du commun dont les méfaits illuminent la fin du XIXe siècle. Cambrioleur, pickpocket au grand coeur, ce dandy ne peut s'empêcher de piller les caisses des plus grandes banques de notre continent. Mais c'est en mai 1876, à Londres, qu'il commet son plus glorieux forfait en s'emparant du célèbre portrait de la duchesse de Devonshire, de Gainsborough. Suscitant les plus vives réactions, déchaînant les passions les plus violentes, le gangster au gant de velours parviendra à se concilier les faveurs de l'incorruptible Pinketton. Le célèbre détective américain le traquera sans relâche, mais ne cessera jamais de lui vouer une secrète admiration.
En 1945, dans le paisible village de Great Rollright, au sud-ouest de l'Angleterre, on pouvait croiser une élégante jeune femme à bicyclette qui allait faire ses courses. C'était «Mrs Burton». Elle habitait depuis peu une ferme sans grand confort, avec son mari et ses trois enfants. Des gens aimables, sans histoires: des réfugiés peut-être, car la femme avait un léger accent étranger.
«Mrs Burton» - alias Sonya - était en réalité une espionne de haut rang au service de Moscou. Elle avait animé ou créé plusieurs réseaux de renseignement en Extrême-Orient, en Europe centrale et, plus récemment, en Suisse. Pour son plus grand bonheur, elle avait vu le naufrage du Troisième Reich, mais déjà un nouveau conflit se profilait entre les alliés d'hier. Sonya devait donc poursuivre son combat au service du camp soviétique.
Grâce à elle, Staline aurait bientôt accès aux secrets atomiques anglo-américains: il pourrait, lui aussi, construire sa bombe.
Dans le monde du Renseignement, Sonya - de son vrai nom Ursula Kuczynski (1907-2000) - devint rapidement une légende.
Avec le livre de Ben Macintyre, elle entre dans l'Histoire.
*Shortlisted for the 2018 Ballie Gifford Prize* 'THE BEST TRUE SPY STORY I HAVE EVER READ' JOHN LE CARR e A thrilling Cold War story about a KGB double agent, by one of Britain's greatest historians On a warm July evening in 1985, a middle-aged man stood on the pavement of a busy avenue in the heart of Moscow, holding a plastic carrier bag. In his grey suit and tie, he looked like any other Soviet citizen. The bag alone was mildly conspicuous, printed with the red logo of Safeway, the British supermarket. The man was a spy. A senior KGB officer, for more than a decade he had supplied his British spymasters with a stream of priceless secrets from deep within the Soviet intelligence machine. No spy had done more to damage the KGB. The Safeway bag was a signal: to activate his escape plan to be smuggled out of Soviet Russia. So began one of the boldest and most extraordinary episodes in the history of spying. Ben Macintyre reveals a tale of espionage, betrayal and raw courage that changed the course of the Cold War forever...
The incredible story of the greatest female spy in history, from one of Britain''s most acclaimed historians - available for pre-order nowIn a quiet English village in 1942, an elegant housewife emerged from her cottage to go on her usual bike ride. A devoted wife and mother-of-three, the woman known to her neighbours as Mrs Burton seemed to epitomise rural British domesticity.However, rather than pedalling towards the shops with her ration book, she was racing through the Oxfordshire countryside to gather scientific intelligence from one of the country''s most brilliant nuclear physicists. Secrets that she would transmit to Soviet intelligence headquarters via the radio transmitter she was hiding in her outdoor privy.Far from a British housewife, ''Mrs Burton'' - born Ursula Kuczynski, and codenamed ''Sonya'' - was a German Jew, a dedicated communist, a colonel in Russia''s Red Army, and a highly-trained spy. From planning an assassination attempt on Hitler in Switzerland, to spying on the Japanese in Manchuria, and helping the Soviet Union build the atom bomb, Sonya conducted some of the most dangerous espionage operations of the twentieth century. Her story has never been told - until now.Agent Sonya is the exhilarating account of one woman''s life; a life that encompasses the rise and fall of communism itself, and altered the course of history.''Macintyre does true-life espionage better than anyone else'' John Preston>
Kim Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet mole in history. Agent, double agent, traitor and enigma, he betrayed every secret of Allied operations to the Russians in the early years of the Cold War.
Philby's two closest friends in the intelligence world, Nicholas Elliott of MI6 and James Jesus Angleton, the CIA intelligence chief, thought they knew Philby better than anyone, and then discovered they had not known him at all. This is a story of intimate duplicity; of loyalty, trust and treachery, class and conscience; of an ideological battle waged by men with cut-glass accents and well-made suits in the comfortable clubs and restaurants of London and Washington; of male friendships forged, and then systematically betrayed.
With access to newly released MI5 files and previously unseen family papers, and with the cooperation of former officers of MI6 and the CIA, this definitive biography unlocks what is perhaps the last great secret of the Cold War.
Ben Macintyre is the multimillion-copy bestselling author of books including Agent Sonya, SAS: Rogue Heroes, The Spy and the Traitor, Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat and A Spy Among Friends. He is a columnist and Associate Editor at The Times, and has worked as the newspaper''s correspondent in New York, Paris and Washington. Several of his books have been made into films and television series, including Operation Mincemeat, A Spy Among Friends and SAS: Rogue Heroes.>
The incredible story of the greatest female spy in history, from one of Britain''s most acclaimed historians - available for pre-order nowIn a quiet English village in 1942, an elegant housewife emerged from her cottage to go on her usual bike ride. A devoted wife and mother-of-three, the woman known to her neighbours as Mrs Burton seemed to epitomise rural British domesticity.However, rather than pedalling towards the shops with her ration book, she was racing through the Oxfordshire countryside to gather scientific intelligence from one of the country''s most brilliant nuclear physicists. Secrets that she would transmit to Soviet intelligence headquarters via the radio transmitter she was hiding in her outdoor privy.Far from a British housewife, ''Mrs Burton'' - born Ursula Kuczynski, and codenamed ''Sonya'' - was a German Jew, a dedicated communist, a colonel in Russia''s Red Army, and a highly-trained spy. From planning an assassination attempt on Hitler in Switzerland, to spying on the Japanese in Manchuria, and helping the Soviet Union build the atom bomb, Sonya conducted some of the most dangerous espionage operations of the twentieth century. Her story has never been told - until now.Agent Sonya is the exhilarating account of one woman''s life; a life that encompasses the rise and fall of communism itself, and altered the course of history.''Macintyre does true-life espionage better than anyone else'' John Preston>
On a warm July evening in 1985, a middle-aged man stood on the pavement of a busy avenue in the heart of Moscow, holding a plastic carrier bag. In his grey suit and tie, he looked like any other Soviet citizen. The bag alone was mildly conspicuous, printed with the red logo of Safeway, the British supermarket. The man was a spy for MI6. A senior KGB officer, for more than a decade he had supplied his British spymasters with a stream of priceless secrets from deep within the Soviet intelligence machine. No spy had done more to damage the KGB. The Safeway bag was a signal: to activate his escape plan to be smuggled out of Soviet Russia.
A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB SELECTION One April morning in 1943, a sardine fisherman spotted the corpse of a British soldier floating in the sea off the coast of Spain and set in train a course of events that would change the course of the Second World War.
Operation Mincemeat was the most successful wartime deception ever attempted, and certainly the strangest. It hoodwinked the Nazi espionage chiefs, sent German troops hurtling in the wrong direction, and saved thousands of lives by deploying a secret agent who was different, in one crucial respect, from any spy before or since: he was dead. His mission: to convince the Germans that instead of attacking Sicily, the Allied armies planned to invade Greece.
The brainchild of an eccentric RAF officer and a brilliant Jewish barrister, the great hoax involved an extraordinary cast of characters including a famous forensic pathologist, a gold-prospector, an inventor, a beautiful secret service secretary, a submarine captain, three novelists, a transvestite English spymaster, an irascible admiral who loved fly-fishing, and a dead Welsh tramp. Using fraud, imagination and seduction, Churchill's team of spies spun a web of deceit so elaborate and so convincing that they began to believe it themselves. The deception started in a windowless basement beneath Whitehall. It travelled from London to Scotland to Spain to Germany. And it ended up on Hitler's desk.
Ben Macintyre, bestselling author of Agent Zigzag , weaves together private documents, photographs, memories, letters and diaries, as well as newly released material from the intelligence files of MI5 and Naval Intelligence, to tell for the first time the full story of Operation Mincemeat.
THE BOOK BEHIND THE BBC SERIES ''SAS: ROGUE HEROES''br>br>From the secret SAS archives, and acclaimed author Ben Macintyre: the first ever authorized history of the SASbr>br>In the summer of 1941, at the height of the war in the Western Desert, a bored and eccentric young officer, David Stirling, has a vision for a new kind of war: attacking the enemy where they least expect it - from behind their own lines.br>br>Despite the intense opposition of many in British High Command, Winston Churchill personally gives Stirling permission to recruit the toughest, brightest and most ruthless soldiers he can find. And so begins the most celebrated and mysterious military organisation in the world: the SAS.br>br>With unprecedented access to the SAS secret files, unseen footage and exclusive interviews with its founder members, SAS: Rogue Heroes tells the remarkable story behind an extraordinary fighting force, and the immense cost of making it a reality.br>br>''Impeccably researched, superbly told - by far the best book on the SAS in World War II'' Antony Beevor>
Penguin presents the audio CD edition of The Spy and the Traitor written and read by Ben Macintyre. A thrilling Cold War story about a KGB double agent, by one of Britain's greatest historians On a warm July evening in 1985, a middle-aged man stood on the pavement of a busy avenue in the heart of Moscow, holding a plastic carrier bag. In his grey suit and tie, he looked like any other Soviet citizen. The bag alone was mildly conspicuous, printed with the red logo of Safeway, the British supermarket. The man was a spy. A senior KGB officer, for more than a decade he had supplied his British spymasters with a stream of priceless secrets from deep within the Soviet intelligence machine. No spy had done more to damage the KGB. The Safeway bag was a signal: to activate his escape plan to be smuggled out of Soviet Russia. So began one of the boldest and most extraordinary episodes in the history of spying. Ben Macintyre reveals a tale of espionage, betrayal and raw courage that changed the course of the Cold War forever. . . 'THE BEST TRUE SPY STORY I HAVE EVER READ' JOHN LE CARRe
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF A SPY AMONG FRIENDS In 1886 Elisabeth Nietzsche, Friedrichs bigoted, imperious sister, founded a racially pure colony in Paraguay together with a band of blonde-haired fellow Germans. Over a century later Ben Macintyre sought out the survivors of this Nueva Germania to discover the remains of this bizarre colony. Forgotten Fatherland vividly recounts his arduous adventure locating the survivors, while also tracing the colorful history of Elisabeths return to Europe, where she inspired the mythical cult of her brothers philosophy and later became a mentor to Hitler. Brilliantly researched and mordantly funny, this is an illuminating portrait of a forgotten people and of a woman whose deep influence on the twentieth century can only now be fully understood.
B>NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER b>The celebrated author of Double Cross and Rogue Heroes returns with his greatest spy story yet, a thrilling Americans-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the end of the Cold War./b>br>br>The best true spy story I have ever read.--JOHN LE CARRÉbr>br>b>Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist Shortlisted for the Bailie Giffords Prize in Nonfiction/b>br>/b>br> If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation''s communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union''s top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States''s nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky''s name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain''s obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets. br>br> Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky''s nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre''s latest may be his best yet. Like the greatest novels of John le Carré, it brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man''s hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations.
B>The incredible untold story of WWIIs greatest secret fighting force, as told by our great modern master of wartime intrigue/b>br> br>Britains Special Air Service--or SAS--was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young, gadabout aristocrat whose aimlessness in early life belied a remarkable strategic mind. Where most of his colleagues looked at a battlefield map of World War IIs African theater and saw a protracted struggle with Rommels desert forces, Stirling saw an opportunity: given a small number of elite, well-trained men, he could parachute behind enemy lines and sabotage their airplanes and war material. Paired with his constitutional opposite, the disciplined martinet Jock Lewes, Stirling assembled a revolutionary fighting force that would upend not just the balance of the war, but the nature of combat itself. He faced no little resistance from those who found his tactics ungentlemanly or beyond the pale, but in the SASs remarkable exploits facing the Nazis in the Africa and then on the Continent can be found the seeds of nearly all special forces units that would follow.br> br>Bringing his keen eye for psychological detail to a riveting wartime narrative, Ben Macintyre uses his unprecedented access to SAS archives to shine a light inside a legendary unit long shrouded in secrecy. The result is not just a tremendous war story, but a fascinating group portrait of men of whom history and country asked the most.
Vous aimez l'histoire ? Vous adorez les histoires ? Lisez ce livre, vous allez être captivés !
6 juin 1944, le jour J. Celui du débarquement en Normandie. Un tournant dans le conflit mondial, une victoire des Alliés par les armes, mais aussi grâce à un autre moyen inédit et décisif : la désinformation.
Elle vise à convaincre les nazis que le débarquement aura lieu à Calais et en Norvège, et, une fois l´opération lancée, leur faire croire que ce n´est qu´un débarquement de diversion, de façon à retarder l´arrivée des renforts allemands. C´est l´Opération Fortitude.
Ce plan demande l´intervention croisée de tous les services de renseignement britanniques, de la Résistance française et du FBI. Au coeur du stratagème réside le système Double Cross : les espions du Débarquement.
Au nombre de cinq, ces agents doubles, des espions nazis utilisés par les Britanniques, feront parvenir de fausses informations capitales à leurs supérieurs du Reich.
Une playgirl péruvienne, un pilote de chasse polonais, un séducteur serbe, un éleveur espagnol de poulets et... une française hystérique.
Ces agents doubles sont diversement courageux, perfides, inconstants ou avides ; ce ne sont pas des combattants classiques, ils forment même une équipe assez insolite, mais leurs entreprises de mystification vont permettre de convoyer les troupes alliées en sécurité Outre-Manche et de sauver d´innombrables vies. Leurs noms de code : Bronx, Brutus, Trésor, Tricycle et Garbo. Ce livre raconte leur histoire avec toute la minutie, l´humour et le talent de conteur qui caractérisent Ben Macintyre.
À l´aide d´archives inédites et de nombreux documents d´époque, l´auteur parvient à une brillante reconstitution des opérations du Débarquement qui met en lumières des héros jusqu´ici anonymes.
Ce livre est la traduction française du best seller "Couble Cross" qui vient de paraître en Grande Bretagne.
A propos de l'auteur :
Ben Macintyre est chroniqueur et rédacteur en chef adjoint du Times, journal pour lequel il a également été correspondant à Paris, New York et Washington. Il a étudié l´Histoire à Cambridge et est l´auteur de précédents livres d´histoire narrative à succès dont le célèbre Opération Mincemeat.
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Dans la nuit du 15 au 16 décembre 1942, un parachutiste atterrit dans un champ du Cambridgeshire. Sa mission : saboter l'effort de guerre britannique. Son nom de code : Fritz. La police anglaise le connaît sous le nom d'Eddie Chapman.
Eddie Chapman, dynamiteur de coffres-forts, escroc, est emprisonné à Jersey au moment de l'invasion de l'île par les Allemands. Il propose alors ses services à l'Abwehr, les renseignements germaniques. Engagé, formé puis largué par eux en Angleterre, Chapman se rend au MI5, et entre, après moult interrogatoires, au service de Sa Majesté. Il devient, sous le pseudonyme d'agent Zigzag, un des plus brillants et des plus héroïques agents doubles des forces britanniques.
À travers le parcours de cet espion hors du commun, séducteur et amoureux impénitent, c'est toute une page de l'histoire de la Seconde Guerre mondiale qui nous est dévoilée.
Un matin d'avril 1943, au large de l'Andalousie, un pêcheur espagnol repère un cadavre flottant sur la mer.
C'est la dépouille d'un soldat britannique. Tout laisse penser que sa mission a tourné court... Au contraire, elle ne fait que commencer ! Ainsi débute l'opération Mincemeat, la mystification militaire qui permit de berner les espions nazis, de détourner les troupes de la Wehrmacht vers la Grèce et la Sardaigne pour permettre aux Alliés de débarquer en Sicile, et de sauver des milliers de vies.
Tout ceci grâce au major William Martin. Mais le major Martin n'a jamais existé ! Le corps repêché est celui d'un Gallois indigent déguisé. Les documents qu'il transporte sont bidons, ils font partie du plan conçu par les services de renseignement britanniques pour distiller de fausses informations aux Allemands. Les mensonges colportés par le major seront acheminés de Londres à Berlin en passant par Madrid, transitant par un loch glacé en Ecosse jusqu'aux côtes de Sicile.
De la salle 13 de l'Amirauté jusqu'au bureau de Hitler. A l'aide de documents privés inédits et d'archives du M15, Ben Macintyre retrace brillamment l'histoire vraie, et paradoxalement totalement fictive, de la plus grande supercherie de la Seconde Guerre mondiale.
'If you're looking for a good spy thriller, I definitely recommend this' Daily Express The thrilling real-life story of a double agent in the Second World War
