Good book about one of the best British spies in WWII. A little dull and dry but good history. ( )

Born in 1884 to a Catholic couple in Highbridge, a town in Somerset, Smith early on decided he wanted to study to be a priest. His rail worker father thought it was a waste of a bright mind. Fighting in the Great War made him question his faith.

After the war, he joined the secret service and eventually ended up in Berlin disguised as a Passport Control Officer while he real task was to set up a spy ring that gathered intelligence on the Nazis. As a man with a kind heart, he could not ignore the plight of Jews and other dissidents and used his power to grant visas to whisk both out of the country to safety often against British Government policy. Sending Jews to Palestine was one of these polices he broke regularly.

Once the war started, he went to Norway to set up a similar spy system and used Norway's proximity to Germany to obtain info from his German sources which was often ignored by his government & military leaders. Once Norway fell to Germany, he went home to England where one of his first duties was monitor the Nazi Deputy Fuhrer, Rudolph Hess. Once he realize Hess was insane, he found that job a bore. After the war he ended up in Germany tracking down war criminals.

A nice man which apparently was rare in the intelligence service, he retired into a quiet life. He never receive the accolades he deserved from Israel partly because many of the Jews he rescued did not know he had organized it.

I am always fascinated by books that describe what it was like to live in Germany during the reign of the Nazis This book clearly paints that picture. ( )