A Guest of the Reich

July 15, 2019
Fast-paced account of an American woman working with military intelligence who was captured by the Nazis. Washington Post national security editor Finn (co-author: The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book, 2014) follows the story of a rich and adventurous American woman who joined the OSS, the predecessor of the CIA, after Pearl Harbor. Born to a wealthy family, Gertrude "Gertie" Legendre (1902-2000) was more interested in outdoor life than socializing, and she became a world-traveling big-game hunter who collected specimens for top museums. But when her husband, Sidney, joined the war effort, she took a job with the OSS, first in Washington, D.C., and then in London. After the liberation of Paris, she found her way to the city and then to the front. However, Allied troops had fallen back from where she thought they were, and she and her companions found themselves under enemy fire and were forced to surrender. She was the first American woman in uniform to be captured by the Germans. From the start, Gertie was suspected of being a spy, kept under close guard, and faced with hard questioning, though never with torture. Finn chronicles her ordeal as she was moved around Germany based on original documents, including Gertie's own letters and diaries as well as official OSS archives. The result is a fascinating look at the treatment of POWs during the final year of the war--e.g., the hotel reserved for important French hostages where Gertie spent her last few weeks in captivity or the general availability of wine for upper-class prisoners even when there was not enough clean water for washing. The author provides added interest with his profiles of several other figures of historical note, including war photographer Margaret Bourke-White and OSS chief "Wild Bill" Donovan. Finn combines solid research and good storytelling skills to bring Gertie and her era to life for contemporary readers. A little-known chapter of World War II history with an intriguing American intelligence agent in the leading role.

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July 29, 2019
Finn (coauthor, The Zhivago Affair), national security editor at the Washington Post, keenly draws a portrait of the wartime derring-do of Gertrude “Gertie” Legendre (1902–2000), socialite, heiress, and teenage big-game hunter who inspired the Broadway play Holiday. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, while her husband Sidney was stationed in Hawaii and their daughters were being cared for by nannies, Legendre insinuated herself into the Office of Strategic Services, the intelligence agency that preceded the CIA. In September 1944, on leave outside recently liberated Paris and “against all common sense and training,” she accidentally crossed enemy lines. The Nazis arrested her, and she was interrogated often, but she remained undaunted and, after six months, escaped into Switzerland. Finn wisely depends on Legendre’s diaries, which exhibit not only her wit and pluck but her racism, anti-Semitism, entitlement, and ego (of stealing hot water rations intended for fellow prisoners’ baths , she writes, “I felt classed with the other wily women of the ages, but unashamed—I was keeping cleaner than the others”), and ably fills in historical context. Legendre was an extraordinary woman, whose “journey through Hitler’s collapsing Reich” will appeal to anyone equally enamored of glamour and wartime adventure.

September 1, 2019

Toward the end of 1944, heiress Gertrude Legendre and her naval officer colleague Bob Jennings were stationed in liberated France and wished to see the action on the front lines. Crossing paths with a counterintelligence friend of Jennings and another officer with clearance of the area, the four headed out. Unbeknown to the group, the area had reverted to German occupation. The party was quickly pinned down by German snipers, and Legendre became a "guest" of the Reich. Finn (coauthor, The Zhivago Affair) shows that Legendre was anything but the average rich society hostess; she possessed an unquenchable desire for adventure, preferring long hunting expeditions to society gatherings. Her unshakable persona convinced the Nazis that she was a fluffy American heiress who bought her way into a useless military position. In reality, Legendre was a employee of the OSS entrusted with top-secret information, routing cables for the Allies. Yet she managed to reveal nothing, to maintain her social status facade, and eventually pull off a breathtaking escape. VERDICT This riveting account of a little-known historical personality will appeal to World War II and general history fans alike. [See Prepub Alert, 3/11/19.]--Stacy Shaw, Denver

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2019
Gertrude Legendre was no ordinary prisoner of war. For much of the six months she spent in German custody she was, as journalist Finn (The Zhivago Affair, 2014) names her, a "guest of the Reich," one of a select group of prisoners whose social status won them special treatment. In this biographical adventure story, Finn vividly depicts the rarefied position from which this globetrotting, big game-hunting, unabashedly elitist old-school WASP experienced life in the 1920s, '30s and '40s. Separated from her naval officer husband in wartime, Legendre became a low-level administrator for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), moving from Washington to London and finally to France, where an ill-judged sightseeing trip to the front line put her in German hands. Finn captures Legendre's quick-witted responses to the dangers of interrogation and the contrasts, often expressed in her own voice, between her imprisonment and the experiences of other prisoners and German civilians in the last days of the war. Legendre's life makes for a captivating historical yarn and a unique addition to the cultural history of World War II.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)