Secret agents, sabotage, planned invasions, codes breaking and double agents are often the stuff of spy stories, but can be found in real life as well. Agent of the Iron Cross documents Lothar Witzke's story as German agent, running loose in the United States and Mexico from 1915 till his capture and trial in 1918.

At the opening of World War I, Witzke was a midshipman on the German cruiser Dresden and wounded in the final battle with the British Navy off the coast of Chile. He escaped from the hospital at Valparaiso, Chile, and disguised as a Danish seaman who had lost his papers made his way to San Fransisco. Consul Bopp employeed Witzke as a courier until he hooked up with Kurt Jahnke and became a saboteur. He helped plant explosives on merchant ships and with involved in the Black Tom Island and the Mare Island Naval Station explosions. In 1917, Witzke and Jahnke moved to Mexico to stay in communication with their HQ while continuing their operations. One such operation involved creating labor unrest at mines in southwestern United States so that local US Army troops would be called out while also having blacks in the South rise up in insurrections followed by the Mexican Army invading and occupying parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and California. All this mayhem would keep the United States out of the war in Europe. Fortunately, for the United States there were some competent undercover agents and double agents embedded in the German camp so that this plot could be thwarted. As part of the plot, Witzke crossed the border into Texas and was arrested, his luggage searched and a code found. The contents of the coded message played its part in the court-martial trial in convicting Witzke of espionage and sentenced to be hanged. After judicial review in 1919, the sentence was changed to confinement at hard labor. In 1919, Witzke and two other prisoners broke out of Fort Sam Houston prison but quickly recaptured and he ended up in Leavenworth for several years until released in 1923. Witzke moved back to Germany and joined the Abwehr under Canaris before World War II started. After the war Witzke served in the Hamburg legislature from 1949-1952. He died on January 6, 1962.

If you are interested in spies, secret agents, double crosses and feats of daring, pick up a copy of Agents of the Iron Cross and pick up a few little known facts!

Bill Mills, self described “espionage writer and historian” returns to World War I era Mexico for his latest work, <i>Agent of the Iron Cross: The Race to Capture German Saboteur-Assassin Lothar Witzke…</i>. It traces the career of Lothar Witzke, first as a member of the German navy, then as a saboteur and assassin carrying out missions in raids in the neutral in name United States. Between mission Witzke would find a haven in German friendly Mexico.

Mills narrates chronologically, detailing the German Navy’s strategy in East Asia and the Pacific. It was centered on raids and speed, attempting to draw the fleets of the British to commit greater and greater resources to their capture or destruction. At the outbreak of war, Britain had established a naval blockade of Germany, denying them the commercial resources that had been available by sea. Once the Germany fleet was either no more or sheltering in harbors, the Germans embraced the U-Boats and sabotage to limit the materials being shipped from the United States from reaching Europe one war or the other,

In seeking to write <i>Agent of the Iron Cross</i> as one would a thriller, Mills narrates the events from different perspectives, this require close attention that can leave the reader confused. We have Witzke’s perspective, those of double agents and others in the German spy network and American counter intelligence agents be they code breakers or spies and journalists. There are also the politicians American, Mexican and German.

Where the book excels is detailing the destructive accomplishments such as the devastation of the ammunition supply depot Black Tom Island or the destruction of ships using the time delayed incendiary devices. An especially detailed section highlights the accomplishments of American code breakers, who cracked the code that demonstrably revealed WItzke’s identity.

Otherwise, the chase of Witzke is messy, both because the Germans were surprisingly trusting of some of those who entered their orbit and because so much of it centers on a single mission with the goal of spurring a race war in the United States. The book would benefit from a list of dramatis personae listing their names, code names and loyalties, without this one has to refer back to earlier sections.

The section detailing the post war afterlives of the different figures also feels as if it is padding the book length, how does knowing how these people took part in World War II or died before then matter to the overall book? Yes it is helpful to know about Witzke and Dr Altendorf, but I found the rest very tangential.

A book that might appeal to those interested in the cat and mouse games of espionage or the secret war in the United States prior to 1917. Overall a detail heavy exploration of a little known figure.

A tremendous read regarding the operation of German saboteurs during WW1 operating in the US. I was not aware of these events, and I found the book to be engrossing and hard to put down, This was a great read.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.