The Great Escaper
The Life and Death of Roger Bushell
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The Great Escaper
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Narrated by:
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Charles Johnston
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By:
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Simon Pearson
About this listen
Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller
The thrilling true story of the real Great Escape, published to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the escape.
Roger Bushell was 'Big X', mastermind of the mass breakout from Stalag Luft III in March 1944, immortalised in the Hollywood film The Great Escape.
Very little was known about Bushell until 2011, when his family donated his private papers - a treasure trove of letters, photographs and diaries - to the Imperial War Museum. Through exclusive access to this material - as well as fascinating new research from other sources - Simon Pearson, Chief Night Editor of The Times, has now written the first biography of this iconic figure.
Born in South Africa in 1910, Roger Bushell was the son of a British mining engineer. By the age of 29, this charismatic character who spoke nine languages had become a London barrister with a reputation for successfully defending those much less fortunate than him. He was also renowned as an international ski champion and fighter pilot with a string of glamorous girlfriends.
On 23 May, 1940, his Spitfire was shot down during a dogfight over Boulogne after destroying two German fighters. From then on his life was governed by an unquenchable desire to escape from Occupied Europe.
Over the next four years he made three escapes, coming within 100 yards of the Swiss border during his first attempt. His second escape took him to Prague where he was sheltered by the Czech resistance for eight months before he was captured. The three months of savage interrogation in Berlin by the Gestapo that followed made him even more determined. Prisoner or not, he would do his utmost to fight the Nazis. His third (and last escape) destabilised the Nazi leadership and captured the imagination of the world.
He died on 29 March 1944, murdered on the explicit instructions of Adolf Hitler.
Simon Pearson's revealing biography is a vivid account of war and love, triumph and tragedy - one man's attempt to challenge remorseless tyranny in the face of impossible odds.
©2013 Simon Pearson (P)2023 Hodder & Stoughton LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
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- Narrated by: Sarah Rose
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 292
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 254
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 252
In 1942, the Allies were losing, Germany seemed unstoppable, and every able man in England was on the front lines. To "set Europe ablaze," in the words of Winston Churchill, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), whose spies were trained in everything from demolition to sharpshooting, was forced to do something unprecedented: recruit women. Thirty-nine answered the call, leaving their lives and families to become saboteurs in France.
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3 out of 5 stars
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an excellent story ruined by horrible narration
- By Joshua on 04-23-19
By: Sarah Rose
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The Wolves at the Door
- The True Story of America's Greatest Female Spy
- By: Judith Pearson
- Narrated by: Patrice O’Neill
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 284
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 256
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 253
Virginia Hall left her comfortable Baltimore roots in 1931 to follow a dream of becoming a Foreign Service Officer. After watching Hitler roll over Poland and France, she enlisted to work for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), a secret espionage and sabotage organization. She was soon deployed to occupied France where, if captured, imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Gestapo was all but assured.
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2 out of 5 stars
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The narrator is ruining the book for me
- By Penni Khandi on 06-19-14
By: Judith Pearson
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Return to the Reich
- A Holocaust Refugee's Secret Mission to Defeat the Nazis
- By: Eric Lichtblau
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 36
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story5 out of 5 stars 35
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 94, Return to the Reich is an enlightening, unforgettable narrative of World War II heroism.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Great story, weak author
- By JD on 01-08-20
By: Eric Lichtblau
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The Splendid and the Vile
- A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: John Lee, Erik Larson
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 11,880
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 10,170
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 10,091
On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next 12 months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally - and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being fearless."
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4 out of 5 stars
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John Lee’s narration is a struggle
- By Leslie Rathjens on 03-05-20
By: Erik Larson
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Operation Columba - The Secret Pigeon Service
- The Untold Story of World War II Resistance in Europe
- By: Gordon Corera
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 25
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24
Gordon Corera uses declassified documents and extensive original research to tell the story of the Operation Columba and the Secret Pigeon Service for the first time. A tale of wartime espionage, bitter rivalries, extraordinary courage, astonishing betrayal, harrowing tragedy, and a quirky, quarrelsome band of spy masters and their special mission, Operation Columba opens a fascinating new chapter in the annals of World War II. It is ultimately, the story of how, in one of the darkest and most dangerous times in history, under threat of death, people bravely chose to resist.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Belgium Pigeon
- By Don Rottiers on 08-10-21
By: Gordon Corera
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The Book of Honor
- The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives
- By: Ted Gup
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 219
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 162
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 162
In the entrance of the CIA headquarters looms a huge marble wall in to which seventy-one stars are carved - each representing an agent who has died in the line of duty. At the base of this wall lies "The Book of Honor," in which the names of these agents are inscribed, or at least thirty-five of them... In this remarkable program, author Ted Gup delves into covert lives and classified deaths at the CIA.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Painfully narrated.
- By RM on 08-16-19
By: Ted Gup
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The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line
- Untold Stories of the Women Who Changed the Course of World War II
- By: Major General Mari K. Eder US Army (Ret.)
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunn
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 228
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 198
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 197
For fans of Radium Girls and history and WWII buffs, The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line takes you inside the lives and experiences of 15 unknown women heroes from the Greatest Generation, the women who served, fought, struggled, and made things happen during WWII - in and out of uniform, for theirs is a legacy destined to embolden generations of women to come.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Ending very poorly done
- By Jacqueline Bailey on 10-03-21
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Americans in Paris
- Life and Death under Nazi Occupation
- By: Charles Glass
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 66
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Story4 out of 5 stars 51
In Americans in Paris, tales of adventure, intrigue, passion, deceit, and survival unfold season by season as renowned journalist Charles Glass tells the story of a remarkable cast of expatriates and their struggles in Nazi Paris. Before the Second World War began, approximately thirty thousand Americans lived in Paris, and when war broke out in 1939 almost five thousand remained.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Informative, but average engagement
- By Leann on 05-09-17
By: Charles Glass
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A Woman of No Importance
- The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
- By: Sonia Purnell
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,268
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,647
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Story5 out of 5 stars 4,624
In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her." The target in their sights was Virginia Hall, a Baltimore socialite who talked her way into Special Operations Executive, the spy organization dubbed Winston Churchill's "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare." She became the first Allied woman deployed behind enemy lines and - despite her prosthetic leg - helped to light the flame of the French Resistance, revolutionizing secret warfare as we know it.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Maybe it’s the narrator?
- By Andrea on 09-18-19
By: Sonia Purnell
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The Correspondents
- Six Women Writers on the Front Lines of World War II
- By: Judith Mackrell
- Narrated by: Julie Teal
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
On the front lines of the Second World War, a contingent of female journalists were bravely waging their own battle. Barred from combat zones and faced with entrenched prejudice and bureaucratic restrictions, these women were forced to fight for the right to work on equal terms with men.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Narration was nails on a chalkboard
- By aunt deb on 12-20-21
By: Judith Mackrell
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Betrayal in Berlin
- The True Story of the Cold War's Most Audacious Espionage Operation
- By: Steve Vogel
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 17 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 280
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 234
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 236
Its code name was “Operation Gold”, a wildly audacious CIA plan to construct a clandestine tunnel into East Berlin to tap into critical KGB and Soviet military telecommunication lines. The tunnel, crossing the border between the American and Soviet sectors, would have to be 1,500 feet (the length of the Empire State Building) with state-of-the-art equipment, built and operated literally under the feet of their Cold War adversaries.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating Book
- By Toni Bowes on 01-11-20
By: Steve Vogel
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The Secret Lives of Codebreakers
- The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park
- By: Sinclair McKay
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 108
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 93
Bletchley Park looked like any other sprawling country estate. In reality, however, it was the top-secret headquarters of Britain’s Government Code and Cypher School - and the site where Germany’s legendary Enigma code was finally cracked. There, the nation’s most brilliant mathematical minds - including Alan Turing, whose discoveries at Bletchley would fuel the birth of modern computing - toiled alongside debutantes, factory workers, and students on projects of international importance. Until now, little has been revealed about ordinary life at this extraordinary facility.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Dull treatment of an exciting subject
- By Drew on 01-31-14
By: Sinclair McKay
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Che Guevara
- A Revolutionary Life
- By: Jon Lee Anderson
- Narrated by: Armando Durán
- Length: 36 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,088
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 802
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 806
Che Guevara was a dashing rebel whose epic dream was to end poverty and injustice in Latin America and the developing world through armed revolution. Jon Lee Anderson traces Che's extraordinary life from his comfortable Argentine upbringing to the battlefields of the Cuban revolution, from the halls of power in Castro's government to his failed campaign in the Congo and his assassination in the Bolivian jungle.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Encompassing and Fair Look at an Historical Man
- By Matt on 08-10-11
By: Jon Lee Anderson
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The Bastard Brigade
- The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb
- By: Sam Kean
- Narrated by: Ben Sullivan
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 921
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 816
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 813
During World War II, in the middle of building an atomic bomb, the leaders of the Manhattan Project were alarmed to learn that Nazi Germany was far outpacing the Allies in nuclear weapons research; Hitler, with just a few pounds of uranium, would have the capability to reverse the entire D-Day operation and conquer Europe. So they assembled a rough and motley crew of geniuses—dubbed the Alsos Mission—and sent them careening into Axis territory to spy on, sabotage, and even assassinate members of Nazi Germany's feared Uranium Club.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Awesome
- By Solar red on 07-12-19
By: Sam Kean
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Nazi Wives
- The Women at the Top of Hitler's Germany
- By: James Wyllie
- Narrated by: Dalya Raphael
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 177
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 153
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 152
Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich, Hess, Bormann - names synonymous with power and influence in the Third Reich. Perhaps less familiar are Carin, Emmy, Magda, Margarete, Lina, Ilse, and Gerda. These are the women behind the infamous men - complex individuals with distinctive personalities who were captivated by Hitler and whose everyday lives were governed by Nazi ideology. Throughout the rise and fall of Nazism these women loved and lost, raised families, and quarreled with their husbands and each other, all the while jostling for position with the Fuhrer himself.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Scary
- By Three River on 05-15-21
By: James Wyllie
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The Women Who Flew for Hitler
- A True Story of Soaring Ambition and Searing Rivalry
- By: Clare Mulley
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
Hanna Reitsch and Melitta von Stauffenberg were talented, courageous, and strikingly attractive women who fought convention to make their names in the male-dominated field of flight in 1930s Germany. With the war, both became pioneering test pilots and were awarded the Iron Cross for service to the Third Reich. But they could not have been more different, and neither woman had a good word to say for the other.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Vividly Told Duel Biography
- By Jean on 09-11-17
By: Clare Mulley
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All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days
- The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler
- By: Rebecca Donner
- Narrated by: Rebecca Donner
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 549
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 483
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 481
Born and raised in Milwaukee, Mildred Harnack was twenty-six when she enrolled in a PhD program in Germany and witnessed the meteoric rise of the Nazi party. In 1932, she began holding secret meetings in her apartment—a small band of political activists that by 1940 had grown into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin. She recruited working-class Germans into the resistance, helped Jews escape, plotted acts of sabotage, and collaborated in writing leaflets that denounced Hitler and called for revolution.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Riveting narrative non fiction
- By Sarah Q on 10-22-21
By: Rebecca Donner
What listeners say about The Great Escaper
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Richard Jones
- 09-09-24
,,,, Hi,,, a very well resurched listen,,,,
,,, a marvelous true story, of so many wonderful people,,, a recommended audiobook book that will enthrall many listeners in the future......
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