Changing Enemies: The Defeat and Regeneration of Germany - Hardcover

Annan, Noel Gilroy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002556294 ISBN 13: 9780002556293

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1995

Synopsis

In January 1941, the twenty-four-year-old Noel Annan was assigned to Military Intelligence in Whitehall, where for the next four years he was to be involved in the crucial work of interpreting the information supplied by a network of agents throughout occupied Europe and, critically, by the Ultra code-breakers at Bletchley Park. He was therefore at the centre of Britain's secret war planning, and was engaged in what Shakespeare called the 'mystery in the soul of state'. From Winston Churchill and Bomber Harris to the great minds at Bletchley, he describes in superbly characterised detail the people and the problems involved in this curious and difficult work, which was to play such a vital role in the Allied victory.
Immediately the war in Europe ended, Annan was seconded to the British Zone in the defeated Germany to help rebuild the country which he and his colleagues had so recently been working to destroy. Germany's cities were in ruins, its people starving and demoralised, its industry smashed. Britain was changing enemies: from being the ally of the Western Powers, Soviet Russia now became a foe. The Allies were faced with a Soviet-inspired takeover of Berlin by the German Communist Party, which Annan was sent to counter.
Annan got to know the new generation of German politicians who were to bring about the economic miracle that led to the country's renaissance from the ashes of defeat to become the most powerful nation in Europe. When the future Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was placed under house arrest and banned from taking part in politics, Annan helped to get him released.

About this title

Review

Noel Annan was a young cadet in the British Intelligence Division known as M.I.14 responsible for monitoring German messages during World War II. His work put him in close proximity to leading figures in the British military as well as such secret resources as the British decoder called "Ultra." From this prime perch Annan witnessed the operations of England's war effort. After Germany's surrender, he was assigned to an administrative position in conquered Germany. He records the varied notions of reeducation that Allied officers designed for the defeated enemy, everything from philosophical debate to alter the German's conception of a good life to the organized dilution of German blood through orchestrated intermarriage. Working from his personal recollections, supplemented with thorough historical research, Lord Annan writes in the impassioned voice of an eyewitness to these historic events, and his memoir beats with the lively pulse inspired by the effort to defeat the Nazis.

From the Back Cover

In January 1941, Noel Annan was assigned to Military Intelligence in Whitehall, where he was to be involved for the next four years, at the center of Britain's secret war planning, in the crucial work of interpreting information supplied by a network of agents throughout occupied Europe. When the war in Europe ended, Annan was seconded to the British Zone in defeated Germany to help rebuild its ruined cities. Annan got to know the new generation of German politicians who were to bring about the economic miracle that led from the ashes of defeat to Germany's renaissance as the most powerful nation in Europe. When the future chancellor Konrad Adenauer was placed under house arrest and banned from taking part in politics, Annan helped to get him released. Annan's riveting account of this pivotal period of European history is both fascinating in itself and of considerable importance to our understanding of Europe today.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0002556294
• ISBN 13: 9780002556293
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320