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Summary
Summary
In a tale as twisted as any spy thriller, discover how three women delivered critical evidence of Axis war crimes to Allied forces during World War II: "A tantalizingly novelistic history lesson" ( Kirkus ).
In 1944, news of secret diaries kept by Italy's Foreign Minister, Galeazzo Ciano, had permeated public consciousness. What wasn't reported, however, was how three women--a Fascist's daughter, a German spy, and an American banker's wife--risked their lives to ensure the diaries would reach the Allies, who would later use them as evidence against the Nazis at Nuremberg.
In 1944, Benito Mussolini's daughter, Edda, gave Hitler and her father an ultimatum: release her husband, Galeazzo Ciano, from prison, or risk her leaking her husband's journals to the press. To avoid the peril of exposing Nazi lies, Hitler and Mussolini hunted for the diaries for months, determined to destroy them.
Hilde Beetz, a German spy, was deployed to seduce Ciano to learn the diaries' location and take them from Edda. As the seducer became the seduced, Hilde converted as a double agent, joining forces with Edda to save Ciano from execution. When this failed, Edda fled to Switzerland with Hilde's daring assistance to keep Ciano's final wish: to see the diaries published for use by the Allies. When American spymaster Allen Dulles learned of Edda's escape, he sent in Frances De Chollet, an "accidental" spy, telling her to find Edda, gain her trust, and, crucially, hand the diaries over to the Americans. Together, they succeeded in preserving one of the most important documents of WWII.
Drawing from in‑depth research and first-person interviews with people who witnessed these events, Mazzeo gives readers a riveting look into this little‑known moment in history and shows how, without Edda, Hilde, and Frances's involvement, certain convictions at Nuremberg would never have been possible.
Author Notes
Tilar J. Mazzeo is a New York Times bestselling author of books that include The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It, The Secret of Chanel No. 5: The Intimate Story of the World's Most Famous Perfume, and The Hotel On The Place Vendôme: Life, Death, And Betrayal At The Hôtel Ritz In Paris. She also writes extensively on wine for the media and is the author of The Back Lane Wineries of Napa, The Back Lane Wineries of Sonoma, and the forthcoming guide to The Back Lane Wineries of the Pacific Northwest.
She received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington, Seattle, and today writes narrative nonfiction and memoir on the history of war, women, and luxury. She teaches English as the Clara C. Piper Associate Professor of English at Colby College and teaches narrative nonfiction at writer's workshops in the Canadian Gulf Islands of British Columbia.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
University of Montreal literature professor Mazzeo (Eliza Hamilton) unravels a tangled knot of Fascist intrigue and family infighting in this riveting WWII history. At the center of the story are Italian foreign minister Galleazzo Ciano and his wife, Edda, Benito Mussolini's favorite daughter. In 1943, Ciano voted with the Fascist Party's Grand Council to oust Mussolini. His replacement was Ciano's archrival, Pietro Badoglio, who, in a bid to solidify his power, put Ciano under house arrest. This prompted Edda to approach a group of Nazi officials with a proposal: if they helped the Cianos flee to Spain, Edda would hand over her husband's diaries (which contained state secrets and unflattering depictions of Italian and German officials) so they could further their own aims with Hitler. After striking a deal, the family was betrayed and ended up in Germany, where S.S. agent Hilde Beetz fell in love with Ciano while seducing him into revealing the whereabouts of his diaries. Hitler eventually returned Mussolini to power and sent the Cianos back to Italy, where Ciano was executed in 1944. Soon after, Beetz brokered a deal between Edda and U.S. intelligence, which wanted Ciano's diaries for evidence against the Nazis in postwar trials. Mazzeo efficiently relates these complex events and renders empathetic portraits of the story's main players. WWII buffs will be enthralled. (June)
Kirkus Review
A distinguished cultural studies scholar explores the web of intrigue surrounding the infamous Ciano Diaries. Before he became famous for condemning the Third Reich and its leaders, Galeazzo Ciano (1903-1944) was better known as Mussolini's playboy son-in-law and foreign minister. In her latest elegant book of European cultural history, Mazzeo offers a colorful account of Ciano and Mussolini, the affairs and double-crosses that surrounded the diaries, and the courageous women whose efforts saved the manuscripts for posterity. Ciano began keeping diaries about Hitler's inner circle in 1939, the year he started to question the war in Europe and the Third Reich's alliance with Italy. Though in the service of a dictator, Ciano realized Mussolini's involvement with Germany would be Italy's downfall. So he turned to his journals, where he expressed his virulent disgust with the Third Reich and recorded "the political squabbles" between men like Himmler and Goebbels who "vied for power and influence with Hitler." By 1943, the foreign minister, who gossiped shamelessly about his diary, had become a liability to the Third Reich. The Germans then sent a beautiful, young, married spy to learn the location of the journals, which Ciano had hidden before using them as collateral for a passage into exile. Little went according to plan. The spy fell in love with Ciano and turned double agent for the Allies. In that role, she developed an unlikely alliance with Ciano's wife, Edda, and an American socialite to protect as much of Ciano's manuscript--portions of which still ended up in German hands--for postwar publication in the U.S. Intelligent and compelling, Mazzeo's probing book delves intriguingly into the "moral thicket" into which a group of strangers found themselves plunged during the long, dark days of World War II. A tantalizingly novelistic history lesson. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The story Mazzeo (The Hotel on Place Vendôme, 2014) tells here reads like a John le Carré novel, too incredible to be true--and yet it is. At the height of WWII, Mussolini's son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano, voted to oust il Duce from the Fascist Party. Ciano was eventually imprisoned and executed. The Nazis knew he kept diaries full of incriminating information. Edda, his wife, knew too, and hid them to be used as leverage to get her family safely out of the country. S.S. agent Hilde Beetz, who interrogated Ciano in prison, fell in love with him and became a double agent. She helped get Edda out of Italy, and brokered a deal with the Allies to publish the diaries. To accomplish this, an American socialite and sometime spy, Frances de Chollet, befriended Edda and obtained the diaries, which were eventually used as evidence in the Nuremberg trials. This little-known but very important WWII story has the pacing of a thriller novel with the research acumen expected from this excellent writer.
Library Journal Review
State secrets, atrocities, spies, double agents: this backdrop forms the real-life entanglements of this biograpby by Mazzeo (Irena's Children). At the center of this web is the daughter of Benito Mussolini, Edda Mussolini Ciano, and her husband, Galeazzo Ciano. While Galeazzo is a foreign minister and son-in-law to Mussolini, he also becomes disenchanted by fascist Italy and Nazi Germany's crimes. His diaries become sought-after documents by both his enemies and his allies. Readers enter Mussolini's inner circle, where politics has devolved into a deadly game of risk. There is the notoriously cruel Joachim von Ribbentrop of Hitler's administration, one that the Ciano couple distrust. There is also the seductive spy Hildegard Burkhardt Beetz, who becomes a double agent against Germany. Galeazzo turned on Mussolini in 1943, and he paid for it with his life. However, his wife Edda had a plan for revenge herself. She would get Ciano's papers, which detailed Hitler and Mussolini's secret plans, to the Allies. The style is energetic yet informative. VERDICT A nail-biting account of state crimes and secrets, real world action pitting spy versus spy and diplomat versus diplomat.--Jeffrey Meyer
Table of Contents
| Cast of Characters | p. vii |
| Preface: The Inferno | p. xiii |
| Prologue: The German Spy and Mussolini's Daughter | p. 1 |
| Chapter 1 The Grand Council | p. 17 |
| Chapter 2 Tramontana | p. 27 |
| Chapter 3 Flight to Exile | p. 38 |
| Chapter 4 Gallo | p. 48 |
| Chapter 5 Arrest | p. 60 |
| Chapter 6 The Last Card | p. 77 |
| Chapter 7 Operation Conte | p. 90 |
| Chapter 8 Blackmailing Hitler | p. 103 |
| Chapter 9 The Trial of Verona | p. 119 |
| Chapter 10 Emilio | p. 134 |
| Chapter 11 Refuge in Switzerland | p. 142 |
| Chapter 12 Father Pancino | p. 155 |
| Chapter 13 Germania | p. 168 |
| Chapter 14 The Banker's Wife | p. 179 |
| Chapter 15 The House of Spies | p. 188 |
| Chapter 16 My New Found Friend | p. 196 |
| Chapter 17 Lunch at Monthey Station | p. 212 |
| Chapter 18 The Ciano Diaries | p. 224 |
| Chapter 19 The Rose Garden | p. 239 |
| Epilogue: Into Thin Air | p. 253 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 255 |
| Endnotes | p. 257 |
| Index | p. 299 |
