Guest of the Reich

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A Washington Post Best Book of the Year, this dramatic story follows a South Carolina heiress who joined the OSS and became the first American woman in uniform captured on the Western front, ultimately escaping from Nazi Germany. Gertrude "Gertie" Legendre, a big-game hunter from a wealthy family, lived a charmed life during the Jazz Age and inspired the Broadway play Holiday, later adapted into a film starring Katharine Hepburn. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, she joined the OSS, the precursor to the CIA, where she handled sensitive U.S. government secrets in Washington and London. In 1944, while on leave in liberated Paris, Legendre was captured by the Germans after inadvertently crossing the front lines. Enduring repeated interrogations, including by the Gestapo, she engaged in a daring game of deception with her captors. Treated as a special prisoner of the SS, she was moved across Germany, witnessing the collapse of Hitler's regime from a unique perspective. After six months of captivity, Legendre managed to escape into Switzerland. This account reveals a little-known chapter of World War II history and offers a compelling portrait of an extraordinary woman.