A01=Christine Kuehn
Author_Christine Kuehn
axis powers espionage
berlin family
Category=DNBH
Category=DNBH1
Category=DNC
Category=JPSH
Category=NHWR7
december 7
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
exciting history book
german spies wwii
goebbels
hawaii
historical
historical narratives
history books
hitler
japan
japanese intelligence
nazi spy
oahu
pearl harbor attack
pearl harbor bombing
popular history
secret war history
spy operations
untold wwii stories
wwii espionage
Product details
- ISBN 9781250344465
- Weight: 526g
- Dimensions: 154 x 233mm
- Publication Date: 05 Jan 2026
- Publisher: St Martin's Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
It began with a call from a screenwriter, asking about a story. Your family. WWII. Nazis spies. Christine Kuehn was shocked and confused. When she asked her 70-year-old father, Eberhard, what this could possibly be about, he stalled, deflected, demurred, and then he wept. He knew this day would come.
The Kuehns, a once prominent Berlin family, saw the rise of the Nazis as a way out of the hard times that had befallen them. When the daughter of the family, Eberhard's sister and Christine's Aunt Ruth, met Nazi leader Joseph Goebbells at a party, the two hit it off, and they had an affair. But Ruth had a secret - she was half jewish, and Goebbells found out. Rather than having Ruth killed, Goebbels instead sent the entire Kuehn family to Hawaii, to work as spies half a world away. There, Christine's grandparents and her Aunt Ruth established an intricate spy operation from their home, just a few miles down the road from Pearl Harbor, shielding their son Eberhard from the truth. They passed secrets to the Japanese leading to the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, and only after that did Eberhard first learn of the family's spying. After Christine's grandfather was arrested and tried for his involvement in planning the attack on Pearl Harbor, her father left. Eberhard turned his back on the entire family, joined the US Army, and fought the Japanese in Okinawa.
Jumping back and forth from Christine discovering her family's secret to the untold past of spies in Germany, Japan and Hawaii, Family of Spies is fast paced history at its finest, and will rewrite the narrative of December 7, 1941.
Christine Kuehn Schiponi was cocooned in the sanctity of a quiet suburban life when a letter from a historian in 1994 pierced that bubble, sending her on a 30 year quest to discover the truth behind a horrendous family secret kept hidden for half a century. Following a career in journalism, public relations, and non-profit, Christine now lives in Maryland with her husband close to their three grown children.
