Books to Read Before You Die

Author’s Note: This is part of my ongoing “Book to Read Before You Die” series.

To see the previous installment in this category, please see:

A Voyage to Arcturus

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One of my favorite things to do when I visit a new city is to find a local used bookstore, go in, prowl the shelves and hunt for treasure.

I’m intrigued by big dusty books resting anonymously among the rows, seemingly forgotten.

Recently in such a hallowed venue, I spotted a large midnight blue hardcover titled Out of the Night by Jan Valtin.

I flipped to the copyright page and saw it was published in 1941.

It was 749 pages.

Without looking closer to see what it might be about, I laid down three rumpled dollar bills, took the book home and started to read.

I quickly discovered I had stumbled upon an extraordinary book!

Out of The Night?is the autobiography of a German-born man who became a communist spy for the Soviet Union. He later became a double agent spying also for the Gestapo, the bitter enemy of the communist elements in Germany.

Jan Valtin’s entry into the life of a spy was borne out of the desperate times that followed the end of World War I and Germany’s catastrophic defeat.

At the end of the war, Valtin was a boy of 14 just trying to get by in a shattered nation.

To say that times were tough after the ruination inflicted upon the land would be a vast understatement. All the basics of life were scarce — food, shelter, jobs, security. Valtin writes:

“I would awake hungry and was still hungry when I went to sleep. Hunger wiped out the lines between adolescents and full-grown men. A sack of flour was worth more than a human life. When a fruit cart of a peasant from Vierlanden was turned over in the street and a middle-aged man tried to shoulder me aside in the scramble for winter apples, what else could I do but stand up and hit him in the face. I was in my fifteenth year.”

Germany was on its knees and the communists saw a significant opportunity to inculcate the defeated masses with Marxist philosophy.

Valtin found that working as a gopher and bicycle messenger boy for communist operators was a way to get along in the chaotic environment and earn a little money.

His father, a torpedo man in the German navy, never returned home.

His mother was unable to provide for him. The only future Valtin saw for himself was to — somehow, some way — ship out to sea. He set a personal goal to secure the position of “deckhand” for a merchant ship or freighter.

His long-term goal: Start out as the lowest grunt and work his way up to the top — ship’s captain.

But Valtin found breaking loose from his connections made within the communist operators of his youth not so simple. He was drawn ever more into a harrowing career and sticky tangle of political party activity, plotting, scheming, manipulations and intrigues.

Valtin proved to be a highly intelligent young man with a knack for spy craft. This brought him more dangerous assignments, including acting as a courier, and infiltrating and spying on other German political factions.

The budding fascist movements he informed upon would eventually acquire supreme power as the Nazis of Germany wrestled their way to the top.

What ensues for Valtin is a life of sizzling danger, international intrigue and spy games. He was often in the dark about who he was actually working for.

Valtin eventually becomes a double agent, spying for the cut-throat Gestapo as well as the communists, the Comintern, playing both sides off the other.

He trucked among dangerous characters and inhabited a shadowy world of mind-blowing complexity and perpetual uncertainty.

It reads like a thrilling?John le Carré?spy novel, except it’s all true — but wait a minute!

It is really true?

Well: It eventually came to light that there really was no such person or author as Jan Valtin.

This was actually the pen name for a man by the name of Richard Krebs.

Of course, there’s nothing unusual about a writer publishing under a nom de plume. Considering that he made many enemies along the way, one might expect him to publish under a fictional name.

However, this autobiography was so sensational it attracted the attention of a lot of smart and resourceful people, including the German writer Ernst Von Waldenfels.?

He was able to show — by gaining access to documents released after the fall of communist East Germany in 1990– that a lot of what Krebs claimed to have been doing as a Soviet-Gestapo double agent was greatly embellished and/or exaggerated.

As it turns out, Krebs was also a skilled fiction writer, having published several novels.

Even so, many portions of his life story check out to be true. For example, it is well documented that Krebs was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for being a “Gestapo agent,” although he was acquitted of the charge.

He was also subpoenaed to testify before the House Special Committee to Investigate Un-American Activities. He testified before the committee under oath that he had worked for both the Gestapo and Comintern.

Of course, all the above means little or nothing since his indictment and subpoena were based on a certain book published by one “Jan Valtin!”

In an attempt to cover all the bases, the House Subcommittee tasked its research staff to look into the veracity of the book.

Research director J.B. Matthews came back from his investigation with the claim that “Jan Valtin” was not a real person. (Apparently, he had never heard of a pen name). He also made the extraordinary pronouncement that?Into the Night?had actually been written by three ex-communists,?Isaac Levine,?Freda Utley?and?Walter Krivitsky.

Well, I can now tell you that Matthew’s assertion does not hold water.

I have reason to believe that Krebs wrote?Out of the Night?—?because his son sent me a letter “out of the blue” to tell me that was the case!

This happened after I published an earlier version of this review.

Eric Krebs saw my piece and it prompted him to reach out. As it turns out, Eric Krebs is a high-profile and successful Broadway producer in New York City. He even produced a show about the life of his father.

He affirmed to me that my take on his father was “fair and accurate.” Here is another portion of Eric Krebs letter sent to me in 2012:

Dear Ken:

“Yes, it must have seemed odd to get a letter out of the blue when my father has been dead over 60 years.

“I don’t know if you know, but after the publication of Out of the Night, he was arrested and held on Ellis Island as an enemy alien.

After 6 months he won his freedom and promptly joined the American army and ended up in the infantry in the Philippines.

After the war, he lived in Maryland in a house overlooking the Chesapeake Bay and wrote, though never with the success of Out of the Night.

His first son Jan was brought to America and is a retired engineer in California. My older brother, Conrad, is retired in Las Vegas; I go on as a professor of theater and theatrical producer.

My mother Abigail, his 17-year-old wife (in 1941) died in Laguna Beach 30 months ago.

Drop me another note if you have questions. I am based in NY… and yes, I/we came through the storm very well, but oh, many didn’t.

Best regards,

Eric Krebs

Whatever the case, and by any measure, Richard Krebs led an astonishing life of danger and adventure!

As Eric Krebs said in his letter, his father made his way to the United States and entered service with the U.S. Army. He fought in the Philippines during World War II.

That’s right! During this man’s amazing life, Krebs spied for the communists, worked for the Nazis and fought against the Nazis for the Americans! He obtained U.S. citizenship. Krebs died in 1951.

I haven’t mentioned the times he spent as a sailor, captain of a Soviet ship, a copper miner in South America, and a stint as a prisoner in San Quentin! (He was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon while in the United States).

So,?Out of the Night?may be an obscure book now, but it retains a well-earned cult following today. (It was a best seller when published in the 1940s).

Readers will gain a vivid inside look at what life was like in Post-World War I Germany, and a greater understanding of how Germany veered off onto the horrifying path that led to the tragedy of World War II.

You will also vicariously experience the frightening life of a spy.

It’s an amazing book!

Note: To see more of Ken's books reviews and analysis, see: Ken's Book Reviews