The Traitors Circle, Jonathan Freedland
The Traitors Circle, Jonathan Freedland
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The Traitors Circle
The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany—and the Spy Who Betrayed Them

Author: Jonathan Freedland

Narrator: Jonathan Freedland

Unabridged: 12 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Harper

Published: 10/28/2025


Synopsis

"An astonishing true story of courage, love, and betrayal, told with the verve of a thriller. Freedland is a master at weaving spellbinding entertainments drawn from forgotten corners of history."—Mick Herron, bestselling author of Slow HorsesFrom the New York Times bestselling author of The Escape Artist, an extraordinary true story of resistance, heroism and betrayal.When the whole world is lying, someone must tell the truth.Berlin, 1943: A group of high society anti-Nazi dissenters meet for a tea party one late summer’s afternoon. They do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them all to the Gestapo.They form a circle of unlikely rebels, drawn from the German elite: two countesses, a diplomat, an intelligence officer, an ambassador’s widow and a pioneering head mistress. What unites every one of them is a shared loathing of the Nazis, a refusal to bow to Hitler and the courage to perform perilous acts of resistance: meeting in the shadows, rescuing Jews or plotting for a future Germany freed from the Führer's rule. Or so they believe.How did a group of brave, principled rebels, who had successfully defied Adolf Hitler for more than a decade, come to fall into such a lethal trap?Undone from within and pursued to near-destruction by one of the Reich’s cruelest men, they showed a heroism in the face of the most vengeful regime in history that raises the question: what kind of person does it take to risk everything and stand up to tyranny?

About Jonathan Freedland

Jonathan Freedland is a columnist and former foreign correspondent for The Guardian. He is the host of BBC Radio 4’s contemporary history series The Long View, as well as two popular podcasts, Politics Weekly America and Unholy, the latter alongside the journalist Yonit Levi. He is the author of thirteen other books, including the award-winning bestseller The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Brendan on August 06, 2025

It is so easy to forget that during World War II, there were Germans actively working from the inside to destroy Hitler. Very often, they would pay a terrible price. This is certainly the case for the people in Jonathan Freedland's The Traitors Circle. I hesitate to give any of the plot away, so I wi......more

Goodreads review by Iain on November 28, 2025

There is no big conspiracy or plot at the centre of The Traitors Circle. Instead the use of a social gathering - a tea party - amongst friends who disagreed with the Nazi regime is used ro highlight how brutal the punishment for the merest hint of dissent against the Reich was. This does leave the b......more

Goodreads review by SnarkyMoggie on September 23, 2025

I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley. The following review is only my thoughts, and have not been influenced by the author, the publisher or by Net Galley. This is a heart-wrenching biography on an Anti-Nazi group made up of people from all walks of life. Family members. Differences in......more

Goodreads review by Heather~ Nature.books.and.coffee on October 03, 2025

This was such an interesting non-fiction book about the secret resistance network in WW2 Nazi Germany, and the spy who betrayed them. I love reading about parts of history that are not well known. In The Traitors Circle we read about a group of Germans, working to resist Hitler and the Nazis, but on......more

Goodreads review by Sophie on November 13, 2025

A fascinating story of courage and defiance by extraordinary German people who refused to be engulfed in the horror and terror of the Nazi years. Freedland tackles the disturbing subject of ‘what would I have done’ ‘what kind of person I might have been’. The book is unfortunately peppered with spicy......more