HEY GUYS!  MY BOOK IS FINALLY COMING OUT!!!        

https://www.andrewlownie.co.uk/authors/brendan-mcnally/books/traitors-odyssey-martha-dodd-her-circle-and-soviet-espionage-in-america

 WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO

Hello, friends in Radio-land.  I know I've been missing in action, lo, these many months.  But I've been doing stuff.  Thought I'd pop in and apologize and bring everyone up to date.

I've spent the last bunch of years researching and writing a book about an American woman who became a Soviet spy during the 1930s and then led a fairly bizarre life because of it.   Her name was Martha Dodd and I first learned about her when I came to Prague to be a 'foreign correspondent' back in 1992.  

I worked at the Prague Post, a now-defunct, briefly legendary weekly newspaper, which endeavored to cover the news coming out of newly-democratic Czechoslovakia.  It was manned by an ever-evolving band of American, Canadian, British, and Czech journalists, all young, and most without even half a clue.

I already had several years experience covering the Pentagon and Capitol Hill for a succession of sleazy defense-industry newsletters. I was also quite a bit older than most of my colleagues who were mostly fresh out of university. Anyway, one day in July or August, when absolutely nothing, besides the country breaking up, I went for an interview with someone from the Agricultural Chamber, a professional organization of farmers.  Since he didn't speak English, I brought along a translator.  Her name was Dora Slaba and she was a sixty-ish woman, a Sudeten Jew, who spoke with a British accent, something she'd picked up living in London during WWII.  After the interview, I took her out to a McDonalds which had just opened up on Wenceslas Square and got Dora her very first Happy Meal. 

We chatted for a few minutes as we ate and then she seemed to get serious and she asked me if I'd ever heard of an American writer named Martha Dodd.  I told her didn't and asked who she was.

"She was a rich American widow who'd been living here for years and years," Dora answered.  "I was her secretary for a year or two just before the Revolution. She said she was a writer and a journalist, but nobody I've talked to has ever heard of her."

I told Dora she sounded like she might be interesting. Was she still around? Dora shook her head and told me she'd died two years earlier.  I told her again how I thought it sounded interesting and we moved on to other subjects. I promptly forgot all about it.  For the next five years I was extremely busy covering all kinds of crazy stories that were continually breaking.

It wasn't until about ten years later I ran into that woman.  

I'd been back in the US for several years and was at work on a novel set during the final days of the Third Reich.  I was doing research on the internet in a history site probably called something like "Hot Babes of Nazi Germany!"  And there she was:  Martha Dodd,  the woman Dora had worked for!

It turned out that Martha Dodd was the daughter of William E Dodd, who had been the American Ambassador to Nazi Germany. She had accompanied her parents to Berlin in 1933 and promptly started having sex with amost every Nazi bigwig she came into contact with. And there were a lot of them. At one point she was screwing the head of the Gestapo, a celebrated dive-bomber ace and movie stunt pilot, several generals and Hitler's piano player.  Then she met a dashing Russian diplomat and promptly fell head over heels for him, though she was still boffing all those other guys. He recruited her into Soviet intelligence.  For a while she was one of Stalin's top agents. She had a fairly amazing run which lasted a couple years until her father's tour of duty ended and the Dodd family went back to America.

Martha had hoped to continue her spy work in America, and Moscow Center had big plans for her. But almost as soon as she came home,  Josef Stalin unleashed a wave of purges that put all the best Soviet intelligence officers in front of firing squads. Martha got forgotten.

Eventually she got put into a low-level spy ring and her exploits were anything but spectacular.  The FBI found out about them and she spent years under surveillance. When they tried to arrest her, she slipped their trap twice and ended up fleeing with all her money to Prague where she lived like something out of Sunset Boulevard for the next thirty years, which was how Dora met her.

I went back to Prague and found Dora and made her tell me what else she knew.  She told me a lot of weird stories.  But I have also learned a lot weirder stuff from other people I found that knew her.

Anyway, I'm currently writing about Martha Dodd's life.  I'm at least a year from completing it, but my agent is shopping a package of chapters to various interested editors, so my fingers are crossed.

Wish me luck, you all.

.....SORT OF LIKE THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE RIGHT NOW!

..HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MEIN FUHRER, SORRY, BUT I GOTTA LEAVE EARLY! HAVE TO SEE A MAN ABOUT A DOG!  

Excerpt from Germania, a Novel  by Brendan McNally

Copyright, Simon & Schuster, 2012 

     It was April 20, Hitler’s birthday. The day was declared a national feast day and in an effort to make it just like all the earlier ones, the last stocks of flour and sugar and sweets were opened up and distributed to the public. For several hours there was electricity and water again flowed from the pipes. People broke from whatever they were doing and took baths, baked cakes and then went outside to watch the parade and cheer.

    As in years past, there was a party at the Chancellery. But instead of the usual long line of limousines pulling up with smiling ambassadors, envoys and high government officials, today the guests arrived in a handful of shared staff cars. 

Speer came as he always did, driven in his Porsche, which he had parked in one of the underground garages. He made his way through the wrecked halls, climbing over collapsed beams and shattered walls to the bunker’s entrance. The Chancellery, his Chancellery, was falling apart. For five years it had stood up to the Allied air bombardment, but three days of pounding by Soviet artillery had reduced it to ruins.

Passing through the airlock’s steel doors and going down the steps, it seemed he’d returned to a world of order. Here the concrete corridors were still clean-scrubbed, the lights all worked. But as he got down to the main level, he began noticing the uncollected dirty glasses, plates, and silverware gathering in the corners and beneath end tables. After weeks of endless parties, the housekeeping staff had clearly lost enthusiasm for the job. 

In the corridor outside the conference room, a crowd of aides and adjutants milled around, while liveried waiters swirled among them with silver trays of canapés and drinks. Everyone tried to act festive, though it was obvious that what was really on their minds was getting out of Berlin. The Fuhrer had announced he would be flying out to the Obersalzburg to conduct the war from there. But so far he hadn’t told anyone when he’d be leaving. The Russians were now rumored to be in the outer suburbs, and while it was anyone’s guess when their encirclement of Berlin might be completed, until the Fuhrer officially gave word for them to decamp the city, they were all stuck there.

Inside the large room the situation conference was already underway. General Keitel was giving the briefing. Even now, in the midst of the catastrophe, he managed to find morsels of optimism. Whenever the Soviets had elected to withdraw from a sector, Keitel seized upon it as the portent of an upcoming reversal. In each instance, Hitler reacted with glee, rubbing his hands and ordering Keitel to elaborate on how they would exploit it. There seemed so many possible paths to victory, it left scant opportunity to examine those other places where German forces were fleeing in disarray. It went on for another hour. Speer listened to Keitel and Jodl predict how the alliance between the Jewish Bolsheviks and the West was on the verge of disintegrating. Goering talked about the new jet fighter squadrons which were becoming operational that very day. Doenitz chimed in with news that the first of the new miracle U-Boats had finished their testing and were beginning their first war patrols. Hitler loudly praised Doenitz for his indomitable fighting spirit.

Throughout, Hitler ignored Speer. Somehow he had fallen out of favor again, though he had no idea why. It had been weeks since he had committed a single subversive act. 

Once the briefing had wrapped up, Hitler surprised everyone by leading them topside to the Chancellery garden, where a large group of twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys stood in ranks, waiting to be decorated for heroism in combat. It was criminal, Speer thought grimly, as he watched Hitler going from boy to boy, exchanging a few words with each, praising their courage and pinning iron crosses on their tiny chests. He doesn’t believe in Victory any more than I do, yet he happily sends children to their deaths. 

The sight of Hitler plainly shocked the boys. He wasn’t at all what they’d expected. The hero they’d been taught to revere since the day they were born was  this decrepit old man? Those who’d fanatically believed in victory now knew they’d lost. Hitler immediately sensed their unease. His initial good humor and heartiness turned brittle and soon he was handing out the iron crosses without a word. Once he’d finished, the Hitler Youth were dismissed and he led the partygoers back to the bunker entrance. But at the threshold he stopped, turned to face everyone and announced that he was staying in Berlin. Whoever wanted to leave was free to do so, he declared with an angry wave of his hand. Warily, they followed Hitler back down into the bunker for cake.

The rest of the party was a shabby, uncomfortable affair.  Relieved as they were to have been given permission to leave Berlin, as long as they were down there in the bunker with him, they were still his captives. Precious minutes were ticking by and he was plainly in no hurry to let them go. 

All this time, Speer had been unable to exchange even a few words with him. At one point he had approached Hitler as he was being beset by Ley and Ribbentrop, carrying on with their customary drunken blandishments, which Hitler looked plainly tired of. Speer approached respectfully, positioning himself a few feet away like a waiter. But rather than avail himself of Speer’s ready presence to get rid of the other two, Hitler shot Speer a dirty look and enmeshed himself even deeper with them. Speer waited awkwardly for several minutes before finally withdrawing. 

Then Hitler called up Himmler and, hand on his shoulder, began to talk nostalgically about their early days of struggle on the streets of Munich, where day after day, they’d fight it out with the Reds. Hitler lavished praise on his treue Heinrich, who had always stood by him, no matter how tough the going got. For some reason Himmler responded with only an embarrassed smile. 

“Reichsfuhrer,” urged Hitler, “tell everyone what it was like back then.” 

Himmler awkwardly shifted on his feet. “Ah yes, those days,” he said with the greatest effort. “If I, ah, live to be a hundred, I’ll never forget.” Himmler paused. “But that is not to say, of course, that the best is still not to come.” Everyone felt compelled to make agreeable noises to that. 

Just then one of the Reichsfuhrer’s adjutants came in and handed him a message. Himmler looked at it and grunted, “Five minutes.”  The major gave Himmler a hard, nonnegotiable glare and withdrew to the corridor. Himmler stuffed the message in his pocket and continued speaking. “Yes, very soon the tide of this battle will turn and the Russians will be fleeing back across the Oder. All the karmic balances will be restored and our millennia of interrupted peace can resume.” He was now getting into his stride. He began talking about the bright future of the German race, how, freed of negative racial pollutants, their full potentiality would blossom forth unhindered onto the very stars. Everyone was startled at the unabashed magnificence of his pronouncements. Speer noticed the SS major standing at the entrance, glaring significantly at Himmler. The major silently mouthed the word, Now!

Suddenly, Himmler stood up and announced that he had to be going. The other guests looked at each other in shock. No one had ever done that to Hitler before. Not his closest, most favored underlings, not his most choleric, combative generals. People waited until Hitler dismissed them. That was the rule.

“Urgent business, I am afraid,” mumbled Himmler by way of explanation. “The war.” 

Hitler was fuming. But Himmler paid him no heed. He repeated his birthday greetings and his hope to see him again soon, and then turned on his heel and was gone.

“I guess he had to see to the new millennium,” Goering muttered to Speer. Speer thought of the conversation he’d had with Himmler in his office. So apparently he was capable of independent action. He wondered what news had spurred this urgent move. 

For another hour the party went on, more dispiritedly than before. Then, without Speer hearing it, permission to leave was given and all at once everyone was in a hurry to get out. They formed a line to bid the Fuhrer farewell. 

 

ALBERT SPEER WONDERS WHAT TO TELL HITLER

Back in his office at the ministry, Speer tried to write down what he wanted to tell Hitler. He thought about all the things he’s seen in the Ruhr that he wanted to describe to him. If he could have seen the elderly volkssturmers or the disorganized fragmentary divisions, if he could have seen people like the farmer Jacob who still had faith in him, who still believed in victory, maybe then Hitler would be able to see the utter travesty in what he was asking. But the words wouldn’t come and he knew Hitler wouldn’t listen anyway. It was impossible to write it down, just as it was impossible to tell him to his face. What was he going to do? Speer didn’t know. All he know was that he was dead tired. He went back to his quarters and went to bed. 

He woke up a few hours later with a dry mouth and a cold sweat and rather than try to go back to sleep, he put on his robe and went back to his office to work on his response. Faith? Hope? Do I say yes or no? If I say no, I’ll at least get to maintain my integrity. Of course, at this point his integrity had to be about the most useless thing there was. But on the other hand, his reward for discarding it was hardly worth having.

Speer wrote a few sentences, then crumpled the paper and stared out into the darkness. The electricity was out again. The empty window frames either hadn’t been repapers or what they’d put in had already been blown out. Perhaps the papering crews had all been mobilized and were sent off to the front. Faith, Hope? Come on! There was nothing left.

Buy Germania: A Novel, now on Kindle for only $3.99

https://www.amazon.com/Germania-Brendan-McNally-ebook/dp/B00BROR8RQ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Brendan+McNally+Germania&qid=1594685538&sr=8-1

Mexican Border Radio, Fried Chicken, and the Big Beat!

But First, a word from our sponsors!

Times like this, what do we all crave?  Chicken!

"I know you LOVE fried chicken. Everybody does!  Now just listen here, babies, because I got a way that you can plenty of lip-smacking good fried chicken on your table, anytime you want it and almost for free!"

This was the kind of patter you used to hear on the Mexican X-Stations, that broadcast just across the border from Del Rio, Texas, from the 1930s clear through to the 1960s.

Click the link below for a recording of some of that choice radio gab!  It's not actually from one of the X-Stations, but from WLAC in Nashville, but boss DJ John R worked the same ground as Wolfman Jack and the other Border Blasters.  Both of them were white, but they talked they sounded black and "talked the Soul Language."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5Xr0CRVT6k

Go ahead a give it a whirl!  If you think its Cool n Crazy, maybe you should consider giving my novel, FRIEND OF THE DEVIL a whirl.
Its got dirty blues, Jazz, plenty of reefer, Bonnie and Clyde, God, the Devil, and lots and lots of Mexican Radio!  Also Goat Glands!

ROBERT EDSEL IS THE NAZI TREASURE HUNTER OF DALLAS

ROBERT EDSEL IS THE NAZI TREASURE HUNTER



Before his book Monuments Men became a star-packed feature film, author Bob Edsel was a Texas oilman.  Once he made his pile, he sold his company and spent the next part of his life hunting down artwork that had been stolen by the Nazis.

Here is an article I did for D Magazine about him in 2011.


https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2011/march/robert-edsel-is-the-nazi-treasure-hunter/

Who was Hitler's Successor and Why the Heck should you care?

Why? Because the story of the Flensburg Reich of Grand Admiral Doenitz is a very strange piece of World War II history you probably don't know about!

Grand Admiral Doenitz unfortunate fate was that Hitler named him his successor right before he blew his brains out in the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin on April 30, 1945.  It was Hitler's way of rewarding Doenitz for being the only Nazi leader not seeking a surrender.   As a result,  Doenitz got stuck with cleaning up Hitler's mess and having to surrender what was left of the Third Reich to the Allies. But then Doenitz got stuck with running a post-Hitler Nazi government for three whole weeks under Allied supervision. During that time all kinds of weird things happened.

The Flensburg 'Reich' is the setting of GERMANIA, a Novel, published by Simon & Schuster and now available (DIRT CHEAP) as an E-Book.

To find out more just hit this link:

https://artandseek.org/2009/02/11/book-review-germania-by-brendan-mcnally/