Out of the Night: The Memoir of Richard Julius Herman Krebs Alias Jan Valtin

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AK Press, 2004 - 672 pages

A bestseller in 1941, selected by the Book of the Month Club for a special edition and described by Book of the Month Club News as: . . . full of sensational revelations and interspersed with episodes of daring, of desperate conflict, of torture, and of ruthless conspiracy . . . It is, first of all, an autobiography the like of which has seldom been.

The son of a seafaring father, Richard Julius Herman Krebs, a.k.a. Jan Valtin, came of age as a bicycle messenger during a maritime rebellion. His life as an intimate insider account of the dramatic events of 1920 s and 1930s, where he rose both within the ranks of the Communist Party and on the Gestapo hit list. Known for his honesty and incredible memory, Krebs dedicated his life to the Communist Party, rising to a position as head of maritime, organizing worldwide for the Comintern, only to flee the Party and Europe to evade his own comrade s attempts to kill him. As a professional revolutionary, agitator, spy and would-be assassin, Krebs traveled the globe from Germany to China, India to Sierra Leon, Moscow to the United States where a botched assassination attempt landed him a stint in San Quentin.

From his spellbinding account of artful deception to gain release from a Nazi prison and his work as a double-agent within the Gestapo, to his vivid depiction of a Communist Party fraught with intrigue and subterfuge, Krebs gives an unflinching portrayal of the internal machinations of both parties.

Writing at age 36 under the name Jan Valtin, Krebs lays bare a young life filled with idealism and devotion disillusionment and loss in a world full of revolutionary promise gone immeasurably wrong.

An exciting, real book without a trace of unnecessary melodrama. H.G.Wells

From inside the book

Contents

Lumpenhund
1
Sailors Way
14
Strike Out
28
Smuggling for the Comintern
39
Did You Ever Kill A Man?
49
Scapegoats on the Barricades
62
Red Vagabondage
77
Passage to Conspiracy
90
The Swastika Casts its Shadow
312
Scandinavian Interlude
325
BOOK THREE
339
Storm Signals
341
In the Hurricane
355
Dead Men on Furlough
370
In the Lands of Twilight
387
West of the Rhine
409

Attack the Pacific
103
The Road to Leningrad
115
ΧΙ Courier to the Orient
128
From Shanghai to San Quentin
139
BOOK TWO THE DANCE OF DARKNESS
157
New Weapons
159
The Infallibles
172
Firelei
185
Firelei Makes Her Decision
199
Between the Hammer and the Anvil
214
Soviet Skipper
230
Impotent and Omnipotent
245
The Man Hunters
257
Stalin Over the Seven Seas
272
Inspector General for England
285
How We Engineered Mutinies
301
Death is Easy
425
Captured
441
The Gestapo Questions Me
458
Hell
486
Sign a Confession
509
Of Comrades and the Headsman
525
Man Cage Magic
541
My Battle For Mein Kampf
565
Dark Duel
587
Join the Gestapo
602
Freeman on a Leash
619
Abducted
635
Flight
655
Whos Who 672
Copyright

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About the author (2004)

The son of a merchant marine, Richard Julius Herman Krebs a.ka. Jan Valtin came of age in during a maritime rebellion and soon joined the German Communist Party working as a professional revolutionary. His life intimately tied with the dramatic events of 1920's and 30's Germany where he rose in ranks in the Communist party and on the Gestapo hit list. After tricking the Nazi's to gain release from prison and fleeing his own former comrades attempts to have him killed, Krebs spent his final years in the United States were he published his amazing autobiography.

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