Agent Zigzag: The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman: Lover, Traitor, Hero, Spy

by Ben Macintyre (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2007

  $3.24

  One December night in 1942, a Nazi parachutist landed in a Cambridgeshire field. His mission: to sabotage the British war effort. His name was Eddie Chapman, but he would shortly become MI5's Agent Zigzag. Dashing and louche, courageous and unpredictable, the traitor was a patriot inside, and the villain a hero. The problem for Chapman, his many lovers and his spymasters was knowing who he was. Ben Macintyre weaves together diaries, letters, photographs, memories and top-secret MI5 files to create the exhilarating account of Britain's most sensational double agent.

• Used

  Paperback
  2007

  $3.24

  On a chill December night in 1942, a Nazi parachutist landed in a Cambridgeshire field. His mission: to sabotage the British war effort. His German masters called him Fritz or Fritzschen. The British police knew him as Eddie Chapman, 'a dangerous man and associate of thieves', and believed he was still in prison. Within weeks Chapman was in the hands of MI5 and operating as Agent Zigzag, opening the most sensational chapter in the history of British espionage. Unpredictable, dashing and louche, Chapman proved to be a handful for both his German and British spymasters. In the estimation of the Nazis he was their super-spy, to whom they awarded the Iron Cross for 'heroics' in Britain and occupied Europe; in the estimation of MI5, Zigzag had 'the courage to achieve the unbelievable'. He diverted the V1 flying bombs away from London, deceived the Germans with false information, and nonchalantly volunteered to assassinate Hitler, all with the same smooth confidence that made him a natural spy, and irrestible to women. But the restless Chapman courted contradiction as keenly as he embraced adventure. Inside the traitor lay a patriot; inside the villain, a man of conscience. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters and his many lovers was to know where one ended and the other began. Ben Macintyre weaves together diaries, letters, photographs and memories of the living, along with fascinating top-secret MI5 files never before made public to create an exhilarating account of the many lives of Eddie Chapman. As MI5 concluded, 'The story of Eddie Chapman is different. In fiction it would be rejected as improbable.'

• Used

  Hardcover
  2007

  $4.18

  Eddie Chapman: rogue, criminal, confidence trickster, hero to both sides and betrayer of all. At the start of the Second World War, Chapman was recruited by the German Secret Service. He was a highly prized Nazi agent. He was also a secret spy for Britain, alias Agent Zigzag. Agent Zigzag is the untold story of Britain's most extraordinary wartime double agent. Genuinely courageous, able to withstand withering interrogations from both sides, Chapman was a dashing, charming and fiercely intelligent man whose talents led to a single end: breaking the rules. He wore loud suits, drove fast cars, and had a woman in every port. Yet, at the same time he was, in his own way, loyal to his lover and their child. This was a man who courted contradictions as much as he courted adventure. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero; the problem for Chapman, his spymasters, and his lovers, was to know where one ended, and the other began. In 1943, Colonel Tim Stephens of MI5 said of the story of Chapman: 'In fiction it would be rejected as improbable.' MI5 have only just released the material on Chapman, and Macintyre has full access to all of Chapman's manuscripts, letters and photographs. What emerges from this trove is an exhilarating true story of loyalty and betrayal, courage and cowardice, a crook who was also a hero. It is one of the most gripping untold stories of the Second World War.