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Written in the form of a diary, this personal record recounts intelligence work during the Second World War. Its author, Colonel Nikolaus Ritter, is among the few former Abwehr officers to have left a memoir of that period. Ritter served briefly in the First World War and then spent more than a decade in business in America. In the spring of 1935 he went back to Germany and took over as Chief of Air Intelligence within the Abwehr. His task was to build a network of agents who would collect information on British and American airfields, aircraft, and the latest developments in aerospace manufacturing.

Ritter operated under several cover names, including Dr. Rantzau and Dr. Reinhard in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, Dr. Jansen in Hungary, Dr. Renken in Germany, and Mr. Johnson in America. Over the course of his service he moved the Norden bombsight and the Sperry gyroscope, two closely guarded American technologies, into Germany. He also helped coordinate the planning for the proposed invasion of the British Isles, known as Operation Sea Lion. In 1945 the British imprisoned him and he was sent to the interrogation centre at Bad Nenndorf.

The translation was prepared by Katharine Ritter Wallace, the colonel's daughter, and is the first English edition of this German memoir. It draws on documents, letters, personal notes, exchanges with fellow officers, and Ritter's recollections. Together these give readers an inside view of the German intelligence service and of the network of agents one handler managed.