Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn
Published by Celadon Books
Publication date: November 25, 2025
Genres: Book Clubs, Debut, Non-fiction, History
Bookshop
Here we are nearing the end of March and this is my first nonfiction review. That’s a pretty good summation of my 2026 nonfiction reading so far. I’m staying as far away from reality as possible. However, when I saw Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn at the library it looked intriguing enough that I picked it up. Once home, I jumped in and read the book straight through.
Christine Kuehn was living in Maryland with her husband and family in the early 90s when she got an odd letter from a screenwriter wanting her to comment on her family’s past as Nazi spies. When she asked her 70-year-old father about it he dismissed it as mistaken identity. Yes, they were German and from Berlin, but they emigrated to Hawaii shortly after World War II began. Beyond that, he had never said much about his family except that his parents died of cancer.
Kuehn was bothered enough that, in this pre-internet age, she started looking for books and articles on German spies in WWII. Slowly, a picture began to emerge that involved her father’s family. An older brother was a high-ranking Nazi official who worked for Goebbels until the war’s end. His older half-sister was Goebbel’s mistress in the late 1930s. It was her Jewish heritage that caused the family’s hasty emigration to Hawaii. Kuehn now returned to her father and this time after she questioned him the truth came out.
Ultimately, it took Kuehn decades of research, using previously unavailable government documents, to piece together a truth that led to the highest reaches of both Allied and Axis intelligence, as well as to the greatest military disaster in American history. Family of Spies is told in two timelines, the present day as Kuehn works to unravel her family’s twisted history and the past as recreated through family letters, interviews, and copious documentation. An interest in military history is not necessary to read Family of Spies as this is the kind of fact that reads like fiction. Gripping and explosive.
If you’re looking for more reading about WWII, try The Wealth of Shadows, a novel based on actual events.
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This sounds interesting. I, too, just finished my first nonfiction of the year. Reality is tough now!
Ugh. It certainly is. I guess this worked because it was historical. What was your nonfiction? Anything you’d recommend?
This book does sound explosive … gosh that would be awful to find out about your family’s history. Ugh! It reminds me a bit of a nonfiction memoir I read years ago titled: On Hitler’s Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood by Irmgard A. Hunt …. OMG. Scary stuff. Born in the wrong place at the wrong time. I will add Family of Spies to my TBR. thx
Oh, that sounds fascinating. Adding to my TBR. Are you safely ensconced in the normal country in North America?