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Taking a Stand lectures continue at Lewes library Oct. 20, 27

October 17, 2019

The Taking a Stand Lecture Series, co-sponsored by the Lewes Public Library and Topical Seminars, will resume when acclaimed historian Melvin Urofsky will present Why Louis Brandeis Matters Today at 6 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 20.

Urofsky is a professor emeritus of history at Virginia Commonwealth University and was the chair of its history department. He is co-editor of the five-volume collection of Louis Brandeis’ letters, and author of the definitive biography titled “Louis D. Brandeis: A Life,” which received critical acclaim.  He also has written books on American Zionism, assisted suicide and American law, campaign finance reform and dissent in the Supreme Court.

The next lecture, which also is co-sponsored by the History Book Festival, will feature Eric Lichtblau at 6 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 27.

Lichtblau, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times, is author of the just-released “Return to the Reich: A Holocaust Refugee’s Secret Mission to Defeat the Nazis.” It is the remarkable story of Fred Mayer, a German-born Jew who escaped Nazi Germany only to return as an American commando on a secret mission behind enemy lines.

Growing up in Germany, Freddy Mayer witnessed the Nazis' rise to power. When he was 16, his family made the decision to flee to the United States. They were among the last German Jews to escape, in 1938. In America, Freddy tried enlisting the day after Pearl Harbor, only to be rejected as an “enemy alien” because he was German. He was soon recruited to the OSS, the country’s first spy outfit before the CIA.

Freddy, joined by Dutch Jewish refugee Hans Wynberg and Nazi defector Franz Weber, parachuted into Austria as the leader of Operation Greenup, meant to deter Hitler’s last stand. He posed as a Nazi officer and a French POW for months, dispatching reports to the OSS via Hans, holed up with a radio in a nearby attic. The reports contained a goldmine of information, provided key intelligence about the Battle of the Bulge, and allowed the Allies to bomb 20 Nazi trains. On the verge of the Allied victory, Freddy was captured by the Gestapo and tortured and waterboarded for days.

Remarkably, he persuaded the Nazi commander for the region to surrender, completing one of the most successful OSS missions of the war. Based on years of research and interviews with Mayer himself, whom the author was able to meet only months before his death at age 94, “Return to the Reich” is an eye-opening, unforgettable narrative of World War II heroism.

 

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