Book- SPYWRITER: Richard Krebs’ Astonishing Journey from German Communist Conspirator to American Combat Veteran

448 pages!

Richard Krebs, aka Jan Valtin, saw more adventure in one life than ten.

He rose from a destitute teenager in post-WWI Germany to a confidant of prominent Americans two decades later who were edging their country towards battle with Europe’s emerging forces of totalitarianism.

In 1941, writing as Jan Valtin, he authored the blockbuster "Out of the Night”, a pioneering personal expose of the inner workings of the Communist International.

As told in that sensational autobiography, Krebs joined the German Communist Party in 1923 at the altruistic age of 18.

As a novice sailor when the only mode of international travel was by sea, he rose quickly among other determined revolutionaries.

He trained in Russia as an insurrectionist before a 1926 armed assault on an alleged traitor landed him in San Quentin Prison for three years.

Deported to Germany, he traveled the world on secret missions for the Comintern, eventually falling captive to the Nazis and suffering torture in their monstrous prisons.

He escaped Germany, abandoned communism, and re-entered

America illegally.

Disillusioned, and alone, Krebs lived a vagabond life in New York, staying one step ahead of the INS before gaining national notoriety as a best-selling author.

His German wife died young, and their preschool son disappeared into the chaos of the Third Reich.

Krebs remarried and fathered two American sons.

After America entered WWII, the INS interned him as an alien enemy,

but he gained parole from the Attorney General and served the US Army with honor in the Pacific Theatre.

After the war he found his lost German son, gained US citizenship,

wrote more books, and returned to espionage in Europe for American intelligence interests at the start of the Cold War.

Krebs' astonishing story brings to life the ideologies battling for world dominance in the interwar years and beyond, a time with lessons for a divided America in the early 21st century.

448 pages.