HUGO N. GERSTL

1943: The tide of the War has turned against Hitler. Mussolini is deposed, imprisoned, and hidden. A single commando leads gliders to the top of the highest peak in the Apennines to rescue the Duce.

October 1944: Hungary's Admiral Horthy is about to defect to the Soviets. Hitler's man kidnaps Horthy's son, and advises him it's time to “retire” if he ever wants to see his son again.

December 1944: The Battle of the Bulge. Hitler's favorite soldier, using 2,000 stolen American Army uniforms, leads a group of English-speaking Germans behind enemy lines and wreaks havoc throughout the front.

That same man helps former SS members get to South America; becomes Juan Péron's security chief and Eva Péron's secret lover; trains Arab forces and Yasser Arafat for the next Israeli war; sells arms to both sides of revolts throughout Africa; and ultimately, as a Mossad agent, “takes out” the very group of nuclear scientists Egypt recruited to destroy Israel!”

Otto Skorzeny, did all these things and more. Unrepentant Nazi, this ultimate predator, the most dangerous man in the world, lived more lives than a dozen James Bonds.

International best-selling author Hugo N. Gerstl, brings the life of this amazing hero/villain, now almost forgotten, back onto the world's stage where, during the time he lived, he made the world a much more exciting – and scary – place.

SKORZENY –

HOW THIS BOOK CAME TO BE

Back to The Forward, the Jewish newsmagazine, for the germ of another project. Skorzeny fell into place somewhat naturally. Action that was more than life-sized. Morality and immorality artfully mixed in a single lifetime. A hero and, conversely, the ultimate anti-hero. A life that was so unsparingly direct that the book easily “wrote itself.”

Like any good “villain,” Otto Skorzeny was not a “cartoon” bad guy. Like every human being, he seemed to symbolize “good” and “bad” in equal measure. He totally believed he was on the side of good - the Nazi cause - and lived it. He was not blind to what was going on around him, but he was certain that the Third Reich was the only force that would save Western European civilization from the Communist threat. He was not rabidly radical, nor was he inherently, inhumanely evil like Himmler, Rosenberg, Martin Bormann, or Adolf Eichmann. He did not try – as Goebbels did – to tell a lie big enough and often enough to convince the populace that black was white and peace-loving Germany was surrounded by bullying enemies on all sides.

Skorzeny's relations with Der Führer were largely favorable – he viewed Hitler as intelligent, perceptive, heroic, and larger-than-life until the end, when the Great Leader went “over the edge.”

Had Skorzeny – a daring, innovative, original thinker been on the “right” side, he could have been a Senator or even a President, but for the fact that his scope did not embrace the broad “big picture.” He was a master tactician, whose focus rarely expanded beyond the immediate job at hand – and he invariably did that job well, and never looked back. Courage came almost second-hand to him. Indeed, Otto Skorzeny hardly stopped to think he was particularly brave or daring. There was a job to do, and he did it, regardless of the identity of his bosses of the moment.

Was he without moral? Without scruple?  No more than any other human being. Tom Wolfe's second novel, which was launched with a 1.2 million-copy hype back in 1998, could have been named perfectly for Otto Skorzeny, who was, indeed, “A Man in Full.”

SKORZENY-AMAZON COMMENTS

These are genuine reviews from Amazon.com. Names and email addresses have been deleted to protect the privacy rights of those who were kind enough to write in, but feel free to visit Amazon.com to see the originals of these reviews.  Thank you. – Hugh

***** Fascinating. Important. Awakening. Hugo Gerstl’s latest novel – “Skorzeny / Dancing with the Devil” – is simply extraordinary. It’s a (somewhat) novelized version of Otto Skorzeny’s life. Skorzeny was not only a Nazi, close to Hitler and his worst of the worst, but he spent much of his life after World War II consulting dictators like Peron and Nasser, training commandos, and selling weapons of war.

The book is compelling not only for its story – I was reading it at all hours; I couldn’t put it down – but also because Gerstl’s brilliance as a writer, forces the reader to have empathy for this egregious man as he struggled to help Germany win the war, and later preserve the regimes of scurrilous leaders on two other continents.

Gerstl refers to Skorzeny as a hero/villain and not without reason. Curiously, this friend of Hitler and Mussolini – he rescued Duce’s from his captors – also played a significant role in Israel’s climb from its early years when its very survival was in question to its status as a global player.

This story was particularly powerful because in its subtle telling was the undercurrent reminding us that in all wars, the combatants believe that god is on their side.

Read Skorzeny. You will visit places you never thought you could...or should. – February 2018

***** No better spy and special forces story and it is about a real person! I loved this book...I have read the earlier biographies... This one has the word Novel in it’s description. There is real and detailed history but names were changed to protect some of those involved. Well told and excellent story of a man who makes James Bond look like an also ran, yet his story is real unlike Bond a wild fantasy. – January 2018

***** Reads like a good biography. Hugo Gerstl is fast becoming my favorite author. This one is his best so far, a real page turner. His earlier The Wrecking Crew was a great read. Against All Odds is a fabulous look at early Israeli history in the context of quasi fictional heroes.

Now, he shows his mastery of what? History? A historical yarn? Real characters walking around in the real world, doing things in a way that the real characters might have done? It is sometimes hard to tell.

Here, we meet a Nazi military and tactical genius, Otto Skorzeny, trying to help his side in the cauldron of WWII. Starting out, you are prepared to hate this guy for what he was, a Nazi. After the war, he dealt arms, aided escapes of war criminals. And when he went to work for the Israelis, it was not a change of character for the better that led him there. Yet, somehow, through this 'can't put the book down' read, you never reject him and always find it fascinating to follow him into his next intrigue. – December 2017