From the Publisher
The Swiss Account is an explosive inside look at Switzerland's financing of the Third Reich, and it gives us a Switzerland none of us have known. Due to its neutrality, Switzerland is the spy capital of Europe, but by 1945 our chief spymaster, Allen Dulles, is faced with a foe as ruthless as Himmler's SS - the Swiss banking establishment. Their vaults bulge with Nazi gold, the bloody plunder of Hitler's tyranny. With it the Germans are buying high-tech military hardware to create an atom bomb. Dulles' job is to halt this profiteering and he dispatches three young recruits - Nancy Reichman, a beautiful American attache, Peter Burckhardt, Swiss heir to major banking interests, and Felicitas Burckhardt, a brilliant physicist - on a daring, top-secret mission to Bavaria. They have three goals: to stop the shipments of Swiss arms to Germany, to sabotage the German atom bomb, and against all odds, to stay alive.
From The Critics
BookList
Financial thriller writer Erdman ("The Crash of '79 , The Panic of '89" ) now quasi-fictionalizes the role of Swiss banks during the latter part of World War II. The novel is heavily grounded in history, with major appearances by Allen Dulles (who was then assigned to the Office of Strategic Services), leading Nazi figures, and members of the Red Orchestra (the precursor of the Soviet KGB). The plot revolves around supposed Swiss neutrality when in actuality the country's leading bankers and manufacturers were exporting goods to Germany and holding SS money, as well as the fuhrer's determination to build an atom bomb. Sabotaging that effort was the focus of Dulles' work, but, unfortunately, Erdman is so concerned with monetary matters that the nature of his mission remains cloudy until the last few chapters. Skip the love scenes; the best part is following wartime transactions, cover-ups, and happy endings.
The Swiss Account is an explosive inside look at Switzerland's financing of the Third Reich, and it gives us a Switzerland none of us have known. Due to its neutrality, Switzerland is the spy capital of Europe, but by 1945 our chief spymaster, Allen Dulles, is faced with a foe as ruthless as Himmler's SS - the Swiss banking establishment. Their vaults bulge with Nazi gold, the bloody plunder of Hitler's tyranny. With it the Germans are buying high-tech military hardware to create an atom bomb. Dulles' job is to halt this profiteering and he dispatches three young recruits - Nancy Reichman, a beautiful American attache, Peter Burckhardt, Swiss heir to major banking interests, and Felicitas Burckhardt, a brilliant physicist - on a daring, top-secret mission to Bavaria. They have three goals: to stop the shipments of Swiss arms to Germany, to sabotage the German atom bomb, and against all odds, to stay alive.
From The Critics
BookList
Financial thriller writer Erdman ("The Crash of '79 , The Panic of '89" ) now quasi-fictionalizes the role of Swiss banks during the latter part of World War II. The novel is heavily grounded in history, with major appearances by Allen Dulles (who was then assigned to the Office of Strategic Services), leading Nazi figures, and members of the Red Orchestra (the precursor of the Soviet KGB). The plot revolves around supposed Swiss neutrality when in actuality the country's leading bankers and manufacturers were exporting goods to Germany and holding SS money, as well as the fuhrer's determination to build an atom bomb. Sabotaging that effort was the focus of Dulles' work, but, unfortunately, Erdman is so concerned with monetary matters that the nature of his mission remains cloudy until the last few chapters. Skip the love scenes; the best part is following wartime transactions, cover-ups, and happy endings.
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