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Sign up todayHitler in Los Angeles
How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots against Hollywood and America
Narrator
Peter Berkrot
This audiobook uses AI narration.
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Length
13 hours 59 minutes
Language
English
This is the chilling, little-known story of the rise of Nazism in Los Angeles and the Jewish leaders and spies they recruited who stopped it.
No American city was more important to the Nazis than Los Angeles, home to Hollywood, the greatest propaganda machine in the world. The Nazis plotted to kill the city’s Jews and to sabotage the nation’s military installations. Plans existed for hanging twenty prominent Hollywood figures such as Al Jolson, Charlie Chaplin, and Samuel Goldwyn; for driving through Boyle Heights and machine-gunning as many Jews as possible; and for blowing up defense installations and seizing munitions from National Guard armories along the Pacific Coast.
US law enforcement agencies were not paying close attention—preferring to monitor Reds rather than Nazis—and only Leon Lewis and his daring ring of spies stood in the way. From 1933 until the end of World War II, attorney Leon Lewis, the man Nazis would come to call “the most dangerous Jew in Los Angeles,” ran a spy operation comprising military veterans and their wives who infiltrated every Nazi and fascist group in Los Angeles. Often rising to leadership positions, this daring ring of spies uncovered and foiled the Nazis’ disturbing plans for death and destruction.
Featuring a large cast of Nazis, undercover agents, and colorful supporting players, Hitler in Los Angeles, by acclaimed historian Steven J. Ross, tells the story of Lewis’ daring spy network in a time when hate groups had moved from the margins to the mainstream.
Steven J. Ross is professor of history at the University of Southern California and director of the Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life. He is the author of several books, including Movies and American Society; Hollywood Left and Right, a recipient of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Film Scholars Award; and Working-Class Hollywood, which was nominated for the National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize.
Peter Berkrot is an audiobook narrator, stage, screen and television actor, and acting coach. He has narrated over 100 works that span a range of genres, including fiction, non-fiction, thriller, and children’s titles. His audiobook credits include works of Alan Glynn, Eric Van Lustbader, Nora Roberts and Dean Koontz. In film and television, he appeared in Caddyshack, America's Most Wanted, and Unsolved Mysteries. He performs in regional and New York theaters and directs the New Voices acting school.
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Audiobook details
Author:
Steven J. Ross
Narrator:
Peter Berkrot
ISBN:
9781538511855
Length:
13 hours 59 minutes
Language:
English
Publisher:
Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:
November 14, 2017
Edition:
Unabridged
Reviews
“A remarkable tale, one that pits a secretive, chess-playing Jewish spymaster—attorney Leon Lewis—and a group of courageous German-American war veteran…against a cast of villains straight out of a classic Warner Bros. film…Ross has a novelist’s eye for characters and detail.”
“Ross’ engaging history turns up some surprising facts.”
“Part thriller and all chiller, about how close the California Reich came to succeeding.”
“Fascinating.”
“Ross has a blockbuster revelation.”
“Just when you thought every story of the Nazi resistance had been written, this audiobook confirms that there are more. And this book is among the best of the genre. Narrated with intensity by Peter Berkrot…Berkrot’s performance is excellent; he reads with the staccato of a newsreel narrator, while adeptly mixing in moments of awe at how Lewis and his allies outsmarted the Nazis at virtually every turn.”
“Ross employs impeccable research and a driving no-holds-barred writing style…reads like an exciting spy novel.”
“A history book that doubles as espionage thriller with a cast of characters that includes movie stars, studio moguls, entertainment lawyers, diplomats and pols, all of them quite real.”
“A shocking story…Ross puts his experience in film history to good use…A vivid history of homegrown resistance.”
“A chilling tale of the Nazi plot to destroy America; the small spy network who helped defeat it; and the official indifference to the threat.”
“A truly brilliant history by a superbly talented historian…A damn fine read, a true-life thriller that’s a powerful reminder of how hate, if left to fester, can destroy us all.”
“This story has every bit the drama of Roth’s The Plot against America or Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, except it actually happened!”
“A true-life thriller about an episode that has been almost completely ignored.”
“This little-known chapter of 1930s history—captured by Steven J. Ross with impeccable research and an intriguing narrative—needs to be told.”
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