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In February 1944, the Nazis began planning R-Netz, networks of trained espionage agents, wireless operators, saboteurs and assassins. Once the Allies invaded Western Europe, their missions were to stay behind in Spain, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Italy and Greece; to collect military, economic and political intelligence to be brought back or transmitted by wireless to their German controllers; to acquire new identity cards, currency and ration books; to locate and sabotage military and industrial targets and assassinate key military and political leaders. Operation EASTER EGG involved the burial of over 1,000 dumps of explosives and sabotage equipment before the retreat of the German forces to Germany. Only a select few knew of their existence. When British, American and Canadian troops advanced through France, some of the stay-behind agents surrendered. As counter-intelligence officers threatened them with execution as enemy agents, some revealed the location of the sabotage dumps and hidden wireless sets. Most provided details of the schools where they had been trained, their instructors, the syllabus, their missions and the names and descriptions of other students. As the Allies advanced northwards through Italy, more arrests were made which reduced the effectiveness of Hitler's R-Netz. Some destined to sabotage targets in Rome handed themselves in to the American authorities, admitted that they had been trained by the Germans, denounced others and revealed the location of the hidden explosives and sabotage material. Bernard O'Connor's Destroying Hitler's R-Netz Volume V is a documentary history which tells for the first time the human stories of the stay-behind agents in Rome, their Nazi instructors and the Allied counter-intelligence officers who helped neutralise the potentially very serious threat to the Allies' occupation plans.
