The stack of manuscript stood a foot high. 1953 was too soon to seek publication. Timing was everything in life, and when the moment came, Wagner would be ready. Ready to demonstrate that the Third Reich had not been defeated in 1945. The Wehrmacht had run out of war materials—bullets, tanks, fuel, men—but the Abwehr had triumphed in the intelligence war. A victory that nobody could deny. And Wagner had been fortunate enough to be in the vanguard of this stunning success. Right to the very end, the Abwehr’s network of agents in England had sent a stream, a river, a flood of secret information. They had given the German High Command a precious insight into what the enemy was doing and planning to do. And Wagner’s best agent, by a mile, was Arabel. Wagner’s memoirs were rich with gems from Arabel’s reports. In fact he had enough material to make two books. “I might as well burn it,” he told Manfred Sturmer. “Shred it, burn it, dance on the ashes,” Manfred said. “I’ll tell you what’s worst.
