Thomas Heinrich Edward Hill, or T. H. E. Hill (born 1948), is a pseudonymous American novelist who writes mostly in the genre of
spy fiction
Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligen ...
. His first novel was published when he was 60 years old, after a career that was spent in military intelligence.
Military career
Hill has three degrees from the West Coast branch of the
Defense Language Institute
The Defense Language Institute (DLI) is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) educational and research institution consisting of two separate entities which provide linguistic and cultural instruction to the Department of Defense, other f ...
. He is also an alumnus of The
U.S. Army Russian Institute
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
.
He served at
United States Army Security Agency
The United States Army Security Agency (ASA) was the United States Army's signals intelligence branch from 1945 to 1976. The Latin motto of the Army Security Agency was ''Semper Vigiles'' (Vigilant Always), which echoes the declaration, often ...
Field Station Berlin in the mid-1970s. His pen name is a reference to the Field Station Berlin operations site, which was referred to as "The Hill" by those who worked there. ("The Hill" was in fact a common appellation for
SIGINT
Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ( ...
sites at other locations.)
Hill retired in 1993, following 26 years of combined uniformed and civilian service, 16 of it overseas.
Writing career
Hill's first novel was ''Voices Under Berlin: The Tale of a Monterey Mary'', published in 2008. It is a fictionalized story of the Berlin Spy Tunnel (
Operation Gold
Operation Gold (also known as Operation Stopwatch by the British) was a joint operation conducted by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the British MI6 Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in the 1950s to tap into landline communica ...
, covername:
PBJOINTLY). This was a
COMINT
Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ( ...
, as opposed to a
HUMINT
Human intelligence (abbreviated HUMINT and pronounced as ''hyoo-mint'') is Intelligence (information gathering), intelligence gathered by means of interpersonal contact, as opposed to the List of intelligence gathering disciplines, more technical ...
operation, which makes the novel different from most spy fiction. ''Voices Under Berlin'' was an award winner at the
Hollywood Book Festival
The Hollywood Book Festival is an annual book festival in Hollywood, California (LA). Honored, are books that deserve more attention from television, video gaming,and multimedia communities. The book festival is one of the only publishing fest ...
in 2008. Since then it has garnered an additional five awards. Most recently, it was included in the ''Indie 500 Booklist'' for 2011.
Hill's second novel, ''The Day Before the Berlin Wall'', is an
alternate history
Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, altern ...
of the lead-up to the construction of the
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...
, based on a legend that was still being told in the mid-1970s, by U.S. Army soldiers stationed in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
. According to the legend, the U.S.A. had advance intelligence of the plans to build the wall. This information included the fact that the East-German engineer troops who were going to build it had been told to halt construction if the Americans were to take aggressive action to stop them. This novel has so far won two awards, the most recent being the ''Stars & Flags'' Book Award for Historical Fiction.
Hill was awarded the TANS “Recommended Reading” award for published authors in the 2012 Old Spooks and Spies Short-Story Contest for his story "Lieutenant Bar".
Hill's third novel, ''Reunification: A Monterey Mary Returns to Berlin'', was published in 2013, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the first permanent buildings on
Teufelsberg
Teufelsberg (; German for ''Devil's Mountain'') is a non-natural hill in Berlin, Germany, in the Grunewald locality of former West Berlin. It rises about above the surrounding Teltow plateau and above the sea level, in the north of Berlin's Gr ...
, the operational home of Field Station Berlin. The novel is set in Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The main characters are an American who used to be stationed in Berlin and his old "long-haired dictionary,” who is not thrilled to see him again. The novel is a juxtaposition of Berlin in the 1970s with Berlin in the 2010s, spiced up with stories of American intelligence escapades. The novel explores the difficulties of post-reunification reconciliation, both within Germany and between Germany and the United States.
Graphic design
In addition to being an author, T. H. E. Hill is also a
graphic artist
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, p ...
. He specializes in military themes. Hill has designed four sheets of commemorative
Cinderella stamp
In philately, a cinderella stamp is "virtually anything resembling a postage stamp, but not issued for postal purposes by a government postal administration". There is a wide variety of cinderella stamps, such as those printed for promotional ...
s:
* ''Americans in Berlin'' for the
Twentieth Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall,
* ''Fiftieth Anniversary of the
U-2 Incident
On 1 May 1960, a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defence Forces while conducting photographic aerial reconnaissance deep inside Soviet territory. The single-seat aircraft, flown by American pilot Francis Gary Power ...
'', in which
Francis Gary Powers
Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Lockheed U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 i ...
was shot down over the Soviet Union.
* ''Fiftieth Anniversary of the Construction of the Berlin Wall''
* Fiftieth Anniversary (1963-2013) of the construction of the permanent buildings for Field Station Berlin atop Teufelsberg, the operational home of Field Station Berlin.
Hill's stamps are a part of the collections of The
Allied Museum
The Allied Museum (german: AlliiertenMuseum) is a museum in Berlin. It documents the political history and the military commitments and roles of the Western Allies ( US, France and Britain) in Germany – particularly Berlin – between 1945 an ...
in Berlin, The
Wende Museum
The Wende Museum is an art museum, historical archive of the Cold War, and center for creative community engagement in Culver City, California.
Mission
''Wende'' (pronounced “venda”) is a German word that translates into English as “ ...
in California, and the
Artistamp
The term artistamp (a portmanteau of the words "artist" and "stamp") or artist's stamp refers to a postage stamp-like art form used to depict or commemorate any subject its creator chooses. Artistamps are a form of Cinderella stamps in that they ...
Museum in Florida.
Hill is also the creator of "The Great Army SIGINT Seal".
[http://voicesunderberlin.com/greatseal.html, last retrieved on 2 April 2011]
References
External links
A synopsis of ''The Day Before the Berlin Wall''*
ttp://voicesunderberlin.com/Stamps4.html Images of the ''Fiftieth Anniversary of the Construction of the Berlin Wall'' Cinderella stampsbr>
Images of the ''Fiftieth Anniversary of the First Permanent Buildings on Teufelsberg'' Cinderella stamps
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hill, T. H. E.
Living people
American spy fiction writers
1948 births
American male novelists
Defense Language Institute alumni
21st-century American novelists
Indiana University alumni
21st-century American male writers
21st-century pseudonymous writers