''The Story of Henri Tod'' is a 1984

Blackford Oakes Blackford "Blackie" or "Black" Oakes is a fictional character, a Central Intelligence Agency officer, spy and the protagonist of a series of novels written by William F. Buckley, Jr. Early life Oakes was born in 1925. He served in World War II ...

novel by

William F. Buckley, Jr. William Frank Buckley Jr. (born William Francis Buckley; November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008) was an American public intellectual, conservative author and political commentator. In 1955, he founded ''National Review'', the magazine that stim ...

It is the fifth of 11 novels in the series.

Plot

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

agent Blackford Oakes is sent to West Berlin

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

in 1961, during the time leading up to the building of the Berlin Wall. Henri Tod is a German Jew who during World War II is sent to England to prevent his conscription into the army. After the war he returns to Germany and becomes Germany's leading Freedom fighter. Henri Tod carries a burden of guilt because while in England he told someone of his sister who was still hiding on a farm in Germany. This information gets back to the Death Squads who kill the foster parents and send his sister, Clementa, to the death camps. His sister is rescued from Auschwitz at the last minute by the Soviet armies, but after the war becomes a pawn in an East Block effort to secure Tod's capture. Thrown into this mix of lively characters is a curious East German couple that play crucial roles in the tableau. Of historical interest is their secret meeting place, a relic German railcar, that once belonged to

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

. And, of course there's Blackford Oakes. Oakes's mission is to infiltrate the Bruderschaft (Tod's organization) in an effort to learn of its intentions. All this occurs, of course, during the days leading up to the building of the Berlin Wall.

References

1984 American novels Blackford Oakes novels Fiction set in 1961 Novels set in Germany English-language novels Doubleday (publisher) books {{ColdWar-novel-stub