The plot of the novel is set around the development of the Focke-Wulf 190 – what was the potential of this aircraft, and how could have changed the war?The development of the FW 190 is one of the plots of Agent in Berlin and I’d be wrong to set myself up as a military aircraft expert. Frank Foley died in 1958 at the age of 73, long before his work in the 1930s became public. Foley also had to deal with the negative attitude of the embassy in Berlin and the Foreign Office, which was probably a combination of snobbery and an establishment disdain for espionage, unless it was to deal with communists. He was expected to do this job in addition to his espionage duties. He was helped in this by his cover in Berlin, which was running the Passport Control section of the British diplomatic mission, which was on Tiergartenstrasse. He remained in that post until the war began, by which time he’d issued thousands of visas to German Jews desperate to leave the country – it’s estimated he saved 10,000. He rose from a fairly humble background in Somerset to become an officer in the First World War and in the 1920s joined MI6, eventually becoming the head of the MI6 station in Berlin.
Frank Foley was an amazing man, could you tell us a bit about him?įrank FoleyHe really was quite an extraordinary man. After all, a year from now the World Cup will be taking place in Qatar, of all places. Unfortunately, we’ve seen that too often with events like the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup, where the organisers and participating countries seem happy enough to turn a blind eye to the excesses of the host country.
They were most likely just grateful that the Games were well organised and with state-of-the-art facilities. Was that how it was viewed both prior and during the Games?My sense is that most of the participants probably realised they were being ‘played’ but didn’t really care too much about it. We now view it as unprecedented, a blatant propaganda exercise by Hitler.
I relied on my imagination for much of this chapter, helped and inspired – by my research. I try to avoid eye witness accounts of specific events because I’m always concerned that I could subconsciously use those experiences instead of those of the characters in the book. Photograph taken from a Japanese plane during the attack on Pearl HarborWith Pearl Harbor I was more concerned to get the details of the day correct, especially the chronology and the names and locations of the ships that were hit by the Japanese.
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