David Baerwald Publishes 600-Page Debut Novel on Grandfather's Spy Past
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jun 3
David Baerwald Publishes 600-Page Debut Novel on Grandfather's Spy Past
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jun 3
Summary
Spiegel & Grau this week published David Baerwald’s first novel, “The Fire Agent,” the songwriter’s account of uncovering his grandfather Ernst Baerwald’s hidden life as a spy.
A 2017 cleanup of Baerwald’s Los Angeles childhood home set off the project after he found letters, diaries, intelligence records, photo albums, a Minox camera and a samurai sword in storage.
Eight years of research led Baerwald, 65, to a family history long buried in secrecy around Ernst’s ties to I.G. Farben, the chemical conglomerate central to the Third Reich.
The material showed Ernst as a German-Jewish aristocrat moving in elite Japanese circles who worked for German intelligence before switching his allegiance and espionage skills to the United States in 1933.