In this carefully researched and well-written book, Hutchinson demonstrates how various German intelligence agencies misread, in basic ways, the major countries against which Germany fought in World War II—Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Instead of concentrating on these agencies’ endless rivalries, Hutchinson points to the misperceptions that they had in common. Furthermore, by contrast with much of the literature on the subject, he stresses the similarity between the ideological preconceptions of Germany’s intelligence agencies’ personnel and those of Adolf Hitler.
After a brief survey of Germany’s intelligence agencies, the book provides a thoughtful analysis of the erroneous perceptions that influenced their reports on Great Britain before the war and during its first years. Notwithstanding the London government’s insistence that Britain would go to war if Germany attacked Poland, Germany’s intelligence agencies doubted that Britain would do so. The Germans thought that Britain entered the war only...