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The Hey folks, this is Mike with Battles of the First World War podcast.

Joining us today is Bill Mills, author of the book, Agent of the Iron Cross,

the race to capture German saboteur assassin Lothar Vitska during World War I.

Okay, from the back of the book, on January 30th, 1918, Lotharvitska, the most dangerous German agent in the Western Hemisphere, reached his destination, the U.S. border crossing at Nogales, Arizona.

His mission to destroy American defense plans, assassinate officials, organized strikes in critical industries,

and at a time of intense racial unrest, to incite an insurrection among the southern black

citizenry. Within days, the campaign of terror would begin. The Witska mission was the intelligence

game played at its highest level, a plan for destruction on a massive scale, violent insurrection and assassination, complete with master spies and double agents, diabolical sabotage devices, secret codes, and invisible ink.

Maticulously researched and written in the style of an adventure novel,

Agent of the Iron Cross is the first detailed account of this legendary espionage operation.

Really excited to get into this book today with you, sir. So, Bill, thank you so much for coming

on the show today. Sure. Thank you for inviting me. This is great, Mike.

You've written several other books as well, all on events that occurred during the First World War or in the decade after it.

So could you tell us a little bit about yourself and what has sparked your interest in World War I and this particular lesser-known aspect of World War I?

Sure. I have a BA in history, and my particular expertise has been First World War espionage and covert operations of the early 20th century.

Many years ago, I read all the popular books that were available on the subject. I

collected period books. I started collecting original documents and photographs from the period.

And eventually, when I learned about some of the lesser known aspects of this, I decided to

write my own books, and I have

written four books on World War I Espionage and also Espionage into the 1920s.

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