I Killed to Live WWll Inscribed 1957

Inscribed by Eric Pleasants
Ex libris Eric Thompson of the 2bn Transvaal Scottish.

This book⁠ is a gateway to one of the most bizarre, overlapping tales of treason, espionage, and survival from the Second World War.

The two names related to this book—Eric Pleasants and Eddie Chapman—represent an extraordinary pairing. Long before this book was published by Cassell in 1957, these two men were cellmates and "partners in crime" in a civilian prison on the German-occupied island of Jersey. From that shared prison cell, their lives veered into two completely different, historically jaw-dropping directions.

The Author: "Agent Zigzag" (Eddie Chapman)

The man who ghostwrote and recorded this story, Eddie Chapman, is widely regarded as one of the most successful and erratic double agents in British history.

The Criminal Spymaster: Before the war, Chapman was a notorious safe-cracker and gang member on the British mainland. He fled to Jersey to escape the law but was caught and imprisoned there.

The Double Cross: When the Germans occupied the Channel Islands, Chapman offered his services to the German secret service (Abwehr) to get out of jail. They trained him, gave him the Iron Cross, and parachuted him back into Britain to bomb a munitions factory. Instead, he immediately turned himself in to MI5, became Agent Zigzag, and spent the rest of the war faking sabotage operations to fool his German handlers.

The Subject: The British SS Man (Eric Pleasants)

While Chapman went on to become a British war hero (of sorts), his former cellmate Eric Pleasants took a much darker, stranger path.

The British Free Corps: After being deported from Jersey to an internment camp in Germany, Pleasants—a former professional wrestler, boxer, and weightlifter—sought a way out. In 1944, he made the fateful decision to join the British Free Corps (BFC), a tiny, specialized foreign legion of the Waffen-SS made up entirely of British citizens fighting for Nazi Germany.

The Berlin Underground & Max Schmeling: As the Reich collapsed, Pleasants deserted the SS. He ended up hiding in Berlin, allegedly surviving by giving exhibition boxing bouts against former heavyweight champion Max Schmeling in German officers' messes.

From Nazi SS to Stalin's Gulag

The title of the book, I Killed to Live, is a literal reference to Pleasants' escape from Berlin. When Soviet troops occupied the city, he reportedly had to kill two Red Army soldiers with his bare hands to avoid initial capture.

However, his luck ran out in 1946 when the Soviets finally arrested him. Because of his bizarre background, he was suspected of being a Western spy and was sentenced to the notorious Vorkuta Gulag along the Arctic Circle. He spent eight brutal years performing hard labor in the Soviet camps before finally being repatriated to the UK in 1954.

The Ultimate Historical Twist:

When Pleasants finally stepped off the train back in Britain in 1954, the British government decided not to prosecute him for treason or for joining the SS. The authorities concluded that surviving nearly a decade in Stalin's Arctic gulags was more than enough punishment for his wartime choices. He quietly returned to his home county of Norfolk and spent the rest of his life working as a physical education and judo instructor.

A tight clean copy. Dust jacket chipped and worn at the edges.

140mm x 205mm

R1,500