By Kevin Seabrooke
A screenwriter’s letter asking what her father, 70-year-old Eberhard Kuehn, remembered about his own father’s life as a spy in WWII turned journalist Christine Kuehn’s world upside down.
Her grandparents, Berliners Otto and Friedel, along with their children Ruth, Eberhard and Hans, had arrived in Hawaii aboard the Tatsuta Maru in the spring of 1935 on their way to Japan. According to a release by the publisher, Otto’s daughter Ruth met Ruth, met Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels at a party, and had an affair. When Goebbels found out she was half Jewish, he sent the family to Hawaii to spy instead of having Ruth killed.
The Kuehns were arrested the day after Pearl Harbor. Otto was sentenced to death, then sent to Leavenworth, before he was released and returned to Germany. Friedel and the children spent time at Hawaii’s internment camp at Sand Island. When the rest of the family went back to Germany, Eberhard remained in the U.S. in foster care—keeping his shocking secret for decades.
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor (Christine Kuehn, Celadon Books, New York, NY, 272 pp., Nov. 25, 2025 $29.99 HC)
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