Wed Jan 20, 2021 In 1940, a German refugee named Richard Krebs published a memoir called
Out of the Night, which was a Book-of-the Month Club selection for that year. He published it under the pseudonym Jan Valtin in fear of reprisals from the Nazis and Communists his memoir exposed. Krebs had been a longshoreman during the 1930s, a union leader, and a trusted member of the German Communist Party. He was so trusted by the Party that it sent him on an undercover mission to Hamburg to spy on the Nazis. To equip him for the task the Communist Party provided him with a forged Nazi Party card that identified him as a member.