As European capitals fell during 1940 and 1941, there swarmed to the Athene Palace, Bucharest's Grand Hotel, diplomats, generals, Gestapo spies, and demi-mondaines from all over Europe. Arriving at the crowded Athene Palace on the day Paris fell in June, 1940, American female journalist Rosa Goldschmidt Waldeck observed for the next seven months all the events that unfolded and the international figures that made Romania Europe's last sensational hotbed of intrigue and color.

Hitler's beautiful feminine agents held court in the Athene Palace lobby within eyeshot of British diplomats, while around them moved fifth columnists, German economists and generals, American and English diplomats and newspapermen, all who made the Athene Palace the most glamorous spot on the continent. The dramatic events of this turbulent period are described here chiefly in terms of personalities: Carol and Lupescu, Antonescu and Dr. Clodius, Nazi Gauleiters, British Quislings, Romanian appeasers, and all the types who dominated the scene of World War II Europe... On the surface this is a fast-moving, dramatic book, as readable as a novel, but it is also a most effective dissection of the Nazi New Order.

This penetrating insight into the German administration of Europe reveals the reasons underlying the failure of the Nazi regime. Originally published during the Second World War, this new edition is enhanced by a thorough introductory study on the author's life and work by Ernest H. Latham, Jr., former cultural attache at the American Embassy in Bucharest. Dr. Latham is a well-known specialist in Romanian history and has done extensive research on American and British journalists in Romania during World War II.