Accidental Journey: A Cambridge Internee's Memoir of World War II

Lynton, ne Max-Otto Ludwig Loewenstein, a German Jew, had just entered Cambridge University to read law when WWII broke out. Interned as a resident alien in England and Canada, in due course he was allowed to join the British Army and saw action as a tank officer in the European theater of operations. Lynton downplays in his memoir instances of personal peril, glides lightly over wartime tragedies and provides an incongruously lighthearted, enchanting account of his war. The most memorable portion of the book involves Lynton's activities after transferring to the Intelligence Corps, where he had dealings with such captives as Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt, Auschwitz commandant Rudolph Hoess and Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler. A lively and irrepressibly jolly writer, the author seems determined that we enjoy his memoir as much as he enjoyed the adventures and misadventures it records. Lynton is now a New York corporate executive. (Apr.)