Capturing Kaltenbrunner - Revisited
A first-person look at the capture of Ernst Kaltenbrunner is re-released with updates and additions
Even in the modern era of high-end author-driven publication, it’s hard to imagine that a mere four decades ago (we’re talking early 1980s). the concept of “self publishing” existed and was somewhat accessible to the “average Joe.”
If you’ve read any of my previous Dead Range installments, you know that Robert Matteson was anything but the average Joe, to say the very least.
A quick review for readers new to The Dead Range: Matteson was a U.S. Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) Special Agent who led the 80th CIC Detachment in Austria at the end of World War II. He is best known for — but not as famous as he deserves to be, by any measure — organizing and executing the operation that led to the capture of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and one of the highest-ranking Nazi officials responsible for the Holocaust.
In the early 1980s, the concept of “self publishing” — also referred to rather snobbily as “vanity publishing” — existed in a fairly primitive state. Traditional book publishing via a corporate entity was the principle means of getting on shelves. (I only recently discovered, in fact, that notable authors like Benjamin Franklin and Walt Whitman self-published works due to lack of interest from established publishers or their desire for creative control).
Given his military and post-war government credentials, Robert Matteson was by no means a person who needed to fear rejection by traditional publishers. Yet, he chose to work with a trail-blazing “publish your own book” company — the rather on-the-nose named Country Print Shop, based in Hayward, Wisconsin — when telling his incredible story.
There’s a bit of unintended humor on the extremely humble (and coffee-stained) cover of this vintage book (pamphlet?). This is a fascinating first-person account of the epic pursuit and capture of Ernst Kaltenbrunner — an astounding story — yet, for Matteson, it was but a mere segment of his enormously distinguished career.
After “the war years” Matteson held prestigious positions, including: director of the White House disarmament staff under President Dwight Eisenhower; chief of staff for the Foreign Operations Administration; a member of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Board of National Intelligence Estimates, and; director of civilian operations in the II Corps sector during the Vietnam War. Matteson was also a founder of the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute at Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin.
The new edition of his story, now entitled Capturing Kaltenbrunner: The Pursuit, Capture, and Trial of Hitler’s Hidden Gestapo Chief, is available via Amazon (click here). It’s a much-improved hardcover version of the previous “pamphlet,” and I must confess to some (small) involvement in its production, having done a bit of proofreading for Robert’s sons, Sumner and Fredric Matteson, who were responsible for bringing this treasure back to life.
An incredibly humble-yet-stunning account of a series of incredible events nearly lost to history, and one I am proud to be greatly expanding upon for my book project entitled The Dead Range (see Dead Range Substack here).
Order a copy now - you won’t be sorry.