In the closing years of the 1930s, German agent-provocateurs worked in secrecy. These crack units of elite soldiers paved the way for the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland, the spark that would ignite a war across Europe. In time, they would go on to shape the conflict with terrifying ferocity and skill.

The mysteries of German special forces are revealed here, with incisive analysis of naval, military and aerial operations, and vivid descriptions of suicide pilots, human torpedoes and explosive motor boats.

James Lucas delivers one of the fullest and most accessible ever accounts of the elite troops known as Kommandos, across both their achievements and failures to stave off impending military defeat.

This is war at its toughest, most harrowing and most extreme.

James Lucas was an acclaimed military historian who worked for many years at the Imperial War Museum. He is the author of numerous bestselling books about the Second World War.