The Nine Lives of Otto Katz

Communist spy Otto Katz played a crucial role in the history of the first half of the twentieth Century. His story takes us from Bohemian Prague to Weimar Berlin, from the Reichstag Fire to the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War, from Paris to London and New York. We see behind the curtain of Communist espionage in America and Britain - with the man who was the inspiration for the character of Victor Lazlo in Casablanca and who the FBI described as 'an extremely dangerous man'. Along the way he encountered major historical figures including Franz Kafka, Marlene Dietrich, the Cambridge Spies, Hitler, Stalin, Noel Coward, Dashiell Hammett, and Trotsky.