Flight of the Fowler

More than seventy years after its conclusion, questions about World War II still haunt us. How did a civilized culture like Germany succumb to such monstrous politics? What was the real truth behind the Nazi's rise to the pinnacle of power? Was it the product of the political ambitions of a few, disenfranchised fanatics? Or was it, instead, simply the result of Adolf Hitler's personal charisma? These questions and more are the subject of "Flight of the Fowler," a uniquely original narrative in which W. Kent Smith revisits one of the most enigmatic chapters in world history. Piecing together a vast array of sources, like some kind of history detective, Smith has constructed a haunting tale so intriguing and entertaining you will forget that you are actually reliving a lost chapter of history.

In the frantic last days of the war, even as the fall of Berlin was fast approaching, Hitler's right-hand man, infamous S.S. Commander Heinrich Himmler, was still convinced that nothing could spoil his secret plans to escape to South America. After all, he still controlled the German's underground escape organization, code-named: The Spider; not to mention, he still controlled the Nazi's most sacred talisman, the Holy Lance, alleged to bestow world power upon whoever possessed it. As long as these facts remained true, he had nothing to worry about. Or so he thought. Because the one thing he could have never anticipated came not in the form of some sinister dark force summoned from the abyss, but rather it came in the form of Himmler's unassuming personal physician, Dr. Felix Kersten.

In the minds of Hitler and his generals, Himmler's physician appeared to be no different than all the rest. Hitler had his own Dr. Morrell, so naturally Himmler, the Doppelganger, had to have his own private, round-the-clock "physician." In Dr. Kersten, Himmler thought for sure that he had found the greatest physician of all time. In fact, Kersten was a genuine original, part shaman-healer, part father-confessor—a man who somehow managed to remain a civilian throughout the war, never relinquishing his Finnish citizenship, even though he had intimate access to the second most powerful Nazi leader in the land. And in spite of every conniving attempt on the part of Himmler's political enemies to remove him from his special position, Dr. Kersten came to wield an unprecedented level of influence amongst the highest levels of Nazi power, even as the Nazi's brutal regime slowly crumbled around them.

So naturally, after everything they had gone through together during the war, Himmler just assumed that nothing would prevent his beloved doctor from accompanying him as he slipped away to the sunny shores of South America. There, they would join up with the rest of their Nazi expatriates; there to begin anew the plans for the future and glorious return of a Fourth Empire, even richer in its spiritual dimensions, all thanks to the occult power of the Holy Lance—the Spear of Destiny; and, of course, to the man that Himmler assumed would willingly continue on as his personal physician. Or so he thought…