Captain Franz Rintelen most likely would have kept his secrets to himself, had he been treated more tactfully when returning from years of British and American imprisonment. The memoirs, not entirely free of emotion, are therefore also an attempt to tell what Berlin stubbornly denied had happened. Embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with his government over financial claims arising from his activities in the US, Rintelen wisely left the country - probably just in time to avoid arrest by the National Socialists. The officer of the imperial German Navy now moved to London. He befriended 'Blinker' Hall, his former captor in the First World War, and asked if he could don a British uniform and join the fight against Germany.