Johannes Steele

Who was Johannes Steele?

Johannes Steel is best known for his 1934 book The Second World War.

The son of a German-Dutch landowner, Steel grew up in Elberfeld on the border of the two countries. He studied in Heidelberg, Oxford, Geneva, and Berlin, and then worked as a journalist. He fled to the France and then Britain when the Nazis took power and later emigrated to the United States. He continued to work as a journalist, writing for The Nation and the New York Post.

His book The Second World War predicted the war based on an assessment of Nazi intentions and historical parallels. Though the book had the war starting in 1935 rather than 1939 as it actually did, it became highly regarded after the start of the war, proving him essentially correct. Because of his prescience, he became widely followed, with a popular radio commentary in the U.S. during the war.

He was alleged to have had a covert relationship with Soviet intelligence during World War II.