This gripping autobiography is at once a heart-pounding adventure story, a moving recollection of a larger-than-life father, and an important account of the Czech resistance. Radomir Luza's father was a revered army general when the Nazis stormed into Czechoslovakia. After his father went underground to avoid arrest and torture, the nineteen-year-old Radomir spent weeks in a Gestapo prison. Upon his release, he joined his father in hiding. General Luza became the military commander of the Czech resistance, while Radomir secretly helped organize the country's largest resistance network. Luza's narrative makes palpable the terror of being constantly hunted and nearly snared by betrayals and Gestapo raids. The Hitler Kiss is a portrait of courage, tenderness, optimism, and sheer survival.

A professor emeritus of history at Tulane University and professor of history at Masaryk University in Brno, Radomir Luza is the author of seven scholarly books and numerous articles. He lives in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania.
Christina Vella is an adjunct professor of history at Tulane University and the author of Intimate Enemies: The Two Worlds of the Baroness de Pontalba. She writes, lectures, and teaches in New Orleans.

Christina Vella is an adjunct professor of history at Tulane University and coauthor with Radomir Luza of The Hitler Kiss: A Memoir of the Czech Resistance. She writes, lectures, and teaches in New Orleans, where she lives with her husband and their two daughters.