The Port of Sóller Radio Programme - Sian Mackay on the remarkable life of Baron Rudolph von Ripper

Intrigue, espionage, torture, love, sex, drugs, a daring escape and a desperate crusade against the Nazis. This story is a blockbuster movie waiting to happen. Baron Rudolph von Ripper was an Austrian aristocrat who turned his back on tradition to become an artist and later a US Army sharpshooter. He fought with the French Foreign Legion, survived torture at the hands of the Gestapo, escaped from the first concentration camp, painted marine life in The Bahamas, worked for the CIA in Vienna, designed jewellery with his friend Salvador Dali and was eventually found dead at his home in Mallorca, in mysterious circumstances, having learned that Hitler’s favourite commando, Otto Skorzeny – a man he’d captured during the war – had been freed from prison and had moved into a house just a mile away. Author Sian MacKay documents this glorious and remarkable life in the book, Von Ripper’s Odyssey, due to be launched in Palma de Mallorca on September 23rd. And it all started with the chance discovery of a blue file, filled with photographs and letters, at the bottom of a wardrobe in the disused poolhouse of an abandoned villa near Pollença in the north of the island. This is utterly gripping. You can buy the book on Amazon. Read it, love it, write a five-star review. For more information, visit www.sianmackay.com