Buy new:
-10% $13.51
FREE delivery May 16 - 20
Ships from: FindAnyBook
Sold by: FindAnyBook
$13.51 with 10 percent savings
List Price: $14.99

The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the product's prevailing market price.
Learn more
FREE delivery May 16 - 20. Details
Or fastest delivery May 14 - 16. Details
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$13.51 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$13.51
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
FindAnyBook
Ships from
FindAnyBook
Sold by
FindAnyBook
Sold by
FindAnyBook
Returns
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt. You may receive a partial or no refund on used, damaged or materially different returns.
Read full return policy
Returns
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt. You may receive a partial or no refund on used, damaged or materially different returns.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$7.65
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Friday, May 17 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35. Order within 12 hrs 53 mins
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$13.51 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$13.51
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Terry M. Parssinen
+ Follow
More books from this author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Oster Conspiracy of 1938: The Unknown Story of the Military Plot to Kill Hitler and Avert World War II Paperback – March 1, 2004

by Terry Parssinen (Author)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 24 ratings
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$13.51","priceAmount":13.51,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"13","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"51","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"rrUI5m1cE4j1isApjOU1htBpCbfKAg%2BYSkNYHNGw9lGFQ2Yg9XpESQGMM9%2FX8EMw3U9%2Bx%2BUshwz1XVIj9b2u%2FZ6cG%2FA01e8tWtEHEQcj1mnplfQKX%2BZ%2F0C7C1vJqErNOCQoJjpQuU5usOEyWuMjkXTirmnWEHDsHE6fm1%2BaLP9akgtjTt%2BkyusfcSU4oP%2BjY","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$7.65","priceAmount":7.65,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"7","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"65","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"rrUI5m1cE4j1isApjOU1htBpCbfKAg%2BY%2B6D%2BXBrdJOpzvx3FlPJtEECou3er8Jcayw966ucjVS52Eb6Bw2%2BLfuJdLTBEiLiiVKD8JVfOXMHLo2JXjkn3JLqvXVZQxzwJD3vqeCXvtKnnso80vhZ0FO1L01VWMDw6N6xSBqe%2FWIleGk6yyxt2Exgz4EyH3s1s","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

September 1938. In power more than five years, Hitler unilaterally dismantled the Treaty of Versailles, provision by provision, daring Britain and France to stand up to him. Earlier that year, he forced Austria into his Third Reich without firing a single shot. Now his sights were set on Czechoslovakia.

It was in this dangerous climate that the first anti-Nazi coup was born. The plot was spearheaded by Lieutenant-Colonel Hans Oster, and its members included top German military leaders, the Berlin police, local troop commanders, civil authorities, religious leaders, and a group of resisters whose names have been wiped from the pages of history. Their mission was to kill Hitler and to overthrow the Nazi regime.

Using British and German sources and previously unknown documents in the Military History Institute of the U.S. Army War College, historian Terry Parssinen has documented this conspiracy. Illustrated with photographs and maps, this highly provocative work is narrative history at its best.

Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. Print length
    272 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harper Perennial
  4. Publication date
    March 1, 2004
  5. Dimensions
    5.62 x 0.61 x 8.69 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0060955252
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0060955250
  8. See all details
Next page
The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Fascinating. Those who think they have nothing new to learn about World War II are in for a big surprise.” — Library Journal

About the Author

Terry Parssinen, Ph.D., is Professor of History at the University of Tampa and a specialist in modern European history. He lives in Tampa and Philadelphia.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial (March 1, 2004)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0060955252
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0060955250
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.62 x 0.61 x 8.69 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 24 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Terry M. Parssinen

Terry M. Parssinen

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
24 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Chris
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book
Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2019
Verified Purchase
Excellent well written book!
Helpful
 Report
Vegas
5.0 out of 5 stars Tells a great story of the first plot to take down Hitler
Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2015
Verified Purchase
Tells a great story of the first plot to take down Hitler. Before Stauffenburg's coup! . If only Chamberlin had a back bone!
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Jacob Garman
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2016
Verified Purchase
Great author and professor!
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Clarence Mumphrey
5.0 out of 5 stars What might have been - a must read
Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2004
Verified Purchase
To see how close WWII could have been stopped at least in the European Theatre, this book keeps you on the edge, even though you know the outcome. Excellent.
4 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Brian D Lieberman
4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful Analysis of the Overlooked Plot to Unseat Hitler
Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2003
Verified Purchase
Mr. Parssinen has written a succinct and exciting account of the 1938 plot by a small group of German military officers, civil servants and civilians to remove Adolf Hitler from power. Colonel Hans Oster, the deputy to Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of German military intelligence, the Abwehr, inspired and coordinated this effort. For whatever reason, many historians have overlooked the significance and heroic quality of this plot. Some prior authors, such as Anthony Cave Brown in Bodyguard of Lies, have looked at the subject, and the "Schwarze Kapelle" (Black Orchestra) consisting of German military officers and conservative anti-Nazis has been the subject of prior literature. No author that I am aware of, however, has focused so specifically upon the 1938 plot or argued as persuasively as to its potential for success in a Germany not necessarily as enamored of Adolf Hitler as many think (because of concern over another war more than the immorality and barbarous conduct of the Nazi regime). Mr. Parssinen uses the materials gathered by another historian that he found in storage in military archives to make his case.
A significant element of the book is the short-sighted and ignorant nature of the British leadership, so devoted to the policy of "appeasement" that it ignored the multiple requests of Oster's representatives (including German diplomats) to stand against Hitler's plans for an invasion of Czechoslovakia. The author makes a strong and persuasive case for the position that, if Neville Chamberlain, Horace Wilson, Neville Henderson and the like, had done as the German conspirators requested, the downfall of a shaky Nazi regime might have occurred. Indeed, Mr. Parssinen even notes that in late September a team of commandos stood ready to storm the Reich Chancellery and capture or assassinate Hitler, when the British derailed Oster's plans with the Munich Accord.
The book, however, does not fully develop or convey the strength of character and conviction possessed by Oster or other members of the conspiracy, such as Abwehr attorney Hans von Dohnanyi. The author really only addresses the humanitarian impulse driving some members of the conspiracy in the Epilogue. A more extensive exploration of their personalities and motivations would be most welcome. I hope Mr. Parssinen will cover this in a follow up to his excellent work.
10 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Lakeside
5.0 out of 5 stars A Brilliant Telling of a Remarkable Plot that could have Saved 50 Million Souls from Death
Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2014
When my wife returned from her recent high school reunion weekend with news that one of her classmates had written a book chronicling a plot against Hitler in 1938, and that her classmate was sending me a copy, I was mildly interested. Serious mistake! I read this relatively brief account of the Oster conspiracy in a single sitting, entranced by the author's almost daily account of events, his superb renderings of the characters and motivations of the major conspirators, and the potential for the plot to save the world from the most horrific killings of fifty million souls who lost their lives during WW II. It is a powerful testament to a handful of Third Reich participants' ability to summon the courage to strike at the very heart of evil that had lulled most Germans into a kind of stupor. Dr. Parssinen's account reminds us, too, that the actions of a few can make a profound difference in the affairs of men and nations. While the conspirators ultimately failed at their objective, they were done in not by any deficit in their own abilities and plans, but by the cowardice of Neville Chamberlain and his equally misguided supporters in the British Cabinet.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Rob Hardy
5.0 out of 5 stars It Might Have Been
Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2003
As a professor of history, Terry Parssinen was asked by a student, "Professor, what was the last time that Hitler could have been stopped from starting the Second World War?" He could only speculate; he had heard about a 1938 German military plot to bring Hitler down, but he had to spend time in the library to find out more about it. Most historians had neglected or scorned the little-known plot. Eventually Parssinen was lucky enough to find the papers of Harold Deutsch, a historian who had interviewed participants in the plot and their family members, but had died before writing up his results. Parssinen took over, and has produced _The Oster Conspiracy of 1938: The Unknown Story of the Military Plot to Kill Hitler and Avert World War II_ (HarperCollins). It was a failed conspiracy, just as was the much more famous bomb that failed to kill Hitler in 1944 (there were other failed plots as well), but it is worth examining as a check against the picture of Hitler as universally popular among Germans at the time, and as a point of reflection. How might the world be different now if Hitler had been killed before starting hostilities? After all, Parssinen writes that the evidence "... shows that the 1938 conspiracy was well planned and had reasonably good prospects for success."
Parssinen has built up the drama concerning the conspiracy by a meticulous, sometimes hour-by-hour, reconstruction of events in London and Berlin. Except for the ending of the plot, the tension is considerable even though we know the outcome. The chief conspirator, Lieutenant Colonel Hans Oster, was second-in-command at Abwehr, the intelligence division for the German military. He was shocked by the imprisonment of religious figures and political dissidents, and by the first concentration camps. It was not until the "Czech Crisis" of 1938, however, that significantly more officials began to agree with him. The generals knew that Russia and France were pledged to defend Czechoslovakia, and that if Germany tried to take it, the British would probably come in as well. They despaired that they would be deployed in a war they could not win. The conspirators knew that they could only rely on popular support if Hitler were about to start a war for which the German people had no enthusiasm, and they tried to have their contacts in England keep up the pressure so that no appeasement happened. Eventually Chamberlain accepted Hitler's pledge that no further European territories would be demanded; in the words of a conspirator at the Department of the Interior, "Chamberlain has saved Hitler." The conspirators could not act. They made several later assassination attempts, foiled by bad luck. In 1943 the Gestapo discovered Oster's scheme to smuggle Jews into neutral Switzerland; he was arrested and sent to a concentration camp. In 1945, a few days before the American troops liberated his camp, Oster was hanged.
_The Oster Conspiracy of 1938_ is a detailed examination of a particular period and chain of events that led up to the war. It is exciting at times, and of course sad. Parssinen indulges in some speculation about what might have happened. The conspirators were interested in setting up a government based on Britain's; it might have been conservative, but it would have been broadly representative of German popular opinion. No war, no Holocaust, no Cold War are among the contingencies that might have occurred (although of course some other horrors would have erupted). But above all, fifty million people died in the war, and they would not have. "It might have been" has never been sadder.
11 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

J. A. Laidler
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 13, 2015
Verified Purchase
definite read for anyone interested in WWII and the brave people who tried to end it sooner.
Report