Here are 100 books that The Secret War Against Hitler fans have personally recommended if you like
The Secret War Against Hitler.
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The shocking discovery that my grandfather, as a 21-year-old student, had applied to join the SS as SS-Anwärter (candidate), only to withdraw in August 1939 to pursue a career as a naval engineer and start a family, led to extensive research into my family history and WWII. I developed a keen interest in the German Resistance, contacted historians, archivists, veterans, visited museums, and was in touch with members of Claus von Stauffenberg’s family, the Bonhoeffer Centre in London, and the White Rose Memorial in Munich. To this date, not many people know that over 720,000 German civilians, military, paramilitary, and clergy died trying to overturn the Nazi regime.
During my research for my book, I was fortunate to get in touch with Claus von Stauffenberg’s grandson Philipp von Schultess, who recommended the Peter Hoffmann book.
It is a very detailed, comprehensive book on a topic that is too often omitted from schoolbooks and history books alike, the over 700,000 German civilians, politicians, clergy, military, and paramilitary who lost their lives trying to overturn the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945. The Hoffmann was a starting point to the discovery of several other books about the German Resistance and a visit to the German Resistance Memorial and Museum in Berlin, where von Stauffenberg and other co-conspirators were executed.
The English version of the book has been extensively revised and expanded since its original publication in German. This edition includes a new preface and an updated bibliography.
I’ve lived with the example of Claus von Stauffenberg and other members of the German resistance for most of my adult life. Their clarity of purpose – when most around them clamoured in support of the Führer and his regime – is a recurring source of inspiration. This impelled me into ever deeper research into the topic, including accessing archives in several countries and using my legal training to weigh evidence. Today we face different challenges, but we can draw strength from the courage of these men and women. They failed, and many died, but there is life in a struggle for a just cause.
On 21 March 1943 Gersdorff, a German colonel, showed Hitler around a display of captured weapons in Berlin. He set off the timer for a bomb secreted in his capacious army pocket, but Hitler suddenly left the building: Gersdorff was unable to follow, and had to race to a toilet cubicle to tear the fuse from his bomb. Gersdorff was a committed opponent of the Nazis, and his account traces the highs and lows of the German opposition.
To his close associate, Baron Rudolf-Christoph von Gersdorff, Henning von Tresckow said, "The world has to be set free from the biggest criminal of all time. He must be struck down dead like a mad dog who threatens all mankind!"
Gersdorff and Tresckow were among the men whose moral courage drove them to resist the National Socialist movement and to attempt the ultimate - the assassination of its leader, Adolf Hitler. Gersdorff recounts the discreet recruitment of resistance members and his own failed attempt on Hitler s life on 21 March 1943.
I’ve lived with the example of Claus von Stauffenberg and other members of the German resistance for most of my adult life. Their clarity of purpose – when most around them clamoured in support of the Führer and his regime – is a recurring source of inspiration. This impelled me into ever deeper research into the topic, including accessing archives in several countries and using my legal training to weigh evidence. Today we face different challenges, but we can draw strength from the courage of these men and women. They failed, and many died, but there is life in a struggle for a just cause.
After his dismissal as German ambassador to Italy in 1938, Ulrich von Hassell kept a detailed diary, which he hid by burying it in his garden. He met frequently with resistance figures, including Stauffenberg. Designated foreign minister if the July plot succeeded, the Nazis placed him on trial. Despite the Nazis’ attempt to humiliate him by refusing to let him wear a belt or tie, and allowing him only a rumpled suit, Hassell cut a stylish figure with his pocket-handkerchief and his poised bearing. At one point, he calmly told the foaming judge: ‘Herr President, I have not lived sixty-two years to be told by you that I am a liar.’ He was hanged.
His diary is an essential primary source on the German opposition to Hitler.
In this secret diary, Ulrich von Hassell gives us a vivid contemporary account of the various plots against Hitler's wartime Reich in Germany from 1938-1944. It is a first complete edition of his wartime memoir with new material from his grandson, Agostino von Hassell.
I’ve lived with the example of Claus von Stauffenberg and other members of the German resistance for most of my adult life. Their clarity of purpose – when most around them clamoured in support of the Führer and his regime – is a recurring source of inspiration. This impelled me into ever deeper research into the topic, including accessing archives in several countries and using my legal training to weigh evidence. Today we face different challenges, but we can draw strength from the courage of these men and women. They failed, and many died, but there is life in a struggle for a just cause.
Marion Yorck von Wartenburg, along with her husband Peter (a relative of Claus von Stauffenberg), were leading figures in the group of opponents to Hitler known as ‘the Kreisau circle’. The group usually met in the Yorcks’ home.
After the failure of the July plot, Peter was executed. Marion was held in solitary confinement for 3 months, but survived the war. She later became a judge. Her first-hand account provides an important perspective on the German resistance.
"Dearly beloved Child of my Heart, we are probably standing at the end of our beautiful and rich life together. Because tomorrow the People's Court intends to sit in judgment on me and others. I hear that we have been expelled from the army. They can take the uniform from us, but not the spirit in which we acted."-Peter Yorck von Wartenburg, in a letter to his wife.
Marion Yorck von Wartenburg was involved in the Nazi resistance group known as the Kreisau Circle, whose cofounder was her husband, Peter. The Kreisau Circle participated in the assassination attempt on Adolf…
I am an Israeli military historian, addicted to stories on the unusual, mysterious and unknown. While many of my fellow scholars are interested in the daily and the mundane, I have taken a very different course. Since childhood, I've been fascinated by decisions human beings make in times of crisis, war, and other situations of partial knowledge and moral ambiguity. Therefore, I wrote on coups d’etat, military undergrounds, covert operations, and espionage. After graduating with a PhD from Harvard University, I began teaching world military history, modern Japanese history, and the history of espionage at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. For me, reading about covert operations is both a hobby and a profession.
Ronen Bergman’s history of Israeli targeted assassinations is a stunning piece of investigative journalism. Beginning with the chilling Talmudic dictum, “if someone comes to kill you, rise and kill first,” Bergman explains how a policy of assassinations was deemed by generations of Israeli leaders as a safe and cheap substitute to conventional warfare. From the dark basements of the Zionists undergrounds to the sophisticated joint command rooms of the IDF, the Mossad, and the Shin-Bet, the author uses his unprecedented access to secret sources to tell a breathtaking story, often pausing to ponder on the morality and usefulness of secret assassinations in the fight against terrorism. A true page-turner, I found it balanced, accurate, and fascinating, a rare feat in accounts of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
'A gripping investigation of Israel's assassination policy' Sunday Times 'Remarkable' Observer 'Riveting' Daily Mail 'Compelling' John le Carre
Winner of 2018 National Jewish Book Award From the very beginning of its statehood in 1948, the instinct to take every measure to defend the Jewish people has been hardwired into Israel's DNA. This is the riveting inside account of the targeted assassinations that have been used countless times, on enemies large and small, sometimes in response to attacks against the Israeli people and sometimes pre-emptively.
Rise and Kill First counts their successes, failures and the…
I am an Israeli military historian, addicted to stories on the unusual, mysterious and unknown. While many of my fellow scholars are interested in the daily and the mundane, I have taken a very different course. Since childhood, I've been fascinated by decisions human beings make in times of crisis, war, and other situations of partial knowledge and moral ambiguity. Therefore, I wrote on coups d’etat, military undergrounds, covert operations, and espionage. After graduating with a PhD from Harvard University, I began teaching world military history, modern Japanese history, and the history of espionage at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. For me, reading about covert operations is both a hobby and a profession.
Guy Walters’ book is perhaps the best account of the Nazis who escaped after the Second World War and the attempts to hunt them down. Unlike most writers in this field, Walters relies on thorough archival research. A sharp and critical thinker, he debunks countless myths, including the story of Odessa, the supposedly global organization that helped former SS members to escape, and the inflated accounts of the Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. After reading the first page, I could hardly lay this book down. This deep, thoughtful, and often blood-boiling series of unhappy endings leave you deeply immersed, and sometimes make you want to yell in rage over the injustice of it all.
At the end of the Second World War some of the highest ranking members of the Nazi party escaped from justice. Some of them are names that have resonated deeply in twentieth-century history - Eichmann, Mengele, Martin Bormann and Klaus Barbie - not just for the monstrosity of their crimes, but also because of the shadowy nature of their post-war existence, holed up in the depths of Latin America, always one step ahead of their pursuers.
The nature of their escape was as gripping as any good thriller. They were aided and abetted by corrupt Catholic priests in the Vatican,…
I am an Israeli military historian, addicted to stories on the unusual, mysterious and unknown. While many of my fellow scholars are interested in the daily and the mundane, I have taken a very different course. Since childhood, I've been fascinated by decisions human beings make in times of crisis, war, and other situations of partial knowledge and moral ambiguity. Therefore, I wrote on coups d’etat, military undergrounds, covert operations, and espionage. After graduating with a PhD from Harvard University, I began teaching world military history, modern Japanese history, and the history of espionage at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. For me, reading about covert operations is both a hobby and a profession.
Some espionage stories are so absurd as to defy belief, and yet they are true. This masterpiece by Ben Macintyre tells the story of such a plot: the story of Operation Mincemeat, a successful British attempt to deceive the Germans by planting false documents on a dead body, then dropping it on Spanish shores and into the clutches of Germany’s many spies. For me, this successful deception story was fascinating not only because of the breathtaking pace of events, but mainly due to its curious literary dimension. In order to make the deception work, the British designed the life story of “William Martin,” an officer that never was, using their literary skills to create a credible character of an English military gentleman. As Macintyre shows, they played exactly into the stereotypes of the German enemies on “Britishness.” Elaborating on this process, this book is a fascinating espionage story of double…
One April morning in 1943, a sardine fisherman spotted the corpse of a British soldier floating in the sea off the coast of Spain and set in train a course of events that would change the course of the Second World War. Operation Mincemeat was the most successful wartime deception ever attempted, and certainly the strangest. It hoodwinked the Nazi espionage chiefs, sent German troops hurtling in the wrong direction, and saved thousands of lives by deploying a secret agent who was different, in one crucial respect, from any spy before or since: he was dead. His mission: to convince…
I am an Israeli military historian, addicted to stories on the unusual, mysterious and unknown. While many of my fellow scholars are interested in the daily and the mundane, I have taken a very different course. Since childhood, I've been fascinated by decisions human beings make in times of crisis, war, and other situations of partial knowledge and moral ambiguity. Therefore, I wrote on coups d’etat, military undergrounds, covert operations, and espionage. After graduating with a PhD from Harvard University, I began teaching world military history, modern Japanese history, and the history of espionage at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. For me, reading about covert operations is both a hobby and a profession.
The life of a spy is psychologically difficult as he must keep loyalty to his own country, while secretly blending in with that of the enemy. For the Middle Eastern Jews who spied for Israel during its war of independence, the heroes of Matti Friedman’s excellent book, life was even more difficult, by upbringing and background their identity was interwoven with that of the enemy. In this book, Friedman follows these spies and covert warriors through a breathless sequence of assassinations and espionage operations against the Arab foes besieging Israel from all sides. Aside from being taken over by the plot, I love this book because it raises intriguing questions of identity during times of crisis and war, still relevant in the turbulent region of the Middle East and beyond.
“Wondrous . . . Compelling . . . Piercing.” —The New York Times Book Review
Award-winning writer Matti Friedman’s tale of Israel’s first spies has all the tropes of an espionage novel, including duplicity, betrayal, disguise, clandestine meetings, the bluff, and the double bluff—but it’s all true.
Journalist and award-winning author Matti Friedman’s tale of Israel’s first spies reads like an espionage novel--but it’s all true. The four agents at the center of this story were part of a ragtag unit known as the Arab Section, conceived during World War II by British spies and Jewish militia leaders in Palestine.…
I'm a retired diplomat and award-winning novelist with a PhD in history. I was drawn to the German Resistance because, unlike the other resistance movements across Europe, the German Resistance fought not a foreign invader but rather confronted the corruption and hijacking of their own state. Germans opposed to Hitler needed the moral fortitude to commit treason, and ultimately tyrannicide, not for the sake of the nation, but for humanity itself. I devoted ten years of my life to studying the German Resistance, first for my doctoral dissertation and then to write my novel. During that time, I was asked a thousand times why I was so fascinated and committed to the topic. The answer, tragically proven true over the last five years, is that the United States is not immune to fascism. The need to resist a racist and immoral demagogue has never been more relevant.
This work on the German military resistance to Hitler by Professor Hoffman remains the most comprehensive, scholarly work on the topic available in English. Hoffman provides a detailed account of the opposition to Hitler and his policies within the German military and explains the motives for it. He then shows how this opposition was gradually transformed into resistance which culminated in an assassination and coup attempt. While meticulously researched and documented, this book is not for the novice or the faint-hearted, as it is over 800 pages long.
Fascination with the evil of the Nazi regime has not diminished in the decades since Hitler assumed power in Germany, but the story of internal resistance to Nazism has not been as fully realized as have the innumerable tales of horror. In this compact book Peter Hoffmann examines the growing recognition by some Germans in the 1930s of the malign nature of the Nazi regime, the ways in which these people became involved in the resistance, and the views of those who staked their lives in the struggle against tyranny and murder.
The earliest postwar accounts of the resistance by…
The shocking discovery that my grandfather, as a 21-year-old student, had applied to join the SS as SS-Anwärter (candidate), only to withdraw in August 1939 to pursue a career as a naval engineer and start a family, led to extensive research into my family history and WWII. I developed a keen interest in the German Resistance, contacted historians, archivists, veterans, visited museums, and was in touch with members of Claus von Stauffenberg’s family, the Bonhoeffer Centre in London, and the White Rose Memorial in Munich. To this date, not many people know that over 720,000 German civilians, military, paramilitary, and clergy died trying to overturn the Nazi regime.
This is a more recent book. It was published in 2020, the same year as mine, so I couldn’t use it as part of my bibliography. Nevertheless, I have enjoyed reading it, it offers invaluable personal accounts by ordinary Germans as well as aristocratic Prussians who shared an utter contempt for Hitler’s propaganda and showed an astonishing courage in the face of the overwhelming brutality of the Nazi regime, resisting it and staying true to their values.
After 1933, as the brutal terror regime took hold, most of the two-thirds of Germans who had never voted for the Nazis - some 20 million people - tried to keep their heads down and protect their families.
They moved to the country, or pretended to support the regime to avoid being denounced by neighbours, and tried to work out what was really happening in the Reich, surrounded as they were by Nazi propaganda and fake news. They lived in constant fear. Yet many ordinary Germans found the courage to resist. Catrine Clay argues that it was a much greater…
