Countdown to Valkyrie
The July Plot to Assasinate Hitler
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
There were over forty plots to assassinate Hitler— This is the “compelling, fast-paced account” of the one that came closest to succeeding (Publishers Weekly).
The July Plot of 1944 was masterminded by Count Claus von Stauffenberg, a member of the German General Staff, who had been rushed back from Africa after losing his left eye and right hand. For his injuries, he had been decorated as a war hero. However, he’d never been a supporter of Nazi ideology—and he was increasingly attracted by the approaches of the German resistance movement.
After an attempt to assassinate Hitler in November 1943 failed, Stauffenberg developed a new plot to kill him at the Wolf’s Lair, fortified underground bunkers, on July 20, 1944. Besides the führer’s assassination, Stauffenberg organized plans to take over command of the German forces and sue for peace with the Allies. With the help of photographs, explanatory maps, and diagrams, author Nigel Jones dissects the events leading up to the attempt, the events of the day in minute-by-minute detail, and the aftermath in which the conspirators were hunted down. No other work on the July Plot contains such a full explanation of this attempt on Hitler’s life—in addition to a forensic analysis of the day, the book includes short biographies of the key characters involved, the first-person recollections of witnesses, and a “what if” section explaining the likely outcome of a successful assassination.
“An engaging history by a talented and accomplished writer.” —Roger Moorhouse, author of Killing Hitler
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jones enhances his developing reputation as a writer on the Third Reich with this compelling, fast-paced account of the July 20 conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler (its code name publicized by the release of Tom Cruise's latest movie). While up-to-date on the latest scholarship, the book succeeds admirably in presenting for a general audience not only the doomed course of Operation Valkyrie but its background: the failures of other assassination plots, the difficulties of organizing resistance in a totalitarian state, the desperate courage of the men and women who risked their lives. From the charismatic Count Claus von Stauffenberg down, the conspirators belonged to the German establishment. Their plan was for a coup to supplant Nazism with a civil-military government under the rule of law and end a war that was destroying Germany physically and morally. Jones traces the plot's unfolding and unraveling, first day by day, then hour by hour. Hitler's survival condemned the conspirators to an obscene vengeance. Their heroic sacrifice, says Jones, "snatched the soul of their tortured country from the pit and saved it." Photos, map.
