Download PDF Hitler Last Plot The 139 VIP Hostages Selected for Death in the Final Days of World War II Audible Audio Edition Ian Sayer Jeremy Dronfield Paul Boehmer Hachette Audio Books
Download As PDF : Hitler Last Plot The 139 VIP Hostages Selected for Death in the Final Days of World War II Audible Audio Edition Ian Sayer Jeremy Dronfield Paul Boehmer Hachette Audio Books
Revealed for the first time how the SS rounded up the Nazis' most prominent prisoners to serve as human shields for Hitler in the last days of World War II.
In April 1945, as Germany faced defeat, Hitler planned to round up the Third Reich's most valuable prisoners and send them to his "Alpine Fortress", where he and the SS would keep the hostages as they made a last stand against the Allies. The prisoners included European presidents, prime ministers, generals, British secret agents, and German anti-Nazi clerics, celebrities, and officers who had aided the July 1944 bomb plot against Hitler - and the prisoners' families. Orders were given to the SS If the German military situation deteriorated, the prisoners were to be executed - all 139 of them.
So began a tense, deadly drama. As some prisoners plotted escape, others prepared for the inevitable, and their SS guards grew increasingly volatile, drunk, and trigger-happy as defeat loomed. As a dramatic confrontation between the SS and the Wehrmacht threatened the hostages caught in the middle, the US Army launched a frantic rescue bid to save the hostages before the ax fell.
Drawing on previously unpublished and overlooked sources, Hitler's Last Plot is the first full account of this astounding and shocking story, from the original round-up order to the prisoners' terrifying ordeal and ultimate rescue. Told in a thrilling, pause-resisting narrative, this is one of World War II's most fascinating episodes.Â
PLEASE NOTE When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Download PDF Hitler Last Plot The 139 VIP Hostages Selected for Death in the Final Days of World War II Audible Audio Edition Ian Sayer Jeremy Dronfield Paul Boehmer Hachette Audio Books
"Having had extended professional discussions with author Sayer and ravenously consumed his other works over the years, I can say without hesitation that "Hitler's Last Plot" is one of his best efforts. Meticulously researched and written in a refreshing, "un-dry" manner which holds the reader, it contains a wealth of material hitherto unknown to all almost every World War II researcher. The end of the war was a "haze", as they say, and even critically important events remain unexamined. Read Sayer's work and learn about yet another aspect of the desperate last days of the Third Reich."
Product details
|
Tags : Hitler's Last Plot The 139 VIP Hostages Selected for Death in the Final Days of World War II (Audible Audio Edition) Ian Sayer, Jeremy Dronfield, Paul Boehmer, Hachette Audio Books, ,Ian Sayer, Jeremy Dronfield, Paul Boehmer, Hachette Audio,Hitler's Last Plot The 139 VIP Hostages Selected for Death in the Final Days of World War II,Hachette Audio,B07QF4M254
Hitler Last Plot The 139 VIP Hostages Selected for Death in the Final Days of World War II Audible Audio Edition Ian Sayer Jeremy Dronfield Paul Boehmer Hachette Audio Books Reviews :
Hitler Last Plot The 139 VIP Hostages Selected for Death in the Final Days of World War II Audible Audio Edition Ian Sayer Jeremy Dronfield Paul Boehmer Hachette Audio Books Reviews
- I received a free digital review copy from the publisher, via Netgalley.
In other World War II histories, I have seen references to various high-level prisoners of the Nazis during World War II, but this is the first book I’ve read that focuses exclusively on these so-called Prominenten, and the first time I’ve heard of the lunatic plot of Hitler and his top henchmen to use them as pawns in the war’s endgame.
The first half of the book focuses on introducing us to the motley crew of Prominenten and their locations before the plot went into motion. They included people from 22 different countries and a wide range of roles. The most prominent was Léon Blum, the prime minister of France before the Nazis defeated the country, and a particular target of the Nazis because he was Jewish and a socialist. Another top political leader was Kurt von Schuschnigg, the former chancellor of Austria, who was a fascist but offended the Nazis by daring to oppose the takeover of Austria by Germany.
Among the German Prominenten were important churchmen who had publicly opposed Nazism, and prominent citizens like Fritz Thyssen and Hjalmar Schacht, who had been enthusiastic supporters but became disenchanted with Hitler and the Nazi Party. There were more than a dozen “kin prisoners†who were relatives of the perpetrators of various plots against Hitler, such as von Stauffenberg, one of the principals of the so-called Valkyrie plot. More Prominenten included Russians and Greeks, usually high-level military officers.
English prisoners were mostly intelligence agents and RAF officers, including several who had made spectacular escapes from various Stalags. There were two men named Churchill, whom the Nazis incorrectly thought were related to Prime Minister Winston Churchill—but one of them was a top agent for British intelligence, so close enough.
Some of the Prominenten weren’t technically even prisoners. Astonishingly, the Nazis allowed some prisoners to have their wives and children join them—and even more astonishingly, a couple did just that. Most notably, Kurt von Schuschnigg’s wife, Vera, and baby daughter Elizabeth joined him.
Before 1945, the Prominenten were kept in different places, usually in fairly decent conditions in some corner of camps like Buchenwald, Flössenburg and Dachau. While the Nazis made efforts to keep the Prominenten away from view of their horrific treatment of other prisoners, it was impossible to keep them entirely in the dark.
As it became increasingly clear that Germany’s military situation was dire, Hitler and his inner circle came up with the idea of moving the Prominenten to a mountain lair in the Tyrol. They would be difficult for the Allies to rescue in that location, and the Nazis could use them as bargaining chips. If that was unsuccessful, they would execute them all. Hey, because that’s what the Nazis did. Even when it was absolutely clear that the war was lost, they kept killing prisoners as fast as they could, by outright execution, working them to death, and forcing them on pointless death marches.
Speaking of cruelty and futility, the authors describe in detail the efforts made by the Nazis to gather up the Prominenten from their various prisons and transport them to the Tyrol. For all the famed German efficiency and planning, the efforts to get all the Prominenten to the Tyrol were so screwed up it would be funny, except that every day the prisoners worried that their SS/SD escorts would simply decide it was all more trouble than it was worth and execute them.
I had an idea in my head that this would be the story of 139 Prominenten taken to a secluded mountain lair and living in tense isolation. Not at all! What with the Allies advancing all the time, partisans emboldened, refugees cramming the roadways, various cease fires called and broken, Niederdorf, where the Prominenten ended up, was awash with all sorts. The Wehrmacht and the SS were at odds over the prisoners and in all the tumult, prisoners were often allowed to stroll about the village and socialize. Some very odd friendships were struck up, many of which survived the war. Kurt von Schuschnigg even came to admire Léon Blum. And outside the village, in the chaos there are competing forces coming for the prisoners. Some to rescue them, some to move them, some to execute them.
There is just so much going on in the book that it can make your head spin, but the authors do a good job describing quite a few of the Prominenten, so that the reader feels invested in their fates. The authors also convey the absolute chaos of the last days of the war, when desperation, the desire for revenge, carelessness and the breakdown of clear military authority made the fate of the Prominenten balance on a knife’s edge.
A well-researched and readable history of a little-known episode in World War II. - Having had extended professional discussions with author Sayer and ravenously consumed his other works over the years, I can say without hesitation that "Hitler's Last Plot" is one of his best efforts. Meticulously researched and written in a refreshing, "un-dry" manner which holds the reader, it contains a wealth of material hitherto unknown to all almost every World War II researcher. The end of the war was a "haze", as they say, and even critically important events remain unexamined. Read Sayer's work and learn about yet another aspect of the desperate last days of the Third Reich.
- Fascinating story about a little-known series of events at the end of WWII. VIPs taken to a mountain redoubt as human shields for a last stand, a confrontation between the German army & the SS, and an Allied mission to rescue the hostages are just the main story - the author brings the story to live through the details. Highly recommended.
