Luck of the Devil: The Story of Operation ValkyrieTaken from his bestselling biography Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis, Ian Kershaw's The Luck of the Devil: The Story of Operation Valkyrie is a brilliant account of the German plot to assassinate Hitler. The July 1944 plot to kill Adolf Hilter was a desperate attempt by a group of senior officers, most famously Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, to redeem Germany's honour and end the Second World War. They were heroic because they knew their chances of success were slight and that the result of their failure would undoubtedly be a terrible death. They wanted to leave a message for later generations: that there were Germans who understood the evils of Nazism and were willing to act against it. This extraordinary story is the basis for Bryan Singer's film Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise and Kenneth Branagh. The Luck of the Devil recounts those fateful days at Hitler's Wolf's Lair headquarters, when his opponents came s close to assassinating one of the modern era's most terrible figures. Richard Overy has spent much of his distinguished career studying the intellectual, social and military ideas that shaped the cataclysm of the Second World War, particularly in his books 1939 - Countdown to War, Why the Allies Won, Russia's War and The Morbid Age. Overy's The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia won the Wolfson Prize for History and the Hessell Tiltman Prize. |
Contents
Luck of the Devil | 5 |
Fabian von Schlabrendorffs Account | 91 |
The Kreisau Circles Principles for the | 97 |
Copyright | |
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20 July Abwehr adjutant Allies armed forces armoured SS armoured troops school Army Group Centre Army High Command arrested assassination attempt Beck Bendlerblock Bendlerstraße Berghof bomb briefing session chief of staff Colonel Colonel-General commander-in-chief conspiracy conspirators corps area Hq coup d'état detonation East Prussia eastern front European executive power explosion Fellgiebel Field-Marshal Freisler Fromm Führer Headquarters Gauleiter German Germany's Gersdorff Gestapo Goebbels Goerdeler Göring Graf Schwerin Haeften head Henning von Tresckow Hermann Göring Himmler IAN KERSHAW immediately Keitel Kluge Kreisau Circle leaders leadership Major-General military National Socialism Nazi officers Olbricht opposition Oster Otto Ernst Remer peace People's Court plane plans plot plotters Poland police political Propaganda Ministry regime Reich Remer replacement army reserve army resistance Roland Freisler Russia Sander Schlabrendorff Speer Stauffenberg Stieff survival taken telephone time-fuse tiny clique Valkyrie Wehrmacht Werner von Haeften Witzleben Wolf's Lair Yorck von Wartenburg Zeitzler