A towering achievement. The first fifth of the book passes through a dream-like state while sweeping and surreptitious changes take place in the police forces, the national government, the propaganda movements, the press, the ministries, the military. This book presents things about Germany that are normally not considered. Most Americans probably think that Germany was an idealistic war machine in the 1940s: with one mind, one head, one purpose. Not so. The author begins in 1933 as a new attache in the newly-formed Gestapo. Immediately things begin to go awry. New changes come down, rumors abound, mistrust fosters mistrust. In his own building and everyday workplace, his own boss tells him to take the staircase at the wall-side rather than near the railing, as this would expose him to sniper fire from a vantage point higher in the stairwell. No one walks across the hall to clean his face without phoning a colleague on such a "dangerous enterprise." After these initial scenes, the author travels "outside" of government circles but remains in close contact with the major players plotting to overthrow the Fuehrer. He recounts across the years how the church was subdued, how the German people were "assisted" in imagining that things were working out, that propaganda helped to pave the way for even greater excesses, even how the generals were quailed (these last were long thought to be the last hope). The book is terrific in that it follows an agent in actual work, sifting through facts, talking clandestinely with associates, plotting an important life-or-death struggle to overthrow the Monster. Never knowing who to trust, never knowing what is coming next, never knowing when the bullet will come -- these are momentous and continuing features with which we have to deal. That the author survived as early as 1934 is remarkable. That he lived through the failed assassination attempt and the subsequent purges is incredible. A must read for WWII buffs, this highly readable text is a testament to those Germans working for sound government, healthy industry and a stable German society. An excellent book!

To get top of the heap, and to start a war, and to institute Death Camps for Jews and other undesirables, Hitler had to leave many corpses. Among this carnage are the dead bodies of some of Germany's Finest People. If there was any GOOD person more knowledgeable about where the corpses were buried, it was SS Agent H.B. Gisivius, who was also an insider in the tragically unsucessful attempts to get rid of Hitler. Agent Gisivius also distinguished himself as a witness at Nuremberg with his testimony that enraged Herman Goering, the same Goering that was able to frustrate Supreme Court Justice Jackson's prosecution efforts. Gisivius goes though several adventures, from the Nazi Regime's bloody beginnings, to his transfer to the Abwehr [German Military Intelligence] under Canaris, to the frustrating attempts to get rid of Hitler, often interrupted by the major events of the war, and the lawless antics of Nazi Functionaries (including the embarrassing trials that took place for the Reichstagg Fire). Gisivius was a Witness, and like Historian Procopius, who tried to do GOOD in the Midst of EVIL, and He lived to tell about it!

Firstly, Hitler was a constitutional scholar, not in the sense that Thomas Jefferson was, but in the same sense that Houdini was a Locksmith. Hitler reasoned that the Law of the Land was what the Police enforced. His partners, Goering, Frick, Bormann, Hess, Rohm, and later Himmler, proceeded to build the Gestapo, which they eventually integrated into the Police. The SA acted independantly, starting their own private concentration camps. A power struggle broke out for control of the Police which Gisivius describes in detail with black humor. The result was the Night of the Long Knives, where SA Chief Rohm perished and Himmler gets control of the Gestapo. Meanwhile,Goering uses his special units to end the SA private concentration camps with his own special purge (Goering wanted no competition). In its first months, the Nazi Regime has already shot a Mountain of Corpses.

It was frustrating work to bring about the end of the Nazi Regime. Hitler, when he was in the deepest of doodoo (as in the Reichstagg Fire Trial) was able to pull off some magic trick to put himself back into a favorable light, be it the Annexation of Austria, the Occupation of the Rhineland (where he narrowly missed being declared insane), the annexation of Czechoslocakia, Poland, and the Russian Front. Hitler, had he passed from the scene during his pinicle after the Annexation of Czechoslavakia, would have been known as the Greatest german Statesman of All Time, and would have been the Supreme Proof that "Character DOES NOT Matter". Instead, Hitler stayed on and things turned sour by degrees, and it took till 1944 before things got bad enough for Assassination Atempts to become sufficiently daring to recieve notice. (Granted, the March 1943 attempt happened, but those in the know did not talk about it. It was so secret, even Hitler did not know!). Hitler was certainly protected by his own Guardian Devil!

The Big Day approaches! We must get rid of Hitler. The German Resistance meets for one last time before it happens. (The German Resistance were certainly a cut above the average Resistance Movement. In the French Resistance, you only had to worry about an interrogation [you did your duty if you lasted 24 hours] and a speedy execution, with some hope of release. The German Resistance, on the other hand, had secrets that had to be kept for months! No quick execution by pistol either! These guys died by long messy execution by piano wire at the end of a Meat Hook! Look up Fritz Nova's book for the biographys of the July 20th Martyrs to get into the details.) They argue and dissent! Stauffenberg delays and delays, with the hope of getting Hitler, Himmler, and Goering in one fell swoop. Leber has been arrested and is about to be shot, whom Stauffenberg wishes to save as a consequence of his tyrannicide. Staufenberg can delay no longer and the bomb goes off!

The Abwehr acts with Operation Valkyrie, or does it? When Gisivius sees that the dawdling that ensues will come to naught, he looks up his friend, Police President von Heldorf and attempts to abscound. Tragicommically, his attempts to leave the country are frustrated. The Good News is that Gisivius'es hous has been bombed, making it an excellent hiding place for the duration of the war. Finally, the Allies escort him out of Germany as Germany perishes in flames.

This is not a book for the weak of stomach! It is a study of Tyranny. Fritz von Hayek's Road to Serfdom had already been published in 1944, but doubtless, had Gisivius and Hayek had ever met, the von Hayek chapters on German and Austrian History would have been thicker. This book deserves to be a contender for the top 100 Great Books of All Times, and is Certainly worth the trouble to read.

This book was an interesting documentary of Adolf Hitler's life. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in finding out information about Adolf Hitler's life before and during WWII. This book describes his life in detail many of his ideas and plans. This also tells how he rose to power and how this was not his intended future when he was a child. It tells about his relationships with his mother and others also. This book is good for those looking for information about Adolf Hitler. I would also recommend it to anyone who has any interest at all in Adolf Hitler.

Quite a few books have been written about Hitler and Nazi Germany since World War 2, including many for young people. This is by far the best bio of Hitler written for students that I am aware of (and I have read everything I can get my hands on about the subject). In a relatively small amount of space the author crams a huge amount of detailed information, all of it both appropriate and fascinating. Frequent references to the dictator's physical attributes, voice, bearing, personal fears, strange fetishes, tantrums, etc., all documented by eyewitness accounts, make this slice of history come alive for the reader. I am looking forward to reading other books by this fine historian.

This book, written in 1980 - is the ONLY Nostradamus book that I know of to ever incorporate the four languages of the original quatrains with the original French text and signify the use of Kabbalah and Numerology in its interpretation. Forget Cheetham and Hogue - that's amateur hour.
Now - the scary part, the interpretations...
This author, DR. BOYER, is the only one (again, that I am aware of) to correctly employ Nostradamus' quatrains to predict several major events of the last two decades. This book was written in 1980 and the first prediction of significance that I discovered was that it identified the fall of the Soviet Union and nailed the year - 1991. The author uses the events of WWII and their respective quatrains as a starting point for interpreting the future - specifically the Millennium.
This is not a ... "special", i.e. - no flashy cover, in fact most people have never even heard of this book and can't even find it for that matter. (It does appear to have disappeared off the face of the Earth - save for these internet listings) It is a thesis text - and a good one at that. The thesis: that quatrain X-72 directly relates to an event where a "King of Terror attacks from the sky on/about July of 1999" and that a possible "contemporary" designated by the anagram and riddle "Mars" will reign for "good cause/with luck". The most terrifying part is that the author illustrates how this event will preceed WWIII. When 1999 came and went I shelved this startling, but a bit over-the-top tome. Then 9-11. I dug it back out and took another look. Funny how 1999 is really 9-1-1-1- inverted. Actually not funny at all.
If Dr. Boyer's prediction of this terrible event is interpreted correctly - and this attack does in fact preceed a third world war - then this may very well be the most important book ever written - after the various religious texts used by modern religions.
And Dr. Boyer will go down in history (or at least my opinion) as the greatest interpreteaur of Nostradamus ever.

Paul West has always stretched (ripped, shredded) conventional narrative techniques, opting instead for something more expansive, expressive, and imaginative. West sparkles bright as ever in his latest work, showing that he remains one of our greatest literary treasures. Let us hope he continues raising the proverbial bar, so we can continue, with terrific joy, to submerse our minds in his texts. Read this man.

The Fuehrer Conferences are necessary reading for any historian of naval affairs or World War II. In these documents, Hitler outlines his strategy for preventing food and munitions from being shipped from the neutral countries, predominantly the United States, to Great Britain. The decision on how far to push the United States was a crucial one, as it had helped push the Western giant over the edge in World War I, and Hitler could not afford another powerful enemy. Yet, as Germany's chance of successfully invading Great Britain waned, the need to stop shipments of supplies from neutral countries waxed urgent. There is gripping drama in the documents themselves, and a chance to peer into Hitler's own diplomatic and strategic processes. A wonderful resource and good entertainment.

Zeman provides the most potent selection of political cartoons ever assembled, cartoons in which the threat and, later, reality, of Nazi aggression is exposed. True, not all the cartoons assess accurately the exact nature of the threat, or the final outcome; however, the incredible foresight displayed by a number of these cartoonists makes one wish that they, rather than the politicians, had been in charge

THE RECENTLY LOCATED DOCUMENTS THAT WERE USED FOR THIS BOOK MAKE IT THE MOST COMPLETE RECOUNTING YET PUBLISHED. HUNDREDS OF PHOTOS, MANY IN FULL COLOR, SHOW HOW IT LOOKED IN THE ERA OF THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST THIRD REICH, AND HOW IT LOOKS TODAY.

I personally loved this book for its detailed accounts of everything from Oskar Schindler to the Battle over Stalingrad. If you have any interest at all in World War 2, this is a fantastic book, even includes some pictures which display the Nazi terror for Russians, Jews, and 'traitors'. In all a wonderful book!

The best Hitler biography I have ever read. Highly recommended to anyone interested in Hitler the human being, rather than Hitler the demonic cartoon character. At the same time, in my opinion, it is one of the best accounts of the war available. Very well written, detailed and thorough, yet fast-paced and difficult to put down. Forget the TV mini-series view of history and read this book!