An Honourable Defeat: A History Of German Resistance To Hitler, 1933-1945
by Anton Gill /
1994 / English / PDF
41.7 MB Download
Despite the threat of summary trial and execution, a tiny minority
of Germans opposed National Socialism by distributing dissident
literature, meeting secretly to discuss politics and sheltering
Communist Jews and other political outlaws. Gill documents such
acts of courage along with the organized German resistance to
Hitler, which, as he shows, had networks in the army, the church,
the Abwehr (military intelligence and counterespionage agency), the
Foreign Office and the conservative opposition. He profiles many
unsung resisters along with such better-known heroes as outspoken
Evangelical pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, hanged in a concentration
camp; Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, shot for his key role in the
1944 plot to assassinate Hitler; and Hans and Sophie Scholl, the
brother and sister who led the White Rose student anti-Nazi group,
both beheaded in 1943. British historian Gill's illuminating study
cogently argues that Hitler was not an irresistible force and that
he succeeded only because he was allowed to.
Despite the threat of summary trial and execution, a tiny minority
of Germans opposed National Socialism by distributing dissident
literature, meeting secretly to discuss politics and sheltering
Communist Jews and other political outlaws. Gill documents such
acts of courage along with the organized German resistance to
Hitler, which, as he shows, had networks in the army, the church,
the Abwehr (military intelligence and counterespionage agency), the
Foreign Office and the conservative opposition. He profiles many
unsung resisters along with such better-known heroes as outspoken
Evangelical pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, hanged in a concentration
camp; Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, shot for his key role in the
1944 plot to assassinate Hitler; and Hans and Sophie Scholl, the
brother and sister who led the White Rose student anti-Nazi group,
both beheaded in 1943. British historian Gill's illuminating study
cogently argues that Hitler was not an irresistible force and that
he succeeded only because he was allowed to.