Disobeying Hitler: German Resistance in the Last Year of WWII
About this ebook
'Excellent' Evening Standard | 'Fascinating' Ben Macintyre
Raze Paris to the ground. Burn the bridges. Destroy all industry.These were just a few of the insane orders issued by Hitler in the closing months of the Second World War, as the Allies made their unstoppable advance on Germany.
Had it not been for the determination and bravery of a few Germans – officers and ordinary civilians – who disobeyed Hiter, Europe might have been a scorched ruin. Many paid with their lives.
Might Rommel have opened the Western Front to the Allies on 20 July 1944 had he not been shot at a few days earlier? Did Albert Speer single-handedly prevent the destruction of bridges, factories and towns? Did a Prussian general save Paris?
In this compelling book, distinguished historian Randall Hansen explores the extraordinary phenomenon of disobedience-as-resistance and its effect on both the war and its aftermath.
A gripping account of German resistance to Hitler’s tyranny in the last year of World War Two, in its 80th anniversary year.
About the author
Randall Hansen holds a Research Chair at the University of Toronto. He was director of the Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies for eleven years and Research Director of the Joint Initiative on German and European Studies for fourteen years. He has had visiting fellowships at the Institute of Contemporary History, Berlin, the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) Vienna, the Free University of Social Studies (LUISS), Rome, Trinity College, Dublin and the Department of History, UCLA. Before taking up his current position, he was a Tutorial Fellow in Politics at Merton College, Oxford. He is author of Disobeying Hitler: German Resistance in the Last Year of WWII and Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany and Japan.
