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The Oster Conspiracy of 1938: The Unknown Story of the Military Plot to Kill Hitler and Avert World War II

di Terry Parssinen

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The fascinating but little-known true story of an aborted coup to eliminate Hitler, led by Lieutenant Colonel Hans Oster of German Military Intelligence In September 1938, Hitler had been in power for more than five years and had unilaterally dismantled the Treaty of Versailles, provision by provision, daring Britain and France to stand up to him. Earlier that year he had forced Austria into his Third Reich without firing a single shot. Now his sights were set on Czechoslovakia. It was in this dangerous climate that the first anti-Nazi coup was born. The plot was spearheaded by Oster, and its members included top German military leaders, the Berlin police, local troop commanders, civil authorities, religious leaders, and a group of resisters whose names have somehow been wiped from the pages of history. Their mission was to kill Hitler and to overthrow the Nazi regime. Historian Terry Parssinen, using British and German sources and previously unknown documents in the Military History Institute of the U.S. Army War College, has documented the fast-paced story of this developing conspiracy. Revelatory, peopled with a rich cast of characters, and highly provocative, this is narrative history at its best. The author assesses the plot's chances for success and speculates about the consequences if the conspirators had been able to seize power in Berlin in 1938, thus averting World War II.… (altro)
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A visit to my favorite used book store in DC on Capitol Hill, Riverby Books.

Part way in; getting interesting and well-written.

Finished. It's not such a big book, but, you know, I was travelling, goofing off, reading other stuff. Finished it last night.

Whew. Truly an amazing story. A LOT of people in all branches of the Military, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Hans Oster, chief of staff to Adm. Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr (the German armed forces, army, navy, air, intelligence and counterintelligence staff).

Basically, they were all ready for a coup to take Hitler from power -- they knew he was crazy and dangerous well before 1938. What the conspirators wanted was for Britain to say they would absolutely stand behind the French who were obligated by treaty to defend Czechoslovakia if Germany invaded; which is what Hitler was fully planning to do. The Grand Appeasement in Munich instead is what happened, handing everything to Hitler without war, and dissipating everything the conspirators had fully planned.

Well told story, reads like a diary. Amazingly strong people in extemely dangerous positions. Ah, well. We do know what happened afterwards: luck for Hitler and happenstance against the conspirators who continued to plan against Hitler to the bitter end when most were finally drawn up in the late, July 1944, attempt by Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. ( )
  tmph | Sep 13, 2020 |
What if, by firing a bullet into the brain of one man, you could save the lives of 50 million others? If, by killing that one man, there's a good chance that everything from World War Two to the Cold War would never have taken place (or at least would have had radically different outcomes), would you pull the trigger?

What if that man was Adolf Hitler?

Back in 1938, the world was just a trigger-squeeze away from having its history altered in unimaginable ways. In September of that year, as Hitler egomaniacally drove his country toward war with Czechoslovakia and the rest of the world sat passively on the sidelines, a group of men were stationed in apartments throughout Berlin, waiting for the signal to launch a commando attack on the Reich Chancellery where, in the ensuing hail of gunfire, a well-aimed bullet would end the life of the fuhrer.

The assassination plot against Hitler might not be too surprising—after all, there were several attempts on his life during the war—but what's startling about this particular plot is the fact that it was conceived, planned and due to be carried out by Germans—Army officers in Hitler's own Wehrmacht.

While a few books (most notably William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich) have mentioned the conspiracy, the pre-war plot has largely been forgotten. Now, thanks to historian Terry Parssinen, the whole story is given fresh scrutiny.

In his book The Oster Conspiracy of 1938, Parssinen describes the assassination plot in tense, gripping detail, turning what was heretofore a footnote in history into a knuckle-whitening narrative straight out of something by Ken Follett or Tom Clancy.

In the preface, Parssinen writes: "Until now documents about the 1938 conspiracy have been scarce. Germans conspiring to overthrow Hitler put as little in writing as possible, knowing that if their plot was uncovered they would pay with their lives."

And most of the major players in the conspiracy eventually did pay that price, including Lieutenant Colonel Hans Oster of the German Office of Military Intelligence, author and instigator of what was the first attempt to remove from power a man Oster thought clearly posed a threat to world stability (though he could never have predicted the extent of Hitler's dreams of Europe-domination or the horrors of the Final Solution).

As the book opens, Parssinen says he started looking into the Oster plot after a student in one of his classes at the University of Tampa asked the question "When was the last chance that the Second World War could have been stopped?" Spurred on by the desire to learn more about the events of September 1938, he started reading as much as he could about the subject (which was little more than scattered bits here and there). Eventually, he found himself sitting in a reading room at the Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, staring at stacks of about 20 boxes.

These were the papers of the late Professor Harold Deutsch, a historian who taught at the University of Minnesota and, in his last years, at the Army War College. As it turned out, Deutsch lived in Germany in the 1930s, and had actually met some men of the Third Reich. At war's end, he worked for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services as an interrogator and questioned some of the conspirators who had survived Hitler's tyranny. Deutsch recorded interviews and exchanged dozens of letters with the men and relatives of plotters who'd been killed by Hitler. For years, all those untouched, unorganized notes were just sitting there waiting to be discovered by someone like Parssinen. The author admits he got lucky with this treasure trove (but then, isn't historical research nine-tenths sweat and one-tenth luck?).

As he combed through the Deutsch papers, Parssinen started getting a better understanding of the plot to kill Hitler by his own generals. "The evidence from the Deutsch Papers and other sources shows that the 1938 conspiracy was well planned and had reasonably good prospects for success," Parssinen writes.

Using a series of vignettes, arranged chronologically, Parssinen unfolds the series of events with the nerve-jangling suspense of a ticking time bomb. He begins by placing the plot in context, showing Hitler's designs for expanding the German empire across Europe, starting with Czechoslovakia, a country for which he seemed to have an insatiable appetite. As he beat the drums of war, some of his top military officers, already shell-shocked from the previous world war, tried to dissuade him from a conflict they felt they couldn't win at that point. The officers, especially Oster, noted with alarm the fuhrer's policies and actions didn't just seem to inch the country toward war, they positively shoved Germany's military machine into conflict—along the way, sparing no expense to the lives and reputations of the military officers themselves.

Hitler denounced them for cowardice: "What kind of generals are those that I have to drive to war! Is it right that I should have to drag the generals into war?…I do not require that my generals understand my orders; only that they obey them."

Oster's epiphany had come years earlier, Parssinen notes: It was not until Hitler's massacre of hundreds of SA [storm troopers] leaders on June 30, 1934, "the Night of the Long Knives," when two senior army generals were killed, that Oster became convinced that the regime was evil and must be overthrown.

Oster sent out "missionaries" to try and convince provincial commanders that Hitler must be stopped. But Hitler seized control of the armed forces and humiliated the leadership. Oster was despondent. He could see that Hitler had seized control of the army through a series of maneuvers based on deception and lies. Yet he was unable to organize the military strength to counter it. His missionary journeys seemed to have come to nothing, and he would have to fan the flames of conspiracy in another way.

At the same time, Hitler's "prestige within Germany and power within Europe had never been greater," Parssinen notes. Most of the world's powers were blind to Hitler's true motives and determination to conquer Europe. Great Britain, in particular, continued to believe "Hitler was a passive character." Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, the architect of appeasement, comes off looking the worst out of the book's cast of characters (of which there are as many as your average Cecil B. DeMille movie; if the book has one fault, it's the fact that Parssinen only makes a few of them interesting enough to stand out in the crowd—the rest go by in a blur of names). Chamberlain is portrayed as weak-willed, naive and, consequently, one of the biggest reasons for the plot's failure. He capitulated to Hitler's (false) promises to hold off the invasion of Czechoslovakia at the eleventh hour, thus destroying the chance for the conspirators to make a justified killing. Chamberlain's tragic miscalculation of Hitler's intentions, flawed military intelligence, and deep abhorrence of war brought him to a position that can only be called abject defeatism.

One of the few outside supporters of the conspiracy was Winston Churchill who predicted Oster's planned coup would bring "a new system of government within 48 hours." Unfortunately, Churchill was, at the time, relatively toothless politically-speaking as a "parliamentary backbencher." He makes several appearances in Parssinen's book—mainly glowering in the background and wringing his hands like a one-man Greek chorus.

Some conspirators wanted to take Hitler alive and try him in court, others wanted to declare him insane, still others favored a "fatal accident" by blowing up his train. Oster always held firm to the belief that Hitler should be killed. Incarceration in jail or an asylum wouldn't stop him from spreading his influence or even plotting an escape. A fellow officer told Oster, "A Hitler alive is stronger than all of our divisions." So, Oster plotted a "conspiracy within the conspiracy." When Hitler is arrested, the raiders are to begin shooting and in the resulting confusion of gunfire, the fuhrer is to be "accidentally" killed.

Of course, we know that bullet never reached the target. Consequently, we read most of the book looking through history's telescope of irony. "What if…" and "if only…" kept echoing in my mind as I turned the pages. To his credit, Parssinen writes with a novelist's gleam in his eye so that even as the clocks tick toward September 28, 1938, history melts away and we start to think, "Well, maybe it could happen…Maybe they'll actually pull it off." One could only hope. ( )
1 vota davidabrams | Jun 10, 2006 |
In September 1938, Hitler had been in power for more than five years, and had abrogated most of the constraints placed on German militarism by the Treaty of Versailles. Earlier that year he had forced Austria into his Third Reich without a single shot fired, and his sights were set on Czechoslovakia. It was in this climate that a coup was born, led by Lieutenant Colonel Hans Oster of German military leaders, members of the Berlin police, local troop commanders, civil authorities, religious leaders, and a courageous group of resisters who assembled in a mission to unseat, and even kill, Hitler.

The Oster Conspiracy of 1938 mines the cultural and political milieu of post-WWI Europe, the forces and personal histories that motivated the group to such decisive and dangerous action, and the catalyst of their ultimate failure. This is narrative history at its best: revelatory, well documented with archival material, people with a rich cast of characters, fast-paced, and highly provocative.

Vividly told and impressively documented, this work tells the fascinating story of an aborted coup and a wide-ranging plan to eliminate Adolf Hitler.
  antimuzak | Nov 18, 2005 |
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The fascinating but little-known true story of an aborted coup to eliminate Hitler, led by Lieutenant Colonel Hans Oster of German Military Intelligence In September 1938, Hitler had been in power for more than five years and had unilaterally dismantled the Treaty of Versailles, provision by provision, daring Britain and France to stand up to him. Earlier that year he had forced Austria into his Third Reich without firing a single shot. Now his sights were set on Czechoslovakia. It was in this dangerous climate that the first anti-Nazi coup was born. The plot was spearheaded by Oster, and its members included top German military leaders, the Berlin police, local troop commanders, civil authorities, religious leaders, and a group of resisters whose names have somehow been wiped from the pages of history. Their mission was to kill Hitler and to overthrow the Nazi regime. Historian Terry Parssinen, using British and German sources and previously unknown documents in the Military History Institute of the U.S. Army War College, has documented the fast-paced story of this developing conspiracy. Revelatory, peopled with a rich cast of characters, and highly provocative, this is narrative history at its best. The author assesses the plot's chances for success and speculates about the consequences if the conspirators had been able to seize power in Berlin in 1938, thus averting World War II.

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