Lucky Hitler’s Big Mistakes

Lucky Hitler’s Big Mistakes written by Paul Ballard-Whyte and published by

Pen & Sword Books - £25 - Hardback - Pages 336

Adolf Hitler’s Great War military experiences in no way qualified him for supreme command. Yet by July 1940, under his personal leadership the Third Reich’s armed forces had defeated Poland, Czechoslovakia, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium and France. The invasion of Great Britain was a distinct reality following Dunkirk. Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania had become allies along with the acquiescent military powers of Mussolini’s Italy and Franco’s Spain. These achievements prompted Field Marshal Willem Keitel, the Wehrmacht’s Chief of Staff, to pronounce Hitler to be ‘the Greatest Commander of all time’.

Storm clouds were gathering, most notably the disastrous decision to tear up the treaty with the Soviet Union and launch Operation Barbarossa in 1941. As described in this meticulously researched and highly readable book, Hitler’s blind ideology, racist hatred and single-mindedness led him and his allies inexorably to devastating defeat. How far was it good luck that gave Hitler his sensational early political and military successes? Certainly fortune played a major role in his survival from many assassination attempts and sex scandals. The author concludes, from 1941 onwards, the Fuhrer’s downfall was entirely attributable to military misjudgements that he alone made.

Lucky Hitler’s Big Mistakes exposes the enigmatic Dictator for what he really was – incredibly lucky and militarily incompetent.

The subject of this book is a question that often dominates military history message boards, in how Hitler rose to power from such a lowly position. The author of this book Paul Ballard-Whyte spends the first half of this book looking at how Hitler got to his position through a number of events that would help him get to the top of his ladder, such as the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, The Reichstag Fire and the Night of the Long Knives to name a few. Then in the second half of the book, he then looks at when Hitler was in his ultimate position he then failed a good number of times that would see his quest fail, such as Failure to Invade Britain, North Africa and Declaring War on the US. All the points in the book are nicely argued leaving the reader to decide their thoughts. I really enjoyed this book mainly because it was very well written and researched and it’s a subject I have often looked at over the years. An excellent book, especially if you like WW2 history and how it occurred.

Secret Service Against the Nazi Regime

Secret Service Against the Nazi Regime written by Edward Harrison and

published by Pen & Sword Books - £25 - Hardback - Pages 256

An edited collection of peer-reviewed articles using newly-released sources - British,

German and Italian - integrated to form a fascinating narrative of the intelligence-led

fight of the British Secret Service in the existential struggle with Nazi Germany. The

main sections are: British Secret Warfare and the Nazi Challenge; Counter-

Intelligence Against Axis Spies; and Hugh Trevor-Roper and Secret Service. An

inside and authentic story with original and little-known but vital themes including the

British Military Mission to Poland, the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in

Poland, British subversion in French East Africa, 'on secret service for the Duce',

British Radio Intelligence, and J C Masterman and the Security Service. This is a

uniquely human story of survival with all the drama of power struggles, personality

clashes, errors, heroism, human intelligence.

This is an excellent book that looks at the secret service operations and plans to try and hinder the Nazi regime around Europe and Northern Africa. It’s a fascinating collection of works that really draws the reader into various worlds of danger, extremism and bravery. The members of the secret services had to show great bravery and skill as the possible end result would have been certain death. To think many of these agents were having to work secret so if anything went wrong, then everything would have been denied.

I really enjoyed this book, an ideal read for those that write about spy dramas and

espionage as this book shows exactly how it would have been. A book that they say

would be hard to put down. Well written and captivated the reader. Pen & Sword have

really got me into this spy world and espionage, with great books about some great

intelligence agencies.

A Judge in Auschwitz

A Judge in Auschwitz written by Kevin Prenger and published by Pen & Sword Books - £20 - Hardback - Pages 176

In autumn 1943, SS judge Konrad Morgen visited Auschwitz concentration camp to investigate an intercepted parcel containing gold sent from the camp. While there Morgen found the SS camp guards engaged in widespread theft and corruption.

Worse, Morgen also discovered that inmates were being killed without authority from the SS leadership. While millions of Jews were being exterminated under the Final Solution programme , Konrad Morgen set about gathering evidence of these ‘illegal murders’.

Morgen also visited other camps such as Buchenwald where he had the notorious camp commandant Karl Koch and Ilse, his sadistic spouse, arrested and charged. Found guilty by an SS court, Koch was sentenced to death.

Remarkably, the apparently fearless SS judge also tried to prosecute other Nazi criminals including Waffen-SS commanders Oskar Dirlewanger and Hermann Fegelein and Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss. He even claimed to have tried to indict Adolf Eichmann, who was responsible for organising the mass deportation of the Jews to the extermination camps.

This intriguing work reveals how the lines between justice and injustice became blurred in the Third Reich. As well as describing the actions of this often contradictory character the author questions Morgen’s motives.

I quite like reading books like this that look at leading officers in the Third Reich, while I find what they got up to horrible and abhorrent, I find it fascinating that these seemingly intelligent men can stoop to such low depravities that they just went along with instruction seemingly without a care in the world. Afterall in society today we still have to deal with serial killers, but the chances of actually meeting a serial killer is very remote, and yet so many can be found in the WW2 German military. This book was a really good read, fascinating in detail and very comprehensive, I commend the author. Although this book is a bit disturbing in some places, I still find that we should still read books like this to always learn about how the mind works.

The Hitler Assassination Attempts

The Hitler Assassination Attempts written by John Grehan published by Frontline Books - £20 - Hardback - Pages 296

Throughout his political life, Adolf Hitler was the subject of numerous assassination plots, some of which were attempted, all of which failed. While a few of these have become well known, particularly the bomb explosions at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich in 1939 and the Stauffenberg Valkyrie attempt carried out at the Wolfsschanze on 20 July 1944, many others have received far less attention – until now.

In this book, John Grehan has examined the known planned or proposed assassination attempts on Hitler, from Chicago to London and from Sweden to Ukraine – some of which have not previously been presented to the general public by historians.

All manner of methods were proposed by those willing to bring Hitler’s life to a premature and sticky end and Hitler was well aware of the danger which lurked potentially around every corner of every road, railway track, every building and even every individual. As a result, an immense, multi-layered security apparatus surrounded the Führer day and night. Despite this, and knowing the risks they faced, many people sought to kill the German leader, and some very nearly did. Yet Hitler survived, often by just a minute or a millimetre, to die ultimately of his own hand.

These plots and conspiracies are detailed in this book, along with a unique collection of photographs of many of the proposed or actual assassination locations. All will be revealed in this fascinating compilation of the obscure, the fanciful and the carefully considered attempts to assassinate Hitler.

The Hitler Assassination Attempts tries to explain the often many number of attempts to kill Adol Hitler. Now it seems from reading this book that Hitler was never popular anywhere or with anyone, and this ranged from the ordinary person right up to highly promoted people within his own military. Also it should be said that there were attempts on his life all over Europe, with that being said it is strange how his personal protection was not better or closer. This if you know what Hitler was like as a person should come as no surprise. He was often very narrow-minded in his views and opinions and certainly, his personality never gave him any favours.

In this book the author John Grehan writes very well and informed, the many chapters come across as very concise and snappy, which did make the book very good and a very easy read. Whilst I had heard of many of the attempts before, reading through this book made it feel fresher and more interesting if that makes sense. I enjoyed this book a lot and would certainly recommend it to anyone with an interest in Hitler as the person.