Killing Hitler: The Plots, the Assassins, and the Dictator Who Cheated Death Paperback – March 27, 2007

I saw this book mentioned in a documentary on the Smithsonian or American Heroes channel. I was expecting more detail about additional plots, but found it mostly to be a longer description of the plots covered in the documentary, coupled with a significant dose of why Hitler was such a bad guy.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. For those interested in WWII and the plots to assassinate Hitler its a must. That's right, I said plots with an "s". Unfortunately, many don't realize that Hitler was the target of many assassination plots not just the one they made a movie about. He was targeted by just about everyone from foreign countries to his own troops. The author does a great job of explaining these lesser known plots which will leave you wondering if Hitler really knew just how lucky he was to have survived as long as he did. He came close-very close to being killed many times. Only to be saved by bad timing, faulty fuses, and a list of other unfortunate and bizarre circumstances.

This is an amazing book about some of the serious attempts toassasinate Hitler. In all there were at least 24 such attempts. Filled with lots of interesting human interest stories and fascinating contemporary history. Most interesting, he examines what motivated these would be assasins.There'slots of food for thought too. The big question to ponder is why did they all failoften by a hairsbreath, only to let Hitler kill himself as the Russians and Americanswere closing in.

Hitler had the ability to lead people, unfortunately he chose to lead them in the wrong direction. Germany could have been a world leader for many years,but chose to follow the wrong people and ideas.

I was ambivalent when I started reading but there were a number of things that I had not known.There is a fairly good political analysis of the mood of the country in the years leading up to WW Two.By the time War began , Hitler was so entrenched on the minds and hearts of the Germans that they simply could not imagine life without him even with the vast murder machine under his command.Not really sure if the many plotters were as much interested in removing evil as they were in saving what remained of the might and glory of Germany from the approaching Russian armies.

If you have read about the attempts on Hitlers life you would find nothing new in this book. One interesting fact reported herein was that Georg Elsner, who attempted to blow up Hitler at one of his yearly speaches at the Burgerbraukeller in Munich, was honored in his hometown with a monument dedicated in 1998---more than 50 years after his death. It seems like the Germans really never appreciated how brave he was.

It's Good Read. There is a bit more information in this book than previous books I have read on this subject.I would recommend this book.

on the subject of all plots against Hitler.The book was well written, easy to understand and the stories told were laid out in logical order.One thing that I noticed that might turn some others off is the beginning of the chapters. They seemed caught up in information which might come across as not too relevant to the title of the chapter. I recommend, just keep reading and by the end of the chapter it will all make sense.Definitely recommend this book.

Moorhouse describes the various kinds of plots against Hitler: lone-wolf types, the Wehrmacht, the resistance in occupied countries and those planned by foreign powers.The historical context explains the motivation for the various assassination attempts and is explained in considerable detail, in some cases it almost goes off at a tangent. Moorhouse explains why most of the attempts failed and outlines Hitler’s road to power. As history progressed so different types of assassination attempts came into play. At first the loners, then those holding office and later foreign governments.Besides Hitler’s earliest days as the Nazi leader, when his security arrangements were reminiscent of the Keystone Kops, there never really was any effective opportunities to kill Hitler - although Stauffenberg seems to have come close. During the earliest days of his reign is seems as though had the assassins been any more capable Hitler’s name would have likely faded from history. These bungled attempts likely persuaded Hitler to bolster his own security measures in later years and to use that expression from The Day of The Jackal probably, ‘queered the pitch’. One conspirator quipped Hitler must have a guardian devil.Given the sheer number and breadth of the assassination attempts against Hitler it is surprising he lived long enough to die by his own hand.Killing Hitler is engaging, well considered but does seem to wander from the principal topic sometimes.

Each chapter of this book is devoted to an individual or groups of individuals who plotted, and sometimes came quite close, to killing Hitler. Although in some of his chapters the plots don't get further than discussion (which is particularly true in the chapter on Albert Speer) it is still amazing to think how many times Hitler narrowly escaped and how close the world was to a different historical narrative. This book proves how big a tragedy it actually was that not one of these attempts worked and how miraculously "lucky" Hitler seemed to be.Moorhouse is an excellent writer and an expert on this period of German history. This book is worth reading and highly recommended.

Really interesting book on the numerous conspiracies and attempts to kill Adolf Hitler. This book leaves you with a taste to know more about certain characters and operations which are briefly mentioned.Only two things prevent me from giving it the maximum of five stars. First there are a lot a footnotes, some worth opening, some not. This is not as easy on a Kindle than to have a quick glance at the bottom of a real page.Second the different attempts sketch a context which is important to the assassin. However this leads to a lot of springing back and forward in history in each chapter and thus losing a total overview of the regime and the several attempts on Hitler’s life.

This is an excellent overview of the subject, with much that I found fascinating. Time and again, a quirk of fate saves Hitler. The author also covers the different and changing attitudes to an assassination, from British 'it's not cricket' to Stalin's obsession with capturing Hitler alive. Highly recommended.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Had the main assassination attempts all been presented in a crude list then the content is still enough to keep the reader fascinated. But the plots are all superbly described and intertwined within the context of the wider history. Brilliantly done.I read the Kindle edition, and as it is never apparent at what % of progress on an e-reader signals the end of the book and the start of the glossary/notes, some books I just want to be finished and some I really don't want to end. This was definitely one of the latter.Brill.