sections:
The book exams, through a character-based narrative history, resistance to Adolf HitlerHHitler after the failed coup of July 20, 1944, following which most longstanding resisters were executed.
It opens with the well-known events of July 20, capturing the reader’s attention (and capitalizing on the huge upsurge in attention that will follow the film starring Tom Cruise as von Stauffenberg.)
Then, it traces the actions not of long-time resisters, but rather those who were until the last months of the war committed national socialists: Albert Speer (who resisted Hitler’s scorched earth policy), Dietrich von Choltitz (who refused to destroy Paris), Karl Kaufmann (who struggled to save what was left of Hamburg), as well as lesser known figures.
Using a similar style to Fire and Fury, it tells a suspenseful story, using exciting openers and dramatic tension to keep the reader engaged.
The book ends by asking what differentiated resisters from fellow-travellers in the last years of the regime, and whether these Nazis’ eleventh-hour acts of resistance should soften history’s judgement of them.
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