Target Hitler: The Plots to Kill Adolf Hitler

This book is amazing read for everyone interested in the little known and mysterious folds of Hitler's life. Mr Duffy presents at least 25 attempts to kill Hitler that had been made before the well known Stauffenberg plot of July 1944. I was surprised to learn that attempts against Hitler's life were made even in the early 1920s, that many individuals made desperate trials and paid with their lives and that even Himmler may be the mastermind behind a bomb explosion in Munich which missed Hitler only for a few minutes. The Stauffenberg affair is also analysed in a simple but terrific way, with all the interesting details. The author also gives some clues of how Hitler managed to escape death so many times and one of this is surely his love for the unpredictable: "Most assassination plots relied on Hitler's adherence to a predetermined agenda, but the assassins were invariably thwarted by Hitler's practice of avoiding routine or established schedules in his travels. Hitler's policy was to live his life "irregularly", as he put it. "Walk, drive and travel at irregular times and unexpectedly" was his personal formula for security against assassins". Some times though, he was saved just from his intuition, when he apparently sensed that something was wrong with the attitude of officers who met or invited him. The author's conclusion is very realistic and interesting: "Was Providence really on Hitler's side, as he so often claimed? In truth the answer is simple. The men who plotted the destruction of the Nazi government were simply not revolutionaries. They were not assassins. Many of them were too deeply religious to act in a manner required to bring down a bloodthirsty tyrannical government. Such an act requires men who can become as bloodthirsty as their opponents". No maps or photographs are included in the book. There are also some annoying and persistent errors, like spelling Abwehr as Abwer, or Speidel as Spiedel etc. but this is a minor problem which does not damage the excellent value of this book.

Most books about the Third Reich mention the von Stauffenberg plot (sometimes called the General's Plot) against Hitler, and a few allude to "other" plots, but Target Hitler attempts to provide a history of not only the General's Plot, but the other serious (and sometimes tragically comic) plots against Hitler. Contrary to some other writings on the subject, Duffy & Ricci assert that Rommel was not a conspirator in the Stauffenberg scheme, but simply one of the many officers who chose to remain silent about the plot, waiting for the risks to be taken by others. There were plots discussed here that were completely new to me, such as the bomb that appears to have been planted with Himmler's active assistance -- though it is unclear whether this was an internal power struggle of Himmler to replace Hitler, or an attempt to produce a plot for propaganda purposes, for which it was well used. There are tragicomic efforts here, such as Maurice Bavaud's. Bavaud was an anti-Communist Swiss seminary student who sought to assassinate Hitler for cozying up to the Communists -- and thought he was going to succeed using a .25 pocket pistol, which even Bavaud knew was only accurate enough with this gun to kill Hitler if he could get with 25 feet of his target! Unfortunately, Hitler walked down the wrong side of the street in Munich in commemoration of the Beer Hall Putsch. Duffy & Ricci also demonstrate that, contrary to the view taken by some other historians, the General's Plot was not simply the result of the German officer corps attempting to save their own necks once the war was lost, but the last in a long series of efforts made before the war to remove Hitler from power, out of opposition to the immorality of National Socialist Party rule. Much of the opposition was founded on the belief that Hitler's actions in provoking wars, passing of the Nuremburg laws, and other such actions against the Jews, were contrary to Christianity. Especially among the military and diplomatic opposition, this Christian basis to opposition to Hitler created a serious problem, because of a profound reluctance to commit murder, even of someone such as Hitler. Eventually, as the nature of the brutality of the Nazi policies became impossible to miss, the major plotters, such as von Stauffenberg, overcame their reluctance. The plot to depose Hitler became a plot to assassinate. After the war, many officers sought to find protection in the argument, "I was only following orders." Duffy & Ricci provide an example of the traditional German military view with a quote from General Beck's memorandum of July 16, 1938: "Vital decisions for the future of the nation are at stake. History will indict these commanders [who blindly follow Hitler's orders] of blood guilt if, in the light of their professional and political knowledge, they do not obey the dictates of their conscience. A soldier's duty to obey ends when his knowledge, his conscience, a