The Oster Conspiracy of 1938

Download or read book The Oster Conspiracy of 1938 written by Terry Parssinen and published by Harper Perennial. This book was released on 2004-03-30 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: September 1938. In power more than five years, Hitler unilaterally dismantled the Treaty of Versailles, provision by provision, daring Britain and France to stand up to him. Earlier that year, he 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 Lieutenant-Colonel Hans 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 been wiped from the pages of history. Their mission was to kill Hitler and to overthrow the Nazi regime. Using British and German sources and previously unknown documents in the Military History Institute of the U.S. Army War College, historian Terry Parssinen has documented this conspiracy. Illustrated with photographs and maps, this highly provocative work is narrative history at its best.