About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherCreateSpace

ISBN-101517710219

ISBN-139781517710217

eBay Product ID (ePID)228597971

Product Key Features

Book TitleGeorg Elser: the Zither Player

Number of Pages332 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2016

TopicEurope / Germany

GenreHistory

AuthorTom Ferry

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.8 in

Item Weight20.2 Oz

Item Length9 in

Item Width6 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

SynopsisTHE FULL STORY OF THE MAN WHO ALMOST KILLED ADOLF HITLER IN 1939 No anti-Nazi group or individual came closer to decapitating the Nazi Party than Georg Elser. Once written off as a Nazi stooge, the enigmatic zither playing cabinetmaker is now a national hero in Germany. His reputation underwent a resurrection with the unearthing of his 203 page Gestapo interrogation report revealing almost as much about his love life as his lone wolf attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Written like fiction, the author reconstructs the three months Elser took to install his deadly apparatus in a Munich beer hall. While he toiled alone he had no way of knowing his radical political intervention to end the Nazi nightmare would intersect with the last-ditch British attempt to avoid war with Germany: the calamitous Venlo Incident. Nor did Elser foresee the 'miraculous' escape of the Nazi leaders from his bomb attack would promote the myth of Hitler's invincibility and spawn a rash of conspiracy theories. Worst still after his capture, interrogation and confession, Elser became a personal prisoner of the criminal dictator, condemned to live through the escalating atrocities of the Third Reich - the evil he was so desperate to prevent. Illustrated., THE FULL STORY OF THE MAN WHO ALMOST KILLED ADOLF HITLER IN 1939 In 1939 a massive time bomb exploded in a Munich beer hall. Exactly who planted the bomb sparked a propaganda brawl. The Nazis blamed the British Secret Service and Otto Strasser, while the British accused the Nazis of staging the beer hall bombing to bolster appetite for war. No one wanted to believe a zither-playing cabinet maker was the sole perpetrator. Written like fiction, this is the true story of one man obsessed with an ambitious plan: to prevent a catastrophic war that would by its end kill over 60 million people worldwide. Elser's bold attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler in November 1939 is told in parallel with the failed British SIS operation to bring peace by making contact with the German Opposition. Instead the British agents were kidnapped by Nazi intelligence agents in what became known as the Venlo Incident. As personal prisoners of Adolf Hitler the fate of both Elser and the British agents hung in the balance until April 1945. Elser was condemned to live through the escalating atrocities of the Third Reich - the evil he was so desperate to prevent. Illustrated.