The Oster Conspiracy of 1938: The Unknown Story of the Military Plot to Kill Hitler and Avert World War II [Hardcover]

Terry Parssinen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2003

The fascinating but little-known true story of an aborted coup to eliminate Hitler, led by Lieutenant Colonel Hans Oster of German Military Intelligence

In September 1938, Hitler had been in power for more than five years and had unilaterally dismantled the Treaty of Versailles, provision by provision, daring Britain and France to stand up to him. Earlier that year he had 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 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 somehow been wiped from the pages of history. Their mission was to kill Hitler and to overthrow the Nazi regime.

Historian Terry Parssinen, using British and German sources and previously unknown documents in the Military History Institute of the U.S. Army War College, has documented the fast-paced story of this developing conspiracy. Revelatory, peopled with a rich cast of characters, and highly provocative, this is narrative history at its best. The author assesses the plot’s chances for success and speculates about the consequences if the conspirators had been able to seize power in Berlin in 1938, thus averting World War II.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As Hitler planned to invade Czechoslovakia, disenchanted German military men believed that the campaign would be a disastrous failure. Lieutenant Colonel Hans Oster had watched during the early 1930s as Hitler brutally deposed and executed men under whom Oster had served, in order to consolidate his hold on the military. A military intelligence officer, Oster (1887-1945) played a crucial role in a plan, never executed, to capture or kill Hitler. A professor of History at the University of Tampa, Parssinen opens each chapter with cursory background material, then describes events as they unfolded day by day. The action jumps from the members of the German military who hatched the coup plan, to Hitler's inner circle and the SS as it moved toward war, to the British government as it prevaricated and then sent British Prime Minister Chamberlain to Germany to meet Hitler and defuse the Czech crisis. The pact in Munich that September left the conspirators in a quandary, as they had planned to begin their revolt after the order for the invasion of Czechoslovakia had been given, and they destroyed their assassination plans. Oster was involved in an actual failed attempt against Hitler in 1943. He was arrested and executed not for that, but for his part in helping Jews escape to Switzerland. (Several other conspirators were caught and killed for their actions.) There is not really any new, startling information about the first plot, a historical footnote since it never happened, but Parssinen offers a clearly written, well-researched and accurate history of "what might have been" during the immediate period before World War II-and of a clear-sighted figure who followed his conscience.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-A fascinating, blow-by-blow account of a seemingly feasible but failed attempt to prevent World War II. With a series of vignettes focusing on key characters and turning points, Parssinen guides readers through the tense and eventful days and months of 1938. In thumbnail character sketches, he reveals the motivations of the conspirators and shows how Hans Oster, a lieutenant in German military intelligence, brought together civilian "resisters of conscience" and "military resisters" to form an underground network of high-ranking patriots gathering the courage to act. As the conspirators formulated their plans to overthrow the clearly insane Hitler, they were repeatedly thrown off balance by the fuhrer's dirty tricks and uncanny timing. Still, the majority of the German public did not want another war, the Nazi organization was unstable, and effective leaders were ready to come forward; all that was needed to turn the tide, they believed, was a strong British resolution to oppose Nazi aggression. But British leaders failed to understand either the nature of the threat from Hitler or the quality of the German antiwar movement. Even knowing the outcome, readers feel suspense and hope as events unfold; alternate history buffs and history students alike will gain new insight into the past and into human character from this tragic story.
Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1 edition (April 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060195878
• ISBN-13: 978-0060195878
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,183,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It Might Have Been, August 9, 2003

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Oster Conspiracy of 1938: The Unknown Story of the Military Plot to Kill Hitler and Avert World War II (Hardcover)

As a professor of history, Terry Parssinen was asked by a student, "Professor, what was the last time that Hitler could have been stopped from starting the Second World War?" He could only speculate; he had heard about a 1938 German military plot to bring Hitler down, but he had to spend time in the library to find out more about it. Most historians had neglected or scorned the little-known plot. Eventually Parssinen was lucky enough to find the papers of Harold Deutsch, a historian who had interviewed participants in the plot and their family members, but had died before writing up his results. Parssinen took over, and has produced _The Oster Conspiracy of 1938: The Unknown Story of the Military Plot to Kill Hitler and Avert World War II_ (HarperCollins). It was a failed conspiracy, just as was the much more famous bomb that failed to kill Hitler in 1944 (there were other failed plots as well), but it is worth examining as a check against the picture of Hitler as universally popular among Germans at the time, and as a point of reflection. How might the world be different now if Hitler had been killed before starting hostilities? After all, Parssinen writes that the evidence "... shows that the 1938 conspiracy was well planned and had reasonably good prospects for success."

Parssinen has built up the drama concerning the conspiracy by a meticulous, sometimes hour-by-hour, reconstruction of events in London and Berlin. Except for the ending of the plot, the tension is considerable even though we know the outcome. The chief conspirator, Lieutenant Colonel Hans Oster, was second-in-command at Abwehr, the intelligence division for the German military. He was shocked by the imprisonment of religious figures and political dissidents, and by the first concentration camps. It was not until the "Czech Crisis" of 1938, however, that significantly more officials began to agree with him. The generals knew that Russia and France were pledged to defend Czechoslovakia, and that if Germany tried to take it, the British would probably come in as well. They despaired that they would be deployed in a war they could not win. The conspirators knew that they could only rely on popular support if Hitler were about to start a war for which the German people had no enthusiasm, and they tried to have their contacts in England keep up the pressure so that no appeasement happened. Eventually Chamberlain accepted Hitler's pledge that no further European territories would be demanded; in the words of a conspirator at the Department of the Interior, "Chamberlain has saved Hitler." The conspirators could not act. They made several later assassination attempts, foiled by bad luck. In 1943 the Gestapo discovered Oster's scheme to smuggle Jews into neutral Switzerland; he was arrested and sent to a concentration camp. In 1945, a few days before the American troops liberated his camp, Oster was hanged.

_The Oster Conspiracy of 1938_ is a detailed examination of a particular period and chain of events that led up to the war. It is exciting at times, and of course sad. Parssinen indulges in some speculation about what might have happened. The conspirators were interested in setting up a government based on Britain's; it might have been conservative, but it would have been broadly representative of German popular opinion. No war, no Holocaust, no Cold War are among the contingencies that might have occurred (although of course some other horrors would have erupted). But above all, fifty million people died in the war, and they would not have. "It might have been" has never been sadder.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book that should be read., May 13, 2003

By 

Doug Dickson (Dunwoody, Georgia USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Oster Conspiracy of 1938: The Unknown Story of the Military Plot to Kill Hitler and Avert World War II (Hardcover)

The Oster Conspiracy is an informative and compelling book. It carefully details the complexities of a pre-World War II conspiracy within the upper ranks of the German military while skillfully applying a portion of its energies to the fragile political climate in a Europe haunted by the specter of World War I. Many other depictions of pre-World War II Nazi Germany leave us with the impression that nationalistic hysteria pervaded almost every mind, that this was a nation of Adolph Eichmanns blindly following their fuhrer. This book focuses on individuals who in the middle of the Nazi madness assert their individuality and honor--resisting Hitler's suicidal tidal wave for the sake of their nation and humanity. It also emphasizes the initial reluctance of the German populace to enter into another war.

Moreover, it is the paralyzing fear of another war that helps render Britains leadership inept in dealing with Hitler. In treating the actions of Chamberlain and Halifax, Mr. Parssinnen is especially skillful. With a well crafted narrative he delineates Britains tragic role in the failure of Osters plan to overthrow Hitlers regime. He tastefully handles the what if factor of this moment in history giving the reader space to let his imagination search the possibilities of a 20th century with only one World War.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful Analysis of the Overlooked Plot to Unseat Hitler, April 27, 2003

By 

brian d. lieberman (new york, new york United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Oster Conspiracy of 1938: The Unknown Story of the Military Plot to Kill Hitler and Avert World War II (Hardcover)

Mr. Parssinen has written a succinct and exciting account of the 1938 plot by a small group of German military officers, civil servants and civilians to remove Adolf Hitler from power. Colonel Hans Oster, the deputy to Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of German military intelligence, the Abwehr, inspired and coordinated this effort. For whatever reason, many historians have overlooked the significance and heroic quality of this plot. Some prior authors, such as Anthony Cave Brown in Bodyguard of Lies, have looked at the subject, and the "Schwarze Kapelle" (Black Orchestra) consisting of German military officers and conservative anti-Nazis has been the subject of prior literature. No author that I am aware of, however, has focused so specifically upon the 1938 plot or argued as persuasively as to its potential for success in a Germany not necessarily as enamored of Adolf Hitler as many think (because of concern over another war more than the immorality and barbarous conduct of the Nazi regime). Mr. Parssinen uses the materials gathered by another historian that he found in storage in military archives to make his case.

A significant element of the book is the short-sighted and ignorant nature of the British leadership, so devoted to the policy of "appeasement" that it ignored the multiple requests of Oster's representatives (including German diplomats) to stand against Hitler's plans for an invasion of Czechoslovakia. The author makes a strong and persuasive case for the position that, if Neville Chamberlain, Horace Wilson, Neville Henderson and the like, had done as the German conspirators requested, the downfall of a shaky Nazi regime might have occurred. Indeed, Mr. Parssinen even notes that in late September a team of commandos stood ready to storm the Reich Chancellery and capture or assassinate Hitler, when the British derailed Oster's plans with the Munich Accord.

The book, however, does not fully develop or convey the strength of character and conviction possessed by Oster or other members of the conspiracy, such as Abwehr attorney Hans von Dohnanyi. The author really only addresses the humanitarian impulse driving some members of the conspiracy in the Epilogue. A more extensive exploration of their personalities and motivations would be most welcome. I hope Mr. Parssinen will cover this in a follow up to his excellent work.