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Defying Hitler

Written by: Gordon Thomas, Greg Lewis
Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
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Publisher's Summary

"A terrifying and timely account of resistance in the face of the greatest of evils.” (Alex Kershaw, New York Times best-selling author of The First Wave)

An enthralling story that vividly resurrects the web of everyday Germans who resisted Nazi rule.

Nazi Germany is remembered as a nation of willing fanatics. But beneath the surface, countless ordinary, everyday Germans actively resisted Hitler. Some passed industrial secrets to Allied spies. Some forged passports to help Jews escape the Reich. For others, resistance was as simple as writing a letter denouncing the rigidity of Nazi law. No matter how small the act, the danger was the same - any display of defiance was met with arrest, interrogation, torture, and even death.

Defying Hitler follows the underground network of Germans who believed standing against the Fuhrer to be more important than their own survival. Their bravery is astonishing - a schoolgirl beheaded by the Gestapo for distributing anti-Nazi fliers; a German American teacher who smuggled military intel to Soviet agents, becoming the only American woman executed by the Nazis; a pacifist philosopher murdered for his role in a plot against Hitler; a young idealist who joined the SS to document their crimes, only to end up, to his horror, an accomplice to the Holocaust. This remarkable account illuminates their struggles, yielding an accessible narrative history with the pace and excitement of a thriller.

©2019 Gordon Thomas and Greg Lewis (P)2019 Penguin Audio
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What the critics say

“The question was often asked amid the ruins of the Third Reich: why did the Germans fight on for so long when all was lost? Those liberated from concentration camps knew the answer. Terror, mass murder, ruthless and barbaric persecution - all opposition had been mercilessly quashed. In Defying Hitler, Gordon Thomas and Greg Lewis show in chilling and vivid detail just how courageous were those who dared to defy Hitler. A terrifying and timely account of resistance in the face of the greatest of evils.” (Alex Kershaw, New York Times best-selling author of Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris)

“Were the Germans of the 1930s and '40s 'Hitler's Willing Executioners,' in Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's memorable phrase? This important book offers alternative profiles in courage - portraits of the ordinary men and women who resisted Hitler, aided Jews and spied for the Allies during the dark days of World War II.” (Newsday)

“This carefully researched book challenges the myth that the German people were virtually unanimous in support of Hitler.... Defying Hitler is filled with almost unbearable suspense and drama.” (Booklist)

What listeners say about Defying Hitler

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Amazing.... profound

Glad I listened to this in audible because I could never have pronounced and distinguished the German names. Amazing, complex, disturbing stories of people in a terrible situation, who chose to act rather than e passive like so many then...and today. If we do not learn from the past, we are destined to repeat it in the present. Hard read, great read.

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