Kill the Fuhrer - Softcover

Denis Rigden

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0752454730 ISBN 13: 9780752454733

Publisher: The History Press Ltd, 2009

Synopsis

During the Second World War, Britain's top secret Special Operations Executive plotted to assassinate Hitler. A small department of SOE known as Section X had the tantalisingly complex task of investigating how, when and where their plan could be executed. The section also plotted the killing of Goebbels, Himmler and other selected members of Hitler's inner circle. Only Section X and a handful of other SOE staff had any knowledge of these projects, codenamed Operation Foxley and Operation Little Foxleys. As history has shown, these schemes turned out to be pipe dreams. Even so, Section X, renamed the German Directorate in 1944, made a huge contribution to the Allied war effort through their organised sabotage and clandestine distribution of black propaganda. Denis Rigden describes Section X's efforts to discover as much as possible about the intended assassination targets, and questions whether a successful Operation Foxley would have helped or hindered the Allied cause. Based on top secret documents and private sources and illustrated with archive photographs, Kill the Fuhrer" is an intriguing insight into the shadowy world of Britain's wartime secret services."

About this title

About the Author

Denis Rigden was engaged in information and historical research for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for thirty years, having previously been a journalist in Britain and Kenya. He has studied and written about the SOE for several years. He lives in Croydon.

Review

During World War II, Britain's top secret Special Operations Executive plotted to assassinate Hitler. A small department of SOE known as Section X had the complex task of investigating how, when and where the deed might be done. They had also selected members of Hitler's inner circle for elimination, which included Goebbels, Himmler, Bormann and Kaltenbrunner. Only Section X and a handful of other SOE staff knew of this top secret project, codenamed Operation Foxley. As history has shown it turned out to be a pipedream, but even so, Section X made a significant contribution to the Allied war effort. This work describes efforts to discover as much as possible about its intended targets, and questions whether a successful Operation Foxley would have helped or hindered the Allied cause. It gives an insight into the shadowy world of Britain's wartime intelligence activities. --Danny Boy

Operation Foxley the SOE plan to kill Hitler and other high ranking Nazi's was well documented and reasearched by the author of this fine book. With the use of details and maps from the secret papers released to the PRO office. The assassination plans were well thought out and detailed the amount of information that was collected during wartime was great. Plans for the Berghof Hitlers home and the whole Berchtesgarden area where all the ranking nazi's had homes, details of his personal armoured train and the station where it was kept. They looked in detail at different ways of killing him and also Little Foxley's to kill Himmler, Bormann and Goring massing lots of information on their movements and lifestyles, even down to Hitler's visits to a tea house. A very good interesting book ideal for anyones bookcase --David Kirk

The idea to kill Hitler was considered by the German Department but never became a fully formulated plan.One of the main problems was that there wasnt any proper organised resistance in the way that there was in other occupied countries. the opposition to the Nazi regime was either locked up or murdered.So the assasination was never going to be in place by the German Department..Bearing in mind that the secret papers dont actually amount to much the author has had to cover other subjects to ensure that he has a book of reasonable length.These include details of other potential targets,ways of killing hitler,black propaganda and ungentlmanly warfare.appendix A is rather sobering.It contains details of people who opposed hitler.only a couple survived the war.I think that the Secret Services saw the retribution handed out to the Czechs when heydrich was assasinated and decided that the price was too high to pay.although on the other hand by not taking steps even after the July bomb plot they cosigned hundreds of thousands to their deaths in the battle of Berlin. --By Mb Davis

Edition details

• Publisher: The History Press Ltd
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0752454730
• ISBN 13: 9780752454733
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240