Hitler's Personal Security

Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1979. First MIT Press Edition. Presumed First Printing. Hardcover. Very good/Good. xii, [2], 321, [1] pages. Some wear and small chips to dust jacket edges. Includes List of Illustrations (Source notes on 38 black and white illustrations); Illustrations. Maps. Foreword; Abbreviations, Conclusions, Assassination Attempts and Plots, Comparative Table of Ranks, Notes, and Index. Topics covered include Reasons and Objectives of the Investigation; Before 1933; Head of Government; Reich Security Service; Hitler's SS Escort; Hitler's Escort Detachment and other Security Groups; Transport--Cars, Trains, Aeroplanes; Public Appearances; Travel; Residences; and Military Headquarters. Also contains several black and white maps. Peter C.W. Hoffmann, FRSC (born 13 August 1930) is a German-Canadian professor of history at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His principal area of research deals with the German Resistance against National Socialism, and in particular, the resistance efforts of Claus von Stauffenberg. Hoffmann lives in Canada and in Germany. Hoffmann was born in Dresden and grew up in Stuttgart, Germany. After studying at the universities of Stuttgart, Tübingen, Zurich, Northwestern University and Munich he received his Ph.D. in 1961 from Franz Schnabel following his thesis defense on The diplomatic relations between Wurtemberg and Bavaria from the Crimean War and the beginning of the Italian Crisis. In 1970 he took up a teaching position on German History at McGill University in Montreal. Hoffmann is the William Kingsford Professor of History and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In this book, Peter Hoffmann presents significant new material on the many (at least 30) assassination attempts against Adolf Hitler, and unfolds what is probably the most complete description of the security measures surrounding the German dictator. Hoffmann's study examines in detail the security precautions taken from the early 1920s through the elaborate plans of the Reich Security services and the SS bodyguard detachments during World War II. Hoffmann disproves Hitler's well-known claims of indifference to his own security, while revealing the paradox of his self-destructive tendencies. He discloses the gaps in Hitler's security systems, and at the same time points out that numerous attempts on Hitler's life failed much less because of security measures than because of bizarre accidents. "I am immortal!" exulted Hitler in the wake of the failed assassination plot of July 20, 1944. As Peter Hoffmann shows in this startling book, that bombing was only the best known of more than thirty attempts on Hitler's life, the first coming as early as 1921, when he was the leader of the German worker's party. Using extensive archival material, Hoffmann details these assassination plots and outlines the fanatically complex security measures that developed to keep Hitler safe. He analyzes Hitler's SS escort and the other security groups responsible for his life-there were so many of them that they often counteracted one another-together with their arrangements for his transportation, public appearances, residences, and wartime headquarters. Providing remarkable new information about the workings of those devoted to defending and destroying him, this book is an invaluable contribution to the history of the Third Reich. Derived from a review by Marcus Wendel found on-line. "Hitler's Personal Security: Protecting the Führer 1921-1945" deals with the security around Adolf Hitler, from the pre-Putsch days until his suicide in 1945. It covers both the organizational details of the bodyguard organizations, as well as his residences, military headquarters etc. The first chapter of the book deals with the security around Hitler before he came to power, providing info on for example the first bodyguards and the Putsch of 1923. The is followed by an introduction to the security around the Chancellor before dealing with the development and organization of the security formations around Hitler, ie ReichsSicherheitsDienst (RSD) and SS-Begleit-Kommando. The following chapters deals with transportation (with details on the cars, trains and airplanes he used), public appearances (how he acted and how he was protected), international travel, residences (Chancellery, Obersalzberg and his apartment at Prinzregentenplatz in Munich) and finally military headquarters (both those he used and those that were built for him but never actually used). The numerous attempts on his life is covered through out the book, with particular focus on the ones made by Maurice Bavaud (1938), Georg Elser (1939) and of course Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (1944). The final section of the book provides a listing of these events.