The Gestapo: The Myth and Reality of Hitler’s Secret Police

A Daily Telegraph ‘Book of the Week’ (August 2015)Longlisted for 2016 PEN Hessell-Tiltman PrizeRanked in 100 Best Books of 2015 in the Daily TelegraphProfessor Frank McDonough is one of the leading scholars and most popular writers on the history of Nazi Germany. Frank McDonough’s work has been described as, ‘modern history writing at its very best…Ground-breaking, fascinating, occasionally deeply revisionist’ by renowned historian Andrew Roberts. Drawing on a detailed examination of previously unpublished Gestapo case files this book relates the fascinating, vivid and disturbing accounts of a cross-section of ordinary and extraordinary people who opposed the Nazi regime. It also tells the equally disturbing stories of their friends, neighbours, colleagues and even relatives who were often drawn into the Gestapo’s web of intrigue. The book reveals, too, the cold-blooded and efficient methods of the Gestapo officers. This book will also show that the Gestapo lacked the manpower and resources to spy on everyone as it was reliant on tip offs from the general public. Yet this did not mean the Gestapo was a weak or inefficient instrument of Nazi terror. On the contrary, it ruthlessly and efficiently targeted its officers against clearly defined political and racial ‘enemies of the people’. The Gestapo will provide a chilling new doorway into the everyday life of the Third Reich and give powerful testimony from the victims of Nazi terror and poignant life stories of those who opposed Hitler’s regime while challenging popular myths about the Gestapo.