The true story of the Gestapo - the Nazis' secret police force and the most feared instrument of political terror in the Third Reich.

Name as a 2016 Book of the Year by the Spectator A Daily Telegraph 'Book of the Week' (August 2015) Longlisted for 2016 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize Ranked in 100 Best Books of 2015 in the Daily Telegraph Professor 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 Drawing on a detailed examination of previously unpublished Gestapo case files this book relates the fascinating, vivid and disturbing accounts of a cross-section of ordinary and extraordinary people who opposed the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.

From its creation in 1933 until Hitler's death in May 1945, anyone living in Nazi-controlled territory lived in fear of a visit from the Gestapo, the secret state police. This is a lively and expert account of this notorious but little-understood secret police that terrorized hundreds of thousands of people across Europe.

The word 'Gestapo' has become synonymous with the terrible brutality and terror of the Nazi regime in World War II. The Gestapo came into existence in 1933 as Department 1A of the Prussian State Police. Under the SS, the Gestapo grew in power, and was given the job of investigating and combatting 'all tendencies dangerous to the state'. Schutzhaft (protective custody) gave the Gestapo the power to imprison without judicial proceedings, often in concentration camps. It was also responsible for destroying opposition to Hitler. By early 1942, as the Nazi regime became increasingly unpopular in Germany, a number of protests took place. The Gestapo's response was brutal. Thousands were arrested and executed, and all dissent was crushed. The History of the Gestapo provides an authoritative overview of this sinister instrument of repression. Never before had an organisation attained such complexity, been vested with such power, or reached such a pitch of 'perfection' in efficiency and horror.

Lucie Aubrac (1912-2007), born Bernard into a Catholic family of winegrowers, was teaching history in a Lyon high school and newly married to Raymond Samuel, a Jewish engineer, when World War II broke out and divided France. The couple, living in the Vichy zone, soon joined the Resistance movement in opposition to the Nazis and their collaborators. Outwitting the Gestapo is Lucie’s harrowing account of her participation in the Resistance: of the months when, though pregnant, she planned and took part in raids to free comrades — including her husband, under Nazi death sentence — from the prisons of Klaus Barbie, the infamous Butcher of Lyon. Her book is also the basis for the 1997 French movie, Lucie Aubrac, which was released in the United States in 1999. The translator, Konrad Bieber, is an emeritus professor of French and comparative literature at SUNY, Stony Brook, and a survivor of Nazi Terror. The introducer is Margaret Collins Weitz, professor of humanities and languages at Suffolk University in Boston. “A breathtaking account that feeds the soul as much as it satisfies the appetite for vicarious danger.” — Kirkus Reviews “Lively and absorbing... [Aubrac's] book interweaves the everyday experience of incredibly hard times... with Resistance activities.” — London Review of Books “There is a relish for the idiosyncratic ramifications of human character that reveal themselves in crisis... As the record of a female résistante’s exploits, Aubrac’s account is doubly valuable. [There is] a compelling sense of immediacy as events unfold.” —Washington Post Book World “An excellent historical introduction on the Resistance movement... and an appropriately taut translation... enhance the impact of this stirring tale of heroism, which concerns not only Resistance members but ordinary citizens, notably women.” — Publishers Weekly “This book is riveting. Adventure, terror, horror, and excitement are all here; it is a feminist class as well... full of interesting information about wartime food, clothes, schooling and manners. It is also a sturdy tale of married love, sustained and requited. The translation is so good that it reads as if it had been written in English.” — Times Literary Supplement “In Ils partiront dans l'ivresse, we find the whole Lucie Aubrac with her candor, spontaneity and narrative art... But these are not the only qualities of the book: it exudes a spirit of solidarity among all résistants... and a great respect for the humble people who at one time or another assisted the Resistance without belonging to it. All in all, an extraordinary testimony by an extraordinary woman.” — Claude Lévy, Vingtième Siècle, revue d'histoire

Johnson's exhaustive new history tackles terror, the central aspect of the Nazi dictatorship, focusing on the role of the society in making this tactic work, and delving deeply into the how and why of this horrendous regime. Illustrations.

The Grim story of the most vicious Terror Agency of all time-Its sinister Power and Barbaric acts, and the twisted men who led it-Hitler, Himmler, and Eichmann. This is the brutal expose of the rotten core of Nazi Germany. Here is revealed the true story of Hitler's terror police, the in-famous Gestapo-the madmen who headed it, the sadists who staffed it, the degenerate party that spawned it.

A compelling firsthand account of life behind bars in Nazi Germany, from the point of view of a young member of the Polish Underground. On the eve of World War II, Krystyna Wituska, a carefree teenager attending finishing school in Switzerland, returned to Poland. During the occupation, when she was twenty years old, she drifted into the Polish Underground. By her own admission, she was attracted first by the adventure, but her youthful bravado soon turned into a mental and spiritual mastery over fear. Because Krystyna spoke fluent German, she was assigned to collect information on German troop movements at Warsaw's airport. In 1942, at age twenty-one, she was arrested by the Gestapo and transferred to prison in Berlin, where she was executed two years later. Eighty of the letters that Krystyna wrote in the last eighteen months of her life are translated and collected in this volume. The letters, together with an introduction providing historical background to Krystyna's arrest, constitute a little-known and authentic record of the treatment of ethnic Poles under German occupation, the experience of Polish prisoners in German custody, and a glimpse into the prisons of Berlin. Krystyna's letters also reflect her own courage, idealism, faith, and sense of humor. As a classroom text, this book relates nicely to contemporary discussions of racism, nationalism, patriotism, human rights, and stereotypes.

Of the full-length prose works that Thomas Merton wrote before he entered the Cistercian Order in 1941, only My Argument with the Gestapo has survived--perhaps in part because it was a book that Merton never ceased wanting to see in print.