Heroes or Traitors: The German Replacement Army, the July Plot, and Adolf Hitler

by Walter S. Dunn Jr.

Book Overview

When a German victory became impossible, the July 1944 conspirators plotted to bring a quick end to the war, hoping to negotiate a peace with the Western allies and possibly to join them in a war against Russia. Because the Allies would not negotiate with Hitler, the plotters planned to assassinate him and seize control of the government, using the Replacement Army to overcome the S.S. and the Nazi Party.

This army would also maintain order...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0275977153
• ISBN13: 9780275977153
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Praeger
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Dry reading, controversial thesis, not a history of the July plot

A typical Dunn book, written in execrable English but a gold-mine of information.IT IS NOT A HISTORY OF THE JULY PLOT, as some reviewers seem to have thought when they bought the book. Dunn's hypothesis -that the group of conspirators around the command of the replacement army used the "Walküre" planning to hoard military manpower in Germany for eventual use in the coup attempt and therefore, unwittingly or not, assisted considerably in the Allied victories of 1944 by cutting the fairly steady flow of new and reconstituted divisions to the German fronts- is very controversial and in all honesty I do not know enough (except that it was tense) about the manpower situation of the Reich in 1944. It is true, however, that German divisions in both France and the Russian Central Front that had not been heavily engaged in the winter-early spring 43-44 had full personnel complements and their reinforcement according to German practice could only be effected by creating further divisions. Dunn tries to be persuasive about his point, but further study on this topic is required. Recommended reading for anyone with interest in Second World War strategy and German Army organizational issues.

A source of hard to find information

Although this book has some weak points, like the repetitions of the author's arguments and the dry writing style in some cases, it has also some great merits for the military history buffs. Mr Dunn may be not the gifted storyteller but he has done a lot of research on his subject and he can speak by numbers which I think is very impressive and useful for the real student of World War II. The book is full of statistics and details about the Replacement Army, its units and how these were withheld from the battlefronts in the crucial period of spring 1944. I think though that the real gems of the book are the analytical accounts of how the German Army was defeated in Normandy and Belorussia due to lack of reserves. Overall, this is not the book to pass your time nor an easy read, but very useful as a reference source.