The Pogrom is shown to mark a crucial stage in the destruction of European Jewry, for it gave renewed impetus to anti-semitic policies in Italy, Eastern Europe and the Balkans. The tragedy of our time is analysed soberly but not without deep compassion as a factor indispensable to our understanding of modern European history.

Using many unpublished and unique documents, Lionel Kochan here gives the first objective and factual account of the three tense days that preceded the pogrom and of the pogrom itself. He shows how it originated in dissension amongst the Nazi leaders; describes what actually happened to the Jews; and discusses the impact of the pogrom on Nazi Germany's foreign relations, especially on Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. He also reveals details of an abortive attempt by leading Jews to persuade the British Government to intervene in Berlin.

On 7 November 1938 a grief-crazed Jewish youth in Paris shot a German diplomatist, Ernst Von Rath. Two days later Vom Rath died. The German reprisal took the form of a mass attack on Jews in Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland.

First published 1957 by ANDRE DEUTSCH LIMITED
© LIONEL KOCHAN 1957
Badger Book Edition 1959

This book's immediate interest to English readers lies in its account of the extraordinary events which took place in the German High Command while the German forces were being overwhelmed in Normandy. Of this we have previously had no full account. The strange thing is that Allied Headquarters had no idea at all what was going on, and probably would not have believed it had they known. Never were the happenings on "the other side of the hill" so totally unexpected. Not until after the war did we get any idea what a strange drama was being played out against the tremendous backcloth of the fighting around Caen and the closing of the Falaise gap.

The confusion in the German staffs was due to the famous attempt on Hitler's life in July, 1944. This was the culmination of a long conspiracy, largely hatched among the senior regular officers, from Field-Marshals to Colonels and Majors. The failure of the attempt is well known. What is less known is the success of the action in Paris, where the SS men and Hitler's ambassador were all neatly arrested before it was known that Hitler had survived. The news faced the successful conspirators with a difficult choice - to go on or to be hanged.

First published in English in 1956 by George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London
Badger Book Edition 1959
The German Original (Der 20 Juli in Paris) was published by Kindler & Schiermayer Verlag in 1953