Overview
Despite the mighty invasion force the Americans and British mustered in England in early 1944, a top Allied general warned: If the Germans have even a 48-hour advance notice of the time and place of the Normandy landings, we could suffer a monstrous catastrophe! For his part, Adolf Hitler planned to inflict such a massive bloodbath on the invaders that the Allies would agree to a negotiated peace with Nazi Germany. Hoodwinking Hitler is an action-packed, you-are-there account about a colossal and incredibly intricate deception scheme created and implemented by ingenious and diabolical minds, machinations intended to bamboozle the Germans on true Allied invasion plans. Facets of the global chicanery included electronic spoofing, double agents, diplomatic deceit, whispering campaigns, femmes fatales, camouflage, strategic feints, the French underground, murder plots, phony military installations, misleading bombing raids, sabotage, propaganda, traps, fake codes, and kidnap schemes. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies gained total surprise, mostly because of what Winston Churchill called the greatest hoax in history. But not until two months later, when the Allies broke out of Normandy, did the deception scheme pass into history. By that time, ultimate Allied victory in Europe was assured.
Full Product Details
Author: William B. Breuer
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Imprint: Praeger Publishers Inc
Dimensions:
Width: 15.60cm
, Height: 2.80cm
, Length: 23.50cm
Weight: 0.567kg
ISBN: 9780275944384
ISBN 10: 0275944387
Pages: 298
Publication Date: 24 March 1993
Recommended Age: From 7 to 17 years
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Undergraduate
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
In this account of the deception about the timing and locale of the June 1944 Normandy invasion of Europe, there is plotting galore interwined with agents, double agents, code-breakers, intelligence, counterintelligence, camouflage, and diplomacy . . . . Each plan is treated in depth in meticulous style right into the assault waves on Normandy. This is for libraries with a World War II clientele. -Library Journal For larger military collections, it's a solid addition. -Booklist Breuer brings together the elements of deception in a compelling way, revealing more fully than individual narratives have done just how brilliant the Allied deception actually was. (Military Book Club Dual Selection for May.) -Kirkus Breuer has written the most complete account on the Normandy deception. Hoodwinking Hitler is a major contribution to the historiography of World War II and mandatory reading for anyone desiring to learn more about the largest and most successful amphibious operation in history. -Military Review ?For larger military collections, it's a solid addition.?-Booklist ?Breuer brings together the elements of deception in a compelling way, revealing more fully than individual narratives have done just how brilliant the Allied deception actually was. (Military Book Club Dual Selection for May.)?-Kirkus ?In this account of the deception about the timing and locale of the June 1944 Normandy invasion of Europe, there is plotting galore interwined with agents, double agents, code-breakers, intelligence, counterintelligence, camouflage, and diplomacy . . . . Each plan is treated in depth in meticulous style right into the assault waves on Normandy. This is for libraries with a World War II clientele.?-Library Journal ?Breuer has written the most complete account on the Normandy deception. Hoodwinking Hitler is a major contribution to the historiography of World War II and mandatory reading for anyone desiring to learn more about the largest and most successful amphibious operation in history.?-Military Review
?In this account of the deception about the timing and locale of the June 1944 Normandy invasion of Europe, there is plotting galore interwined with agents, double agents, code-breakers, intelligence, counterintelligence, camouflage, and diplomacy . . . . Each plan is treated in depth in meticulous style right into the assault waves on Normandy. This is for libraries with a World War II clientele.?-Library Journal
In this account of the deception about the timing and locale of the June 1944 Normandy invasion of Europe, there is plotting galore interwined with agents, double agents, code-breakers, intelligence, counterintelligence, camouflage, and diplomacy . . . . Each plan is treated in depth in meticulous style right into the assault waves on Normandy. This is for libraries with a World War II clientele. -Library Journal For larger military collections, it's a solid addition. -Booklist Breuer brings together the elements of deception in a compelling way, revealing more fully than individual narratives have done just how brilliant the Allied deception actually was. (Military Book Club Dual Selection for May.) -Kirkus Breuer has written the most complete account on the Normandy deception. Hoodwinking Hitler is a major contribution to the historiography of World War II and mandatory reading for anyone desiring to learn more about the largest and most successful amphibious operation in history. -Military Review ?For larger military collections, it's a solid addition.?-Booklist ?Breuer brings together the elements of deception in a compelling way, revealing more fully than individual narratives have done just how brilliant the Allied deception actually was. (Military Book Club Dual Selection for May.)?-Kirkus ?Breuer has written the most complete account on the Normandy deception. Hoodwinking Hitler is a major contribution to the historiography of World War II and mandatory reading for anyone desiring to learn more about the largest and most successful amphibious operation in history.?-Military Review ?In this account of the deception about the timing and locale of the June 1944 Normandy invasion of Europe, there is plotting galore interwined with agents, double agents, code-breakers, intelligence, counterintelligence, camouflage, and diplomacy . . . . Each plan is treated in depth in meticulous style right into the assault waves on Normandy. This is for libraries with a World War II clientele.?-Library Journal
In this account of the deception about the timing and locale of the June 1944 Normandy invasion of Europe, there is plotting galore interwined with agents, double agents, code-breakers, intelligence, counterintelligence, camouflage, and diplomacy . . . . Each plan is treated in depth in meticulous style right into the assault waves on Normandy. This is for libraries with a World War II clientele. -Library Journal For larger military collections, it's a solid addition. -Booklist Breuer brings together the elements of deception in a compelling way, revealing more fully than individual narratives have done just how brilliant the Allied deception actually was. (Military Book Club Dual Selection for May.) -Kirkus Breuer has written the most complete account on the Normandy deception. Hoodwinking Hitler is a major contribution to the historiography of World War II and mandatory reading for anyone desiring to learn more about the largest and most successful amphibious operation in history. -Military Review ?Breuer brings together the elements of deception in a compelling way, revealing more fully than individual narratives have done just how brilliant the Allied deception actually was. (Military Book Club Dual Selection for May.)?-Kirkus ?In this account of the deception about the timing and locale of the June 1944 Normandy invasion of Europe, there is plotting galore interwined with agents, double agents, code-breakers, intelligence, counterintelligence, camouflage, and diplomacy . . . . Each plan is treated in depth in meticulous style right into the assault waves on Normandy. This is for libraries with a World War II clientele.?-Library Journal ?For larger military collections, it's a solid addition.?-Booklist ?Breuer has written the most complete account on the Normandy deception. Hoodwinking Hitler is a major contribution to the historiography of World War II and mandatory reading for anyone desiring to learn more about the largest and most successful amphibious operation in history.?-Military Review
Exciting if journalistic description by Breuer (Geronimo!, Hitler's Undercover War, Sea Wolf - all 1989, etc.) of the vast superstructure of deception erected by the Allies to mislead Hitler about the focus of the D-Day invasion. Churchill called the deception, which succeeded in keeping huge German forces immobilized in Scandinavia and the Balkans, the greatest hoax in history : As late as eight weeks after the Normandy invasion, the German Fifteenth Army was still waiting for a nonexistent attack in the Pas de Calais area from a nonexistent army of 1.5 million men under Patton's command. Meanwhile, an enormous force of more than 5,000 ships, 700 warships, and 150,000 men had been able to approach the Normandy beaches unobserved. No German leader expected the attack on the date it occurred, and Allied D-Day casualties, which had been expected to number more than 60,000, were in fact fewer than 12,000. Much of Breuer's material is familiar, including his discussion of the huge advantage given to the Allies by the breaking of the German codes, and of the control by British Intelligence of every German spy in Britain. But though the author relies almost entirely on previously published information, some of it is less familiar - for example, the covert buying of long-dormat Norwegian stocks and bonds in European financial centers, in order to suggest that Norway would be one focus of the Allied attack; and the extraordinarily thorough means by which, in the final days before D-Day, Britain closed itself down to prevent any last-minute leakage of information, a process that included opening diplomatic pouches and forbidding foreign diplomats to leave England. While Breuer can hardly pass a cliche without picking it up (diplomats are striped-pants bureaucrats and glamorous femme fatales like to snuggle up to British agents), he brings together the elements of deception in a compelling way, revealing more fully than individual narratives have done just how brilliant the Allied deception actually was. (Kirkus Reviews)
Author Information
WILLIAM B. BREUER landed with the first assault waves in Normandy on D-Day, then fought across Europe. Later, he founded a daily newspaper on a string in Rolla, Missouri, and after that, a highly successful public relations firm in St. Louis, Missouri. He has been writing books full time since 1982, twelve of which are now out in paperback, and eight of which have become main selections of the Military Book Club.
