Hermann Ehrhardt: The Man Hitler Wasn't

by John Koster

Too many books have been written about Adolf Hitler. No American book in English has ever been written about Hermann Ehrhardt, the man Hitler wasn’t. Korvettenkapitän Hermann Ehrhardt destroyed the Bolshevik attempts to seize control of the port cities of Germany, of the capital at Berlin, and of the Bavarian capital at Munich, while Hitler did nothing but rant and rave against Communists and Jews. Ehrhardt actually rescued Jews and had Jewish soldiers serving with his unit. Ehrhardt was a hard-core anti-Bolshevik and a lethal terrorist. He was also a hard-core anti-Nazi who despised Adolf Hitler. He attempted to block Hitler’s accession to power. He was sentenced to death by Hitler and narrowly escaped. He was tangentially involved in four plots to overthrow or assassinate Hitler for 20 years. He described Hitler as “absolutely unacceptable,” “a psychopath,” and “an idiot.” The fact that the bomb that almost killed Hitler on July 20, 1944 detonated on the birthday of Hermann Ehrhardt’s wife is almost certainly a sheer coincidence. Yet Ehrhardt attached great importance to birthdays...

380 pages, Paperback

Published November 19, 2018

About the author

John Koster is the co-author of The Road To Wounded Knee, a best-seller which won the N.J. Sigma Delta Chi Award for Distinguished Public Service in 1974, and of Custer Survivor, which inspired a two-hour documentary on The History Channel. A volunteer Viet Nam-era veteran injured in training with U.S. Army Airborne in 1967, Koster writes regularly for Wild West, Military History, and American History. He has written for American Heritage and National Geographic. He is fluent and literate in French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and rudimentary Lakota, the language of the Sioux. All five of his grandchildren are either part Cherokee or part Sioux.