Too Long, but Worth Listening to Half

I've heard rumors for years that Adolf Hitler escaped to South America at the end of WWII. If it was true, Grey Wolf notwithstanding, then the rest of the world must have ignored it; the same thing that I should have done with part one of the book. The author gives much more detail than is necessary for most people regarding the alleged escape of Hitler from Europe during the waning days of the War. Anyone interested in this story, unless you're a Nazi or a historian, I would strongly urge that you skip part one and go directly to part two.
You will not miss anything important, since the story of Hitler's escape really does not start until part two. Part one basically talks about the fortunes of war turning for the Third Reich and how a few of Hitler's close aids started thinking about an escape. The irony here is that Hitler was maniacal about every soldier fighting until the bitter end, while he was looking for ways to escape the carnage he created as early as 1943.

For a subject that is at best, esoteric and at worst, a fabrication, the authors Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams does give it plausibility. That said, it is worth listening to, but cue the story at the second half mark.

4 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Excellent counterfactual historical tale

What made the experience of listening to Grey Wolf the most enjoyable?

I was absolutely fascinated by the counterfactual telling in this story. The key details are well researched and many are provable, the theories linking these are plausible, and the tale itself is spellbinding.

The author, who is a respected journo that I am aware of, clearly believes that Hitler did survive and the allies allowed it to occur.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Grey Wolf?

The life after arrival in Argentina fits with much of what I personally experienced and heard when living in that part of the world. Secrets and whispers and closed German communities and many other tales.

2 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Without more backup, this story is fiction

Dunstan and Williams have approached an intriguing idea in a most unintriguing way. Did Hitler escape to Argentina in 1945 with the help of Martin Bormann? He could have. But there are too many holes in the Dunstan and Williams narrative to make an enlightened case. Specifically, they spend half the book dwelling on WWII history, which is time they could have spent proving their case. There is precious solid evidence here. If Hitler died in Argentina, where's the body for DNA testing? If he had daughters, where are they or their bodies for DNA testing? Ditto Eva Braun. And then there's the fact that the body of Martin Bormann, Hitler's major domo who was supposedly tooling around South America for years after the war, was actually unearthed years after WWII in Berlin, right around the spot a witness saw him die in May 1945. Dunstan and Williams never address that fact. One can only assume that they avoided it because they didn't have a good response. Relegate this one to fiction. It's too sloppy to be a credible work of scholarship.

12 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

READ WITH AN OPEN MIND

The fate of Adolf Hitler has never been seriously challenged- many historians will easily rattle off details about the Fuhrerbunker, the wedding, and the suicide. But what if that account was entirely fabricated? What if the three or four people who originally told that story were lying? They were, after all, loyal subjects of Hitler, so it’s not at all unreasonable to think they might have created a story to protect their beloved Fuhrer. Or, perhaps, they didn’t even know that it WAS a fictional story. GREY WOLF examines these possibilities in exacting detail and uses hard evidence to support the claim that everything we’ve learned about the final days of the Third Reich- and it’s leader- is false. You be the judge.

Definitely worth the read, especially when done so with an open mind.

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

awesome book and what great listen

great summer time listen for any history buff. was hard to stop but had to at times.

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Very interesting theory

I really enjoyed this book. it's clear that quite a bit of research was done. I know many people will refuse to accept this theory as a possibility, but those that do should review the accepted theory of Hitler's death with the same critical eye.

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Meandering, pointless but well-researched

What would have made Grey Wolf better?

The story needs more focus. It flails from one subject to another and never really reaches a conclusion.

Has Grey Wolf turned you off from other books in this genre?

No

3 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Intriguing and Utterly Engrossing!

I found this audio intriguing and utterly engrossing. It is not hard to believe that Hitler escaped to Argentina, and the historical back up shows how this may well have happened. It is a well-presented case in a book that is seriously researched and very well written.

15 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

A Very Bizarre Little Audiobook

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

After listening to this book twice, I'm really confused. It's as if the authors spent a while writing a wide-ranging, but unoriginal reiteration of established WWII history, then realized how unremarkable (and unmarketable) their work was. Then, they decide to tack on this far-fetched Hitler survival tale. I'm not saying that this audiobook isn't entertaining. If you suspend all of your critical instincts, it makes a nice, light WWII pastiche. (Not quite history, not totally fiction.) But, this shouldn't be confused with a good WW II history book. (Wm. L. Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is the mac-daddy of this genre...and really cheap on Audible.com.) Or, you can find an abundance of WW II fiction. But, this book doesn't really sit well in either genre. It's sort of a literary bait and switch. The outer appearances of this book and its initial passages suggest an intriguing story about Hitler surviving. But, after you buy it you find out that the vast majority of the book is a straight high school textbook-like reiteration of history, followed by a relatively bizarre goulash of stitched-together historical events, unsubstantiated reports, and conjectural sections. These conjectural sections are identified by the authors, in terms of where they start and stop. Its these sections that really make the book strange. Here's an example of the goulash:

- Start with a long, meandering preface (in the early part of the book) of general, reiterated WW II history.

- Switch to unsubstantiated "historical" reports about the preparations, actions, and results of Hitler's and Eva Braun's escape from Germany to Argentina.

- Insert one of these conjectural sections for titillation and color. One of the weirdest was one about the Hitler couple's visit to some German controlled Argentine resort, where they had monogrammed "AH" towels, etc.

I think you get the idea. Don't buy this book, if you want real history. Don't buy it, if you want good fiction. This book is the province of conspiracy thinkers and the semi-educated.

What could Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

They could have been less wishy washy. Decide what you want to write. Write history, write fiction, or write historical fiction. This book is none of the above.

What does Don Hagen bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The narration was excellent.

Do you think Grey Wolf needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No, the first one was bad enough.

Any additional comments?

Buy it if you have throw away credits and throw away time to listen to it.

6 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

enjoyed this perspective

Good book, very technical though a lot of statistics and information which I enjoyed but sometimes was hard to follow.