Beck and Stauffenberg: An exercise in self-publishing

Beck and Stauffenberg: An exercise in self-publishing

I’ve been investigating self-publishing for a while now because of my desire to publish some tech books/manuals as part of my real life (programming Android and Appcelerator Titanium Mobile SDK, in case you’re interested!)

To get started quickly with the Kindle Direct Publishing platform, I resurrected an old undergraduate essay of mine which touched on an aspect one of my favorite topics: the German resistance, in this case the military resistance. Specifically, the 15-page essay (Amazon US, CA, UK, DE) concerns General Ludwig Beck and Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.

From Beck’s fastidious professionalism to Stauffenberg’s aristocratic romanticism, the essay explores their rejection of the Hitler Oath and describes the thought processes they undertook to rationalize their eventual commitment to tyrannicide. Needless to say, it was no simple path to disloyalty for two officers who first welcomed many aspects of the National Socialist regime, particularly its commitment to a professional military.

The essay might be particularly interesting and useful to current students who are exploring similar issues or looking for topics. Just keep in mind: it’s an undergraduate essay and therefore by no means expert opinion on the subject. Read it critically and, of course, avoid plagiarism.

Choosing Disloyalty: Ludwig Beck and Claus von Stauffenberg

By Bill Dawson

Available for your Kindle device or Kindle Reader app at…

Amazon US, CA, UK, DE and at other Amazon country sites as well.