Summary of Howard Blum 's Night of the Assassins

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

#1 The spy was a professional watcher, and he was in the passenger terminal of Portela Airport outside Lisbon waiting to make a phone call that would be a death warrant. The call would be a death warrant for thousands of people.

#2 The spy had been at the airport for days, waiting for the Distinguished Personage to arrive. He had seen the young boy and his mother exit the plane, and he knew that no one gives up a seat on the plane to England.

#3 The German embassy in Lisbon was the headquarters of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence organization. Karsthoff was the station chief, and he lived his cover by being fun-loving and eccentric. He only had minutes to decide whether to warn Churchill about the Ibis’s flight plan.

#4 The Wehrmacht, with its typical Germanic exactitude, was an armed forces fortified by its allegiance to rules and procedures. Karsthoff made a decision that defied these regulations. He made flash priority contact with the flying leader of fighter wing KG 40 at Mérignac, and the klaxon sounded.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669384083

IRB Media

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Insights on Howard Blum's Night of the Assassins

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The spy was a professional watcher, and he was in the passenger terminal of Portela Airport outside Lisbon waiting to make a phone call that would be a death warrant. The call would be a death warrant for thousands of people.

#2

The spy had been at the airport for days, waiting for the Distinguished Personage to arrive. He had seen the young boy and his mother exit the plane, and he knew that no one gives up a seat on the plane to England.

#3

The German embassy in Lisbon was the headquarters of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence organization. Karsthoff was the station chief, and he lived his cover by being fun-loving and eccentric. He only had minutes to decide whether to warn Churchill about the Ibis’s flight plan.

#4

The Wehrmacht, with its typical Germanic exactitude, was an armed forces fortified by its allegiance to rules and procedures. Karsthoff made a decision that defied these regulations. He made flash priority contact with the flying leader of fighter wing KG 40 at Mérignac, and the klaxon sounded.

#5

The Allies were a triumvirate: the British actor Leslie Howard had been cast as Detective Walter Thompson, the prime minister’s bodyguard, by the impulsive Abwehr agent. The two doppelgängers were two last-minute arrivals boarding the flight to Whitchurch.

#6

The plan was to come at FDR from the sea. The daring scheme was hatched by Section 6 of the Reich Security Head Office, and it would have been a follow-up to Operation Pastorius. But the spymasters were never able to pull it off.

#7

By 1943, the German leadership had come to the conclusion that victory on the battlefield was impossible. They would keep the war going until an acceptable peace could be negotiated.

#8

The string of unsuccessful assassination attempts was no longer just a poorly planned operation. It was now clear that these had been do-or-die missions. The significance of the missions had been historic, and there would be no negotiated peace.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The 1936 presidential campaign had the feel of a victory march. From Jim Farley, the president’s canny campaign manager, to John Mays, the White House butler who had been catering to the whims of Great Men since the days of McKinley, there was a solid confidence that the election would be a formality.

#2

The president’s disability was a secret that was kept